Quantcast
Channel: Tom Siegfried, Author at Science News
Browsing all 72 articles
Browse latest View live

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Sean Carroll’s new book argues quantum physics leads to many worlds

Something Deeply HiddenSean CarrollDutton, $29 Quantum physics is about multiplicity. Its equations describe multiple possible outcomes for a measurement in the subatomic realm. Physicists have...

View Article



A will to survive might take AI to the next level

Fiction is full of robots with feelings. Like that emotional kid David, played by Haley Joel Osment, in the movie A.I. Or WALL•E, who obviously had feelings for EVE-uh. The robot in Lost in Space...

View Article

Top 10 science anniversaries in 2020

2020, the International Year of Good Vision, is also a good year for scientific anniversaries. As usual, there are the birthday anniversaries, offering an opportunity to recognize some of the great...

View Article

How a quantum technique highlights math’s mysterious link to physics

It has long been a mystery why pure math can reveal so much about the nature of the physical world. Antimatter was discovered in Paul Dirac’s equations before being detected in cosmic rays. Quarks...

View Article

Einstein’s letters illuminate a mind grappling with quantum mechanics

Back in the days before the internet — with no e-mail, no texting, no Twitter — people wrote letters. Even famous people, like Einstein. And famous people’s letters were most likely to have been saved...

View Article


Stephen Wolfram’s hypergraph project aims for a fundamental theory of physics

Thanks to Kevin Bacon, everybody nowadays knows about networks. There are not only Bacon-like networks of actors, linked by appearing in the same film, but also social networks, neural networks and...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

A century ago, astronomy’s Great Debate foreshadowed today’s view of the...

Counting universes ought to be easy. By definition, you can stop at 1. Trouble is, definitions change. A century ago, the “universe” was defined as the Milky Way galaxy. Heretics who disagreed had...

View Article

Scientists sometimes conceal a lack of knowledge with vague words

You can’t kill a virus, common wisdom contends, because viruses aren’t alive to begin with. Yet some viruses sure act like they’re alive. And in fact, you can find biologists and philosophers who will...

View Article


Self-destructive civilizations may doom our search for alien intelligence

On Earth, civilizations have limited lifetimes. Roman civilization, for instance, lasted less than a thousand years from the founding of its republic to the fall of its empire (after a long decline)....

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

How understanding nature made the atomic bomb inevitable

Atomic bombs hastened the end of World War II. But they launched another kind of war, a cold one, that threatened the entire planet with nuclear annihilation. So it’s understandable that on the 75th...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

A new Galileo biography draws parallels to today’s science denialism

Galileo and the Science DeniersMario LivioSimon & Schuster, $28 In basketball, legends are often known by first name alone: LeBron, Kobe, Michael. Same with entertainers: Madonna, Cher, Beyoncé....

View Article

Hope for life on Venus survives for centuries against all odds

If you’re looking for an exemplar of mastering multiple identities, find a telescope and point it at Venus. In both astronomy and popular culture, Venus has always assumed a diversity of guises....

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

These are science’s Top 10 erroneous results

To err is human, which is really not a very good excuse. And to err as a scientist is worse, of course, because depending on science is supposed to be the best way for people to make sure they’re...

View Article


Top 10 questions I’d ask an alien from the Galactic Federation

Any science journalist would rejoice at the revelation of aliens on Earth. It would be the story of a lifetime. So it’s not surprising that a former Israeli space official’s claim that a Galactic...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

‘The Light Ages’ illuminates the science of the so-called Dark Ages

The Light AgesSeb FalkW.W. Norton & Co., $30 A long-standing myth about medieval history is that the Middle Ages were intellectually dark. Science supposedly took a hiatus between the demise of...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

‘Fundamentals’ shows how reality is built from a few basic ingredients

FundamentalsFrank WilczekPenguin Press, $26 As the story is usually told, science began when some deep thinkers in ancient Greece decided to reject the popular mythological explanations for various...

View Article

Top 10 science anniversaries to celebrate in 2021

Centuries from now, 2021 will be celebrated as an anniversary year most noted for getting rid of 2020. It will be less remembered as a year featuring a diverse roster of scientific anniversaries,...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The dark matter mystery deepens with the demise of a reported detection

First of two parts. Read part two. In mystery stories, the chief suspect almost always gets exonerated before the end of the book. Typically because a key piece of evidence turned out to be wrong. In...

View Article

Physicists’ devotion to symmetry has led them astray before

Second of two parts Physicists have a lot in common with Ponce de León and U2’s Bono. After decades of searching, they aren’t getting any younger. And they still haven’t found what they’re looking...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

We’ve covered science for 100 years. Here’s how it has — and hasn’t — changed

A century ago, people needed help to understand science. Much as they do today. Then as now, it wasn’t always easy to sort the accurate from the erroneous. Mainstream media, then as now, regarded...

View Article
Browsing all 72 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images