Podcast Why Trust Science? December 14, 2021 Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our political leaders don’t? Read More
Essay Happy 40th, Einstein! March 13, 2021 On March 14th, 1919 Albert Einstein celebrated his 40th birthday. Typically for him the big milestone passed off quietly. Read More
Essay Democracy counts: On sacred and debased numbers October 22, 2020 Democracy depends on numbers. This was recognized from the founding of the American republic. The US Constitution defined terms for periodic elections and for the reapportionment of representatives among the states as their populations grew. Read More
Essay A long afternoon: Opposition, enmity, and Egyptian hieroglyphs September 18, 2020 In the summer of 1828, the natural scientist and physician Thomas Young spent an afternoon with Jean-François Champollion, the scholar who, six years earlier, had announced a system for reading Egyptian hieroglyphs, considerably complicating Young’s preceding efforts to do the same thing. Read More
Interview Naomi Oreskes: Feminist science is better science July 06, 2020 American public life is rife with questions of scientific judgment. Does red meat really cause cancers and heart disease, or are such fears overblown? How can scientists tell that climate change is occurring and what the effects of global warming might be? Read More
Essay Why is Einstein still so alive? June 10, 2020 In the title of his keynote address at a conference to investigate Einstein’s impact on science, culture, and the public-political discourse at the dawn of the twenty-first century, Gerald Holton, a pioneer of Einstein scholarship in the historical and philosophical context, asked why Einstein is still so alive. Read More
Interview Hanoch Gutfreund and Jürgen Renn on Einstein on Einstein May 18, 2020 At the end of World War II, Albert Einstein was invited to write his intellectual autobiography for the Library of Living Philosophers. The resulting book was his uniquely personal Autobiographical Notes, a classic work in the history of science that explains the development of his ideas with unmatched warmth and clarity. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Why Trust Science? May 15, 2020 Naomi Oreskes has offered recent commentary on why many Americans reject the facts about the coronavirus and strategies for addressing a scientific skepticism that has long existed. Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Read More
Essay Me, myself, and Einstein March 14, 2020 Jimena Canales is the author of The Physicist and the Philosopher, which tells the remarkable story of how an explosive debate between two intellectual giants transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today. This is the story of how she came to study the iconic physicist when she initially had no interest in “such a great man, or any great men.” Read More
Essay Alice Calaprice on Einstein: The man behind the myth March 14, 2020 Alice Calaprice is the editor of the hugely popular collection of Einstein quotations that has sold tens of thousands of copies worldwide and been translated into twenty-five languages. This is the story of how her knack for German and quest for full-time work in Princeton, New Jersey led her to a career she never imagined. Read More
Essay Space-Time Einstein! March 14, 2020 It is once again time to talk about time. On March 14, 1988, Larry Shaw of the San Francisco Exploratorium organized the first official “Pi Day” to celebrate mathematics (and also, for the broad minded, physics). Read More
Essay Hanoch Gutfreund on Einstein and the revelation of relativity March 12, 2020 Hanoch Gutfreund is professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is also the academic director of the Albert Einstein Archives. This is the story about how Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity revolutionized his teaching, understanding, and career. Read More
Essay Katherine Freese on how relativity rejuvenated her career March 10, 2020 Katherine Freese is director of Nordita, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Stockholm, and author of The Cosmic Cocktail, which tells of the epic quest to solve one of the most compelling enigmas of modern science—what is the universe made of? This is the story of how one of today’s foremost pioneers in the study of dark matter came back from the brink of burnout because of Relativity. Read More
Essay For the beauty of invisibility January 06, 2020 Human beings are naturally visual creatures. Our eyes, capable of counting single photons, have been optimized over evolutionary time to the very limits of the laws of physics. Read More
Interview Naomi Oreskes on Why Trust Science? November 13, 2019 Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when our own politicians don't? Read More
