On December 17, 1962, Life International published a logic puzzle consisting of 15 sentences describing five houses on a street. Each sentence was a clue, such as “The Englishman lives in the red house” or […]
On December 17, 1962, Life International published a logic puzzle consisting of 15 sentences describing five houses on a street. Each sentence was a clue, such as “The Englishman lives in the red house” or […]
Most of life’s engines run on sunlight. Photons filter down through the atmosphere and are eagerly absorbed by light-powered organisms such as plants and algae. Through photosynthesis, the particles of light power a cellular reaction […]
Is the universe infinite, Aristotle asked in 350 BCE, “or is this an impossibility? The decision … is … all-important to our search for the truth.” The Greek philosopher opined that “the heavens” (meaning the […]
Computer scientists often deal with abstract problems that are hard to comprehend, but an exciting new algorithm matters to anyone who owns books and at least one shelf. The algorithm addresses something called the library […]
Calculus is a powerful mathematical tool. But for hundreds of years after its invention in the 17th century, it stood on a shaky foundation. Its core concepts were rooted in intuition and informal arguments, rather […]
Imagine you’re on a first date, sipping a martini at a bar. You eat an olive and patiently listen to your date tell you about his job at a bank. Your brain is processing this […]
Sunlight melts snowflakes. Fire turns logs into soot and smoke. A hot oven will make a magnet lose its pull. Physicists know from countless examples that if you crank the temperature high enough, structures and […]
In May of 1694, in a lecture hall at the University of Cambridge, Isaac Newton and the astronomer David Gregory started to contemplate the nature of the stars, only to end up with a math […]
Learning a language can’t be that hard — every baby in the world manages to do it in a few years. Figuring out how the process works is another story. Linguists have devised elaborate theories […]
Many discoveries in physics flow from theory to experiment. Albert Einstein theorized that mass bends the fabric of space-time, and then Arthur Eddington observed the effects of this bending during a solar eclipse. Likewise, Peter […]
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