Quantum mechanics is simultaneously our most powerful and weirdest scientific theory. It’s powerful because it offers exquisite control over the nanoworld of molecular, atomic, and subatomic phenomena. It’s weird because, while we have a complete mathematical formalism, we physicists have been arguing for more than a century over what that formalism means. In other words, unlike other physical theories, the mathematics of quantum mechanics has no clear interpretation. That means physicists and...
Look toward Sagittarius. Beyond lies the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ): the cold, dusty heart of our Milky Way. The CMZ contains 60 million solar masses’ worth of particles at -432 degrees Fahrenheit (-258°C). This dust is the stuff from which planets and stars are built — a process that depends on the interaction between the dust and the CMZ’s magnetic fields. The image below is a major step toward better understanding that process. For the first time, it maps the CMZ’s various magnetic fields...
It’s hard enough to give candid feedback to a friend or subordinate. Giving it to your boss is one of the most difficult things to do—and can get you booted if you botch it. Why it matters. Very few of us make it through life without running into a moronic, mushy, or mediocre manager. But there are ways to raise concerns directly, safely, and effectively. I botched my first stab at it, quite spectacularly. I was at Roll Call, in the mid-1990s, when a fellow journalist, Ed Henry, was put...
In theory, everything that exists in the physical Universe is dependent only on the same fundamental entities and interactions that we find by splitting matter apart down to the smallest possible scales. Living creatures can be divided into cells; cells themselves are composed of organelles; organelles can be broken down into molecules; molecules are made up of atoms; atoms are comprised of electrons and atomic nuclei; electrons cannot be broken down further, but nuclei themselves consist of...
In the late 1970s, a team of karate-loving physicists decided to perform an experiment inspired by their collective passion for martial arts. The group was made up of physicist Michael Feld, a brown belt who liked to illustrate the physics of karate via live demonstrations to his classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ronald McNair, future astronaut and fifth-degree black belt; and undergraduate Stephen Wilk. “The picture of a karate expert breaking stout slabs of wood and...
When it comes to the Universe, it’s easy to make the incorrect assumption that what we see is an accurate reflection of all that’s out there. Certainly, what we observe to be out there really is present, but there’s always the possibility that there’s far more out there that’s unobservable. That extends to radiation outside of the visible light spectrum, matter that neither emits nor absorbs light, black holes, neutrinos, and even more exotic forms of energy. If something truly exists in this...
In 2015, a high school student from Texas named Ahmed Mohamed was taken into custody after a teacher mistook his homemade clock for an explosive. This event, however bizarre, was not unprecedented. Two years earlier, residents of Tyler — again in Texas — were evacuated from their homes as federal agents “dismantled” yet another science project, this one made by a local 8-year-old. Today, stories like these are often cited as proof that American society is becoming increasingly paranoid — an...
In 1978, Dan White murdered San Francisco city Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Of this, there was no doubt. White had turned himself in, then tearfully and remorsefully confessed to shooting each of the men — his former colleagues — multiple times. At White’s 1979 trial, the only question was how stiff his penalty would be. White’s lawyers ran a skillful defense during the court proceedings. They claimed that their client’s mental capacity was diminished by stress and severe...
The river known today as the Adige, the second-longest in Italy, flows south and then east from the Alps to the Adriatic. As it travels around hills and through flatlands, the river meanders widely, sometimes nearly looping back on itself. The city of Verona took root and grew around one of these meanders more than 2,000 years ago and, around that time, not far from the banks, an infant was laid to rest in a humble grave. She did not go into the afterlife completely alone, however. Alongside her...
In 1954, psychologist Muzafer Sherif engineered a tribal war between two groups of 11-year-old boys in two camps inside Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma. They were given tasks, rewards, and objectives — the kind of thing that would be prime-time reality TV these days. Before long, the two camps had established tribal identities. They had their own culture, norms, and behavioral standards. They were The Eagles and The Rattlers. And, other than a few insults and scowls, the two camps lived in...
Student loans continue to burden adults decades after they’ve left school, and credit card debt haunts many Americans. On the flip side, many of us make leveraged investments in our homes, taking out mortgages to buy houses that we expect to appreciate in value. In other words, debt structures American lives in myriad ways. But, as historian Louis Hyman writes, this is a relatively new thing. In the nineteenth century, Hyman points out, if an individual needed credit, they turned to friends,...
I have a group of cycling friends and we all go mountain biking together away about twice a year. I get on well with everyone apart from [one guy], who recently ruined the last trip for me by being antagonistic. He’s an ex-soldier and holds very right-wing views. I’m very liberal. Mike knows this and all through the weekend he kept saying slightly bigoted things about gay and trans folks and about migrants within earshot of me, trying to get me to bite. I didn’t but it did piss me off and...