Long Now
Phillip Longman: The Depopulation Problem
### The depopulation problem
Full PDF of the talk...
14th Aug 2004
### The depopulation problem
Full PDF of the talk [here](http://static.longnow.org/seminars/020040813-longman/salt-020040813-longman.pdf "PDF"), slideshow [here](https://media.longnow.org/salt-slides/Longman.html "The Depopulation Problem").
No need to summarize this time....
Explorations of an...
Dominican Republic, October 2025: Introduction and Parque Nacional Los Haitises
I have recently returned from an eight-day blitz of the Dominican Republic with my wife, Laura, and...
29th Oct 2025
I have recently returned from an eight-day blitz of the Dominican Republic with my wife, Laura, and good friend, Daniel Riley. Now October isn't really an ideal time for a birding trip to the Dominican Republic for a few reasons. First, October is the off-season and few birds are...
Long Now
Larry Brilliant, Richard Rockefeller, & Katherine Fulton: The Deeper News About the New...
### Philanthropic stamina
10,000 families in the US, Katherine Fulton reported, have assets of $100...
4th Nov 2006
### Philanthropic stamina
10,000 families in the US, Katherine Fulton reported, have assets of $100 million or more. That's up from 7,000 just a couple years ago. Most of that money is "on the sidelines." The poor and the middle class are far more generous in their philanthropy,...
Damn Interesting
The Traveler and His Baggage
On 19 May 1943, a news report from Berlin deepened the already dreary gloom that clung to the people...
3rd Jun 2021
On 19 May 1943, a news report from Berlin deepened the already dreary gloom that clung to the people of Nazi-occupied Paris. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proudly announced to the world that the German capital of Berlin was officially judenfrei–free of all Jews. As this...
Works in Progress...
Why we duel
Duels can be brutal and even lethal. But duels emerged in societies around the world for an...
21st Apr 2022
Duels can be brutal and even lethal. But duels emerged in societies around the world for an important reason: to control and manage violence, not just to celebrate it.
Quanta Magazine
Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts
By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking...
4th Mar 2024
By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking agreement with their standard theoretical model of how the universe evolves.
The post Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts first appeared on Quanta...
Quantum Frontiers
Colliding the familiar and the anti-familiar at CERN
toise me at CERN was a box of chocolates. CERN is a multinational particle-physics collaboration....
22nd Jan 2024
toise me at CERN was a box of chocolates. CERN is a multinational particle-physics collaboration. Based in Geneva, CERN is famous for having “the world’s largest and most powerful accelerator,” according to its website. So a physicist will take for … Continue reading →
Eukaryote Writes...
Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the...
13th Apr 2024
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the moon.” The truth is that given a lot of power, a nuclear weapon, and a lot of extremely specific circumstances, we too might find ourselves thinking “I should nuke the moon.”
Melting Asphalt
Going Critical
Background: This is an interactive blog post. I wanted to host it here, but don't know how to make...
13th May 2019
Background: This is an interactive blog post. I wanted to host it here, but don't know how to make it play nice with WordPress. So I decided to host it on another part of the site instead. Click here for…
Read more ›
NeuroLogica Blog
2023 Hottest Year on Record
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we...
2nd Jan 2024
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we can also say that the last 10 years are the hottest decade on record. 2023 dethrones 2016 as the previous warmest year and bumps 2010 out of the top 10. Further, in the last half of...
Long Now
Peter Schwartz: The Starships ARE Coming
### Starship destiny
We now know, Schwartz began, that nearly all of the billions of stars in our...
18th Sep 2013
### Starship destiny
We now know, Schwartz began, that nearly all of the billions of stars in our galaxy have planets. If we can master interstellar travel, "there’s someplace to go." Our own solar system is pretty boring---one planet is habitable, the rest are "like Antarctica...
Beautiful Public...
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s...
6th Feb 2023
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
IEEE Spectrum
Esoteric Languages Challenge Coders to Think Way Outside the Box
Have you ever tried programming with a language that uses musical notation? What about a language...
