Sep 4, 2021Top 10 Fun Facts about George GamowSome are well-known; others are surprising From FLASHES OF CREATION George Gamow’s father Anton, a schoolteacher, taught the young Leon Trotsky, then known as Lev Bronstein. Trotsky tried to stir up trouble in the classroom by getting all the students to sign a petition to have Anton dismissed. Luckily for the Gamow family the…4 min read4 min read
Aug 5, 2021The Horror Film That Spawned a UniverseHow The Dead of Night Helped Inspire Three Astrophysicists to Rethink Reality In 1946 three friends walked into a Cambridge cinema, looking for a solid distraction from the rigors of postwar Britain. They weren’t just an ordinary bunch of mates — the three were trained in astrophysics, possessed exceptional imaginations…Dead Of Night4 min readDead Of Night4 min read
Jul 28, 2021Dennis Sciama’s Astonishing Cosmological ConversionFrom Steady-State Devotee to Leading Advocate for the Big Bang A Brief Dialogue with 2020 Physics Nobel Laureate Sir Roger Penrose In the 1950s and early 1950s, Cambridge physicist Dennis Sciama was one of the world’s leading advocates for the steady-state model of cosmology: the idea that the universe, while…Dennis Sciama3 min readDennis Sciama3 min read
Jul 25, 2021Dyson, Feynman, Von Neumann, and the Dreaded “Warmed-Up Soup”Renowned physicist Freeman Dyson’s wholly unwarranted fear of being boring Physicist Freeman Dyson, though he never received an official PhD — a fact he was eminently proud of — was the happy recipient of numerous honorary degrees. From my observations during such a commencement ceremony at my own university, where…5 min read5 min read
Jun 8, 2021An American in BingleyOn the Trail of Astrophysicist and Writer Fred Hoyle In September 2019, my sabbatical research on the life and work of noted scientist and writer Sir Fred Hoyle brought me to England, and to the region of Bingley (including Gilstead and Eldwick) in the traditional and beautiful West Riding of…Fred Hoyle3 min readFred Hoyle3 min read
Feb 7, 2021The Big Bang in an Underground LabExclusive interview with Italian nuclear physicist Viviana Mossa about her team’s astonishing new deuterium-burning results In 1948, George Gamow and Ralph Alpher predicted that the bulk of the helium in the universe was created during the hot Big Bang by means of a multi-stage process, involving, as one of the…Big Bang9 min readBig Bang9 min read
Aug 30, 2020Member-onlyEinstein and the MentalistsFrom eerie encounters with purported psychics to “spooky action at a distance.” Of all the writings by Albert Einstein, one of the most surprising of his contributions was his preface to Upton Sinclair’s 1930 book on telepathy, Mental Radio. Sinclair, a well-known writer (The Jungle) and social activist, wrote that…Einstein8 min readEinstein8 min read
Aug 28, 2020Member-onlyGenius in Exile: The Rise and Fall of Göttingen’s Mathematical InstituteInspired by the designs of mathematician Felix Klein and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Göttingen Mathematical Institute in…Math8 min readMath8 min read
Aug 23, 2020Member-onlyA Quantum of InsultsNobel laureate physicist Wolfgang Pauli had a penchant for hurling evil zingers at other scientists By the age of 20, Viennese physicist Wolfgang Pauli had acquired the reputation of being a wunderkind, a child genius. His PhD supervisor Arnold Sommerfeld had recruited him to write an article about Einsteinian relativity…Wolfgang Pauli7 min readWolfgang Pauli7 min read
Aug 21, 2020Chance Encounters with a Mystic, Gnostic MuseSerendipitous discussions in a coffee shop with Jungian scholar Kathleen Damiani about Neoplatonism, David Bohm, and other topics When Carl G. Jung coined the term synchronicity to denote meaningful acausal connections, he looked for examples in his life and in the lives of his patients. …Synchronicity4 min readSynchronicity4 min read
