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History Of Science
More than 200 years ago, scientists tried to figure out how bats navigate in the dark (or without eyes). This set in motion a series of events that led to the development of ultrasound as a form of psychotherapy.
Once science operations begin for James Webb, we'll never look at the Universe the same way again. Here's what everyone should know.
The quadratic formula isn't just something that teachers use to torture algebra students. The Babylonians once used it to calculate taxes.
Einstein's theories of relativity faced fierce opposition. One critic claimed he was attempting to subvert the scientific method.
The first personality tests revolved around assessing people’s reactions to ambiguous and often unsettling images. Today, the gold standard is a barrage of questions.
If you want to understand what the Universe is, how it began, evolved, and will eventually end, astrophysics is the only way to go.
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James Gleick, the author of biographies of Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman, discusses what they and other geniuses have in common.
John Templeton Foundation
Developing an awareness of and an appreciation for science is what we all truly need, not what we've been doing.
Even without the greatest individual scientist of all, every one of his great scientific advances would still have occurred. Eventually.
No matter how hard we try, we will never reach a final theory that unifies scientific knowledge. The very nature of science doesn't allow it.
Both made monumental contributions that were far ahead of their time. It’s hard to believe, but the idea that the Universe was dominated not by normal matter but rather by dark […]
With 5,000 square degrees of data, the Dark Energy Survey has something important to say. For as long as humans have been studying the Universe, we’ve yearned to know the answers […]
Something isn’t adding up, but it isn’t a calibration error. It’s been nearly 100 years since we discovered that the Universe was expanding. Ever since, the scientists who study the […]
It’s how successful our current theories are. Some 500 years ago, there was one scientific phenomenon that was, without controversy, extremely well-understood: the motion of the celestial objects in the sky. […]
It’s not a gambit. It’s not fraud. It’s not an opinion. And it’s not biased like you think it is. Most of us, when we think about what science is, default […]
The act of observing doesn’t just determine a previously indeterminate state, but can destroy information, too. Imagine that you’re a scientist attempting to understand reality at a fundamental level. How […]
Despite the claims of one of Earth’s newest Nobel Laureates, the data doesn’t lie. One of the greatest scientific successes of the past century was the theory of the hot Big […]
If we waited long enough, would even protons themselves decay? There are certain things in the Universe that, if you leave them alone for long enough, they’ll eventually decay away. […]
Forgetting them, at any step, can lead to unscientific conclusions. No one, not even the smartest among us, were competent scientists from the outset. The concept of science is simple […]
The pendulum didn’t tick right when they brought it here: the start of a fascinating story. For nearly three full centuries, the most accurate way that humanity kept track of […]
Quantum physics just keeps getting weirder, even as it gets more fascinating. “Is it a wave or is it a particle?” Never has such a simple question had such a […]
When one group says “A” and another group says “B,” consider that everyone might be wrong. One of the biggest enemies of scientific truth is the setup of a false dichotomy. […]
The biggest error from ‘A Brief History of Time’ continues to misinform generations of aspiring physicists. The greatest idea of Stephen Hawking’s scientific career truly revolutionized how we think about […]
Is that required for detectors like LIGO and Virgo to work? Whenever any two things in the Universe interact at the same location in spacetime, one thing always remains true about […]
It’s 100 years since astronomy’s famous ‘great debate.’ We still haven’t learned the most compelling lesson of all. So, you’ve arrived at a crossroads: you think the world works in a […]
It should be just as sticky (or non-sticky) as normal matter. Here’s how we know. Not only here on Earth, but everywhere in the Universe that we look, we find structures […]
The dream of an ‘Earth-like’ planet showcases our astrobiological ignorance. Over the past decade, our understanding of what planets exist around stars other than our own has exploded. The number […]
For over 50 years, it’s been the scientifically accepted theory describing the origin of the Universe. It’s time we all learned its truths. The Universe we know today, filled with stars […]
Jim Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz just won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. It couldn’t be more well-deserved. Every year, the Nobel Prize reminds all of humanity to […]