4th Sep 2025
Have you ever tried programming with a language that uses musical notation? What about a language that never runs programs the same way? What about a language where you write code with photographs?
All exist, among many others, in the world of esoteric programming languages, and...
Long Now
Julia Galef: Soldiers and Scouts: Why our minds weren't built for truth, and how we can change that
An expert on rationality, judgement, and strategy, Julia Galef notes that "our capacity for reason...
19th Sep 2018
An expert on rationality, judgement, and strategy, Julia Galef notes that "our capacity for reason evolved to serve two very different purposes that are often at odds with each other. On the one hand, reason helps us figure out what’s true; on the other hand, it also helps us...
brr
South Pole Water Infrastructure
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
8th Jun 2024
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
Stephen Wolfram...
New Features Everywhere: Launching Version 14.3 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica
#blog a.bottomstripe { max-width: 100%; }
#blog .post_content .inline-table-of-contents {...
5th Aug 2025
#blog a.bottomstripe { max-width: 100%; }
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#blog .post_content .inline-table-of-contents div a { color: #19749a; font-size: 14px; line-height:...
Wanderingspace
Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the...
18th Aug 2021
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the rest are thought to be active volcanos on the Io surface. The moons are not a primary target of the Juno mission, but they do occasionally take a peek to try and monitor such...
Quantum Frontiers
Sculpting quantum steampunk
In 2020, many of us logged experiences that we’d never anticipated. I wrote a nonfiction book and...
28th Oct 2024
In 2020, many of us logged experiences that we’d never anticipated. I wrote a nonfiction book and got married outside the Harvard Faculty Club (because nobody was around to shoo us away). Equally unexpectedly, I received an invitation to collaborate … Continue reading →
Drew Ex Machina
Habitable Planet Reality Check: TOI-700e Discovered by NASA’s TESS Mission
During a press conference held on January 6, 2020 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical...
23rd Jan 2023
During a press conference held on January 6, 2020 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Honolulu, Emily Gilbert (then a graduate […]
The Quanta Podcast
Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge
The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient?...
9th Apr 2020
The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient? Quantum entanglement.
The post Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Spencer Beebe: Very Long-term Very Large-scale Biomimicry
### The rainforests of home
Spencer Beebe is founder and head of Ecotrust, the Portland-based...
12th Mar 2005
### The rainforests of home
Spencer Beebe is founder and head of Ecotrust, the Portland-based organization that is setting in motion a permanently prosperous conservation economy for the entire Pacific Coast from San Francisco north to Alaska-- the temperate rain forest also...
Yale E360
London Inches Closer to Running Transit System Entirely on Renewable Power
Under a new agreement, London will source enough solar power to run its light railway and tram...
1st Jul 2025
Under a new agreement, London will source enough solar power to run its light railway and tram networks entirely on renewable energy.
Read more on E360 →
Cremieux Recueil
Fast Fact Check: Does Hep B Vaccination Cause Autism?
Obviously not
5th Mar 2026
Long Now
Jennifer Pahlka: Fixing Government: Bottom Up and Outside In
## Toward agile government
Pahlka quoted: “Efficiency in government is a matter of social justice.”...
2nd Feb 2017
## Toward agile government
Pahlka quoted: “Efficiency in government is a matter of social justice.” (Mayor John Norquist) It is at the often maddening interface with government that the inefficiency and injustice play out. Two examples (both now fixed)… At the Veterans Affairs...
Long Now
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his...
27th Jan 2007
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Sound
Invisible and relentless, sound is seemingly just there, traveling through our surroundings to carry...
18th Oct 2022
Invisible and relentless, sound is seemingly just there, traveling through our surroundings to carry beautiful music or annoying noises. In this article I’ll explain what sound is, how it’s created and propagated.
Throughout this presentation you will be hearing different sounds,...
Asterisk
How Diplomats See the World
Inside the boring-by-design U.S. fact-checking machine.
