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A library of interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers.
7mins
The theorist of the “creative class” explains how the economic crisis has provided an “inflection point” that will generate a new class of thinkers.
13mins
Our challenge is to improve the quality of service workers, says Richard Florida. Only then will we elevate jobs and create livelihoods for people.
7mins
From hostile physicists to commenters who think they know more about string theory than Nobel laureates, Peter Woit describes the weird world of science blogging.
3mins
Peter Woit believes that mathematicians and scientists are led astray by seeking “elegant” solutions. But there is one theorem that makes him wax poetic.
7mins
Physics is as vulnerable to fads and politics as other disciplines. Math avoids the same fate by being content to stay “completely useless.”
4mins
Peter Woit explains the “deep relation” between the two disciplines and the most mind-bending new ways in which that relation is being explored.
10mins
What is the elusive particle that scientists hope the Large Hadron Collider will shed light on? Why does it matter? And what about those black hole rumors?
11mins
The “Not Even Wrong” author explains one of physics’ most famous theories—and why it may have led thousands of scientists down a cold trail.
43mins
A conversation with the mathematical physicist at Columbia University.
3mins
Each year, 2,000,000 people obtain infections in American hospitals, 100,000 of which die. But as the surgeon and New Yorker staff writer’s work demonstrates, these infections are far from inevitable […]
8mins
You can tell a system is broken when a prominent children’s hospital devises a system that reduces local asthma cases by 87%, but then has to cancel the program due […]
3mins
If you’re a hospital patient, advises surgeon Atul Gawande, make sure a family member is always with you.
7mins
The biggest challenge in our world is not lack of knowledge, but an inherent ineptitude at utilizing a vast and unprecedented web of data. From medicine to architecture to finance, […]
4mins
The fear of massive settlement fees has forced doctors to take a number of generally excessive precautions—including unnecessary CT scans that may cause cancer down the road.
4mins
How does the dynamic change once a “friend” becomes a “patient”? Can small-talk exist with a person you’ve once cut open, or will they now awkwardly try to call you […]
4mins
St. Vincent’s Hospital, in New York City, loses $1,000,000 a day in caring for the homeless and uninsured. As the doctor and author explains, the question of treating such patients […]
6mins
Imagine the shock of being told for the first time to grab a knife and cut along a dotted line on a patient’s body. Does the fear from this initial […]
41mins
A conversation with the surgeon, Harvard professor, and New Yorker staff writer.
17mins
The mortgage market indicated that what the banks faced was a solvency problem, not just a liquidity problem, says Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith.
5mins
Nobel Prize winning economist Vernon Smith says the question is, how do you achieve just a bit without getting too much?