Category: Quantum Stuff

Scientific American June 2021 Making peace with the biosphere will require building communities and relationships that are focused on protecting life—human and nonhuman No one in her village faced food shortages during the lockdowns, nor did they suffer from COVID-19, Moligeri Chandramma assured me through an interpreter this past March. A farmer in the drylands… Continue reading These Alternative Economies Are Inspirations for a Sustainable World

In a polarized nation, victimhood is a badge of honor. It gives people strength. “The victim has become among the most important identity positions in American politics,” wrote Robert B. Horwitz, a communications professor at the University of California, San Diego. Horwitz published his study, “Politics as Victimhood, Victimhood as Politics,” in 2018.1 He focused… Continue reading Why People Feel Like Victims – Issue 99: Universality

Last year, my first in medical school at Columbia University, I used a bone saw to slice through the top half of a cadaver’s skull, revealing a gray brain lined with purple blood vessels. This was Clinical Gross Anatomy, the first-year course that has fascinated or devastated (or both) every medical student. You never forget… Continue reading You Can’t Dissect a Virtual Cadaver – Issue 99: Universality

Imagine you’re a scientist, sitting in the cold dark belly of a ship above an ocean abyss. Your eyes are fixed on a panel of screens as a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) descends miles below your feet. First the ROV travels through the productive sunlit waters, rich with fish and jellies, but as it sinks… Continue reading The Largest Cells on Earth – Issue 99: Universality

Julian Barbour’s obsession with time began on Oct. 18, 1963. The 26-year-old Cambridge graduate in mathematics was on a train to the Bavarian alps, where he and a friend planned to climb the Watzmann, Germany’s third highest peak. The newspaper in his hand contained a summary of a Scientific American article by British physicist Paul… Continue reading The Country Gentleman of Physics – Issue 100: Outsiders

It seemed inevitable that Elon Musk would eventually get into a Twitter war over whether Mars can be terraformed. When you’re on Twitter, he told Businessweek in July, 2018, you’re “in meme war land.” “And so essentially if you attack me,” he said, “it is therefore okay for me to attack back.” Musk, the CEO… Continue reading Should We Terraform Mars? Let’s Recap – Issue 100: Outsiders

In February 1918 Alan L. Hart was a talented, up-and-coming 27-year-old intern at San Francisco Hospital. Hart, who stood at 5’4″ and weighed about 120 pounds, mixed well with his colleagues at work and afterward—smoking, drinking, swearing and playing cards. His round glasses hemmed in his pensive eyes, a high white collar often flanked his… Continue reading Trailblazing Transgender Doctor Saved Countless Lives

In the late afternoon of May 5, SpaceX’s Elon Musk tweeted, “Starship landing nominal!” Musk is not known for understatement. But seeing that stainless steel behemoth soar was, for many, something more like phenomenal. Over 5 million people watched the spectacle on YouTube, perhaps many with bated breath, as every prior attempt at landing Starship… Continue reading The Profound Potential of Elon Musk’s New Rocket – Issue 100: Outsiders

If you’ve ever taken an algebra or physics class, then you’ve met a parabola, the simple curve that can model how a ball flies through the air. The most important part of a parabola is the vertex — its highest or lowest point — and there are many mathematical techniques for finding it. You can… Continue reading The Simple Math Behind the Mighty Roots of Unity

This spring, at a meeting of Syracuse University’s quark physics group, Ivan Polyakov announced that he had uncovered the fingerprints of a semi-mythical particle. “We said, ‘This is impossible. What mistake are you making?’” recalled Sheldon Stone, the group’s leader. Polyakov went away and double-checked his analysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider beauty… Continue reading ‘Impossible’ Particle Discovery Adds Key Piece to the Strong Force Puzzle