4th Aug 2026
Inside the boring-by-design U.S. fact-checking machine.
Inverted Passion
[2025 review] Life is a holiday!
Ok, this was a phenomenal year for me. The vibe of the year is cleanly captured by what I had...
31st Dec 2025
Ok, this was a phenomenal year for me. The vibe of the year is cleanly captured by what I had scribbled on a whiteboard on Jan 3rd, 2025. To my amazement and giddiness, the feeling still holds up as the year wraps up. Let’s see what all kept this spirit alive. Brief interlude:...
Eukaryote Writes...
Good posts from the Inkhaven blogging residency
Cannot stress this enough: literally everyone at the writing residency was good at this. Maybe...
28th Feb 2026
Cannot stress this enough: literally everyone at the writing residency was good at this. Maybe you'll find a new favorite blog among these.
pcloadletter
Make your PR process resilient to AI slop
One concern I have heard from AI naysayers is that AI slop will make code reviews nearly impossible....
24th Dec 2025
One concern I have heard from AI naysayers is that AI slop will make code reviews nearly impossible. AI churns out so much code, documentation, etc. that it's just impossible for any reviewer to keep up with it... right?
Wrong!
If you have good PR review processes, then reviewing...
Quantum Frontiers
What distinguishes quantum from classical thermodynamics?
Should you require a model for an Oxford don in a play or novel, look no farther than Andrew Briggs....
27th Nov 2025
Should you require a model for an Oxford don in a play or novel, look no farther than Andrew Briggs. The emeritus professor of nanomaterials speaks with a southern-English accent as crisp as shortbread, exhibits manners to which etiquette influencer … Continue reading →
Damn Interesting
To Hell With Facebook
The earliest known version of the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” was written by the...
12th Jul 2021
The earliest known version of the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” was written by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury in 1677, though it was concerned with horses and feathers:
“The last Dictate of the Judgement, concerning the Good or Bad, that may...
Beautiful Public...
50,000 boat names
From SEA SLUT II to BILBOAT BAGGINS, a deep dive into AIS vessel data turns up 50,000 boat names...
10th Aug 2026
From SEA SLUT II to BILBOAT BAGGINS, a deep dive into AIS vessel data turns up 50,000 boat names packed with nautical puns, dirty jokes, and Tolkien deep cuts.
Quantum Frontiers
Can Thermodynamics Resolve the Measurement Problem?
At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of...
10th Sep 2023
At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of Maryland!), during an expert panel Q&A session, one member of the audience asked “can quantum thermodynamics address foundational problems in quantum theory?” That stuck with …...
pcloadletter
AI hype is excessive, but its productivity gains are real
I'm kind of writing this to "past" me, who I assume is "current" you for a number of folks out...
19th Oct 2025
I'm kind of writing this to "past" me, who I assume is "current" you for a number of folks out there. For the rest of you, this might just sound like ramblings of an old fogey super late to the party.
Yes, AI is over-hyped. LLMs will not solve every problem under the sun but,...
Long Now
Eric Debrah Otchere: Sonic Spaces
Eric Debrah Otchere's research revolves around the power of music in the context of work; covering...
10th Feb 2023
Eric Debrah Otchere's research revolves around the power of music in the context of work; covering an ambitious range from ethnographic research on Ghanaian indigenous fishing culture to personalized musical preferences via modern technology.
Throughout history, the power of...
nanoscale views
Taking stock: some federal science news
Some general science news:
The New York Times ran an interactive article this week that shows what...
6th Dec 2025
Some general science news:
The New York Times ran an interactive article this week that shows what we all know. This past year was a very bizarre funding environment. The article focuses on NIH and NSF, but the major points are generalizable. The combination of circumstances...
Works in Progress...
The ultimate horse
Selective breeding has pushed horses to the limits of biology. But at what cost?
5th Aug 2026
Selective breeding has pushed horses to the limits of biology. But at what cost?
lcamtuf’s thing
How many dimensions is this?
A degree in mathematