Essay The eloquence of color charts May 13, 2024 Researching color sampling meant reconstructing entire worlds from scraps of fabric or daubs of paint. Read More
Interview Michelle S. Phelps on The Minneapolis Reckoning May 09, 2024 Drawing on years of fieldwork, 鈥淭he Minneapolis Reckoning鈥� describes how Minneapolis arrived at the brink of police abolition and what happened next. Read More
Interview Frank L. Cioffi on Stellar English May 09, 2024 Frank L. Cioffi wanted to write a handbook that was more than merely a reference work, a grammar handbook that readers would feel compelled to read cover-to-cover. Read More
Essay New problems in small places April 29, 2024 One of the many trends that made headlines during the Covid-19 pandemic was people moving from large, dense cities to smaller cities, towns, and even rural areas, bypassing the suburbs. Read More
Essay Age of anxiety / age of hope April 22, 2024 We all know anxiety as a physiological response to a source of alarm. But it can also serve as an alarm in and of itself鈥攊f the real source of the anxiety is not evident to the conscious mind. Read More
Podcast The Beauty of Falling April 19, 2024 While many of us presume to know gravity quite well, the brightest scientists in history have yet to fully answer the simple question: what exactly is gravity? De Rham reveals how great minds鈥攆rom Newton and Einstein to Stephen Hawking, Andrea Ghez, and Roger Penrose鈥攍ed her to the edge of knowledge about this fundamental force. Read More
Essay The 2024 solar eclipse might be an omen, but what does it portend? April 18, 2024 As the warmest winter in human history draws to a close, many of us are unsure about what comes next. At least celestial mechanics are unaffected. Read More
Essay Our innumerate democracy April 16, 2024 The Declaration of Independence is a mathematical document. It starts by proclaiming certain truths to be self-evident and proceeds to list them. In math, such statements are the axioms of a theory. Read More
Podcast Listen in: The Beauty of Falling April 16, 2024 Claudia de Rham is a world-renowned physicist seeking gravity鈥檚 true nature and who has found wisdom in embracing its force in her life. Listen to a sample chapter from the audiobook. Read More
Interview James Marcus on Glad to the Brink of Fear April 15, 2024 James Marcus introduces us to Emerson as a visionary and a skeptic, an ardent lover and a fiery political activist. Read More
Podcast Listen in: After 1177 B.C. April 15, 2024 Filled with lessons for today鈥檚 world about why some societies survive massive shocks while others do not, After 1177 B.C. reveals why this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions and new opportunities. Read More
Interview Nicholas Money on Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines April 12, 2024 Nicholas Money takes readers on a guided tour of a marvelous unseen realm, describing the continuous conversation between our immune systems and the teeming mycobiome inside the body. Read More
Interview Jorell Mel茅ndez-Badillo on Puerto Rico: A National History April 12, 2024 Jorell Mel茅ndez-Badillo provides a new history of Puerto Rico that gives voice to the archipelago鈥檚 people while offering a lens through which to understand the political, economic, and social challenges confronting them today. Read More
Essay Forging an American vision of Jewish masculinity April 11, 2024 When we think of Jewish masculinity in the United States, our imagination likely conjures up the quintessential nebbish: the neurotic, bookish, geeky intellectual type: think Woody Allen or, more recently, Seth Rogen or even Timoth茅e Chalalemet. Read More
Essay Why we practice magic April 11, 2024 Not many academic philosophers discuss magic, however, five centuries ago, prominent Renaissance philosophers wrote extensive treatises on the topic. Read More
