Science behind the scenes
Jerry Zucker! Natalie Portman! Arthur C. Clarke! My article about the Science & Entertainment Exchange is now up at…
Writings
Freeing the dinos within
Paleontologists have long faced a daunting obstacle to their research: Fossils are usually embedded in rock. To manually wrench the…
Can an Equation be a Poem?
April is Mathematics Awareness Month. April is alsoNational Poetry Month. Coincidence? Yep, almost definitely. But it’s also an opportunity: I’d like…
Supersized Viruses
On February 22, festival-goers at Melbourne’s dusk-to-dawn White Night celebration lined up in droves outside the State Library of Victoria…
Saving endangered ‘tongues’
Ong uyan madongo? You probably don’t know how to answer that question — unless you happen to be one…
Archimedes in the Fence
According to ancient historians, Archimedes spent the last moments of his life drawing figures in the dirt, so deeply entranced…
Mathematics in Metal
A mathematical surface known as the Klein bottle is like a mischievous, mathematical cousin of the Moebius…
Burning to learn
In central California’s Yosemite National Park, it doesn’t take much to set the forest on fire. A discarded cigarette.…
Paging Dr. Data
For doctors who treat trauma patients, prediction is key: Will a patient die in the next 30 minutes? Why or…
Numbers and verse
The universe is a grand book, Galileo noted in 1623, written in the language of mathematics. Those poor souls…