At its introduction in 1915, the general theory of relativity did not have a solid empirical foundation. It was known that it correctly accounted for the "anomalous" precession of the perihelion of Mercury and on philosophical grounds it was considered satisfying that it was able...
The Economic Revolution was the most important revolution, from the point of view of shaping modern society, that ever took place— fundamentally more disturbing by far than the French, American, or even the Russian Revolutions. To appreciate its magnitude, to understand the wrenching which it...
American and European astronomers have announced that they have made the most distant detection to date of a black hole swallowing a nearby star, some 8.5 billion light-years away, while at the same time it is sending a tremendously bright jet of radiation toward our...
“You are made of stuff that is as old as the planet, one third as old as the universe, though this is the first time that those atoms have been gathered together such that they think that they are you.” FRANK CLOSE, BRITISH PARTICLE PHYSICIST (1945–...
THE BRAIN In a new breakthrough to understand more about the mammalian brain, University of Copenhagen researchers have made an incredible discovery. Namely, a vital enzyme that enables brain signals is switching on and off at random, even taking hours-long “breaks from work”. These findings...
The story of “blue being invisible in history” begins in 1858 when William Gladstone, who later became Chancellor of the Exchequer then Prime Minister of Great Britain, read Homer’s The Odyssey . Gladstone noticed that Homer described the sea color as "wine-dark” - leading him...
This fable tells the story of how a frog placed in a pot of boiling water is able to make a leap and exit immediately. But if on the other hand it is introduced into cold water that is slowly warmed, he will not realize...
The ability of living organisms to faithfully transmit the instructions to make another of themselves – whether a robin, rhododendron or a person – was, for centuries, profoundly puzzling. In his ‘51st Exercitation’ of 1653, the English surgeon William Harvey wrote: Although it be a known...
Today, at dusk, I went to St. Sergius, locally called Mar Sarkis, from the Aramaic, the cemetery of my side of the family, to say hello to my father and my uncle Dédé, who so much disliked my sloppy dressing during my rioting days. I...
Gurdjieff, an imposing and impressively mustachioed Russian who was active in the early to mid-twentieth century, believed that most people lived their lives in a hypnotic form of ‘waking sleep’. It was possible to awaken out of this state, Gurdjieff taught, into a state of...
