Anthony Aveni— Where did it all come from? What are we doing here? What will happen to us? There’s Genesis—a creation story (actually, an amalgam of stories) told in the Middle East more than three millennia ago by a disenfranchised people that attempts to answer these profound questions. A single
Martin Elvis— Changing your line of work late in your career is a refreshing thing to do. I worked for decades helping to decipher the mysteries of how giant black holes—the darkest things in the Universe—can be the engines of the brightest things in the Universe (quasars), making them visible
Barry Perlus— Those in the Northern Hemisphere who have recently stepped outside just after nightfall to view Comet Neowise know that the window of time in which to view this current marvel is limited to a few hours before it disappears below the horizon. The apparent movement of celestial bodies—galaxies,
Anthony Aveni— Trained as an astronomer but now spending most of my time writing about skywatchers in indigenous cultures, I’ve come to think that individuals trained in science tend to pay too little attention to stories of creation other than their own “Big Bang.” They generally regard stories from other
Solar eclipses have fascinated us since the beginning of human existence. Astronomer and anthropologist Anthony Aveni discusses the cultural history of eclipses, the science behind them, and gives some tips for watching two upcoming US total solar eclipses.
Scientists have finally measured gravitational waves from the collision of black holes. Marcia Bartusiak explains why this matters and talks about some of the universe’s most mysterious objects.
Priyamvada Natarajan— Rather unusually, the team leaders who led the observational efforts that discovered dark energy were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009 for a discovery from 1998, a rather swift reward by normal standards in physics. According to Alfred Nobel’s wishes, this annual physics prize can be awarded to
Marcia Bartusiak— To the practiced eye, Einstein’s equations stand as the quintessence of mathematical beauty. When it was introduced in 1915, general relativity was hailed as a momentous conceptual achievement. But for a long time the theory had little practical importance. Although the scientific community embraced general relativity—and recognized Einstein
Anthony Aveni— “Celestial source of life and light on earth! What envious rival intercepts thy rays? Dares thy own satellite intercepts thy blaze, Or stay thy stream of empyrean birth?…” The first four lines of a sonnet “tweeted out” by the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy
David Bercovici— I was born in 1960, and by the time I decided I wanted to be a scientist at the young age of 12, the Vietnam War had been going on for my entire life. As far as any of us of that generation were concerned, the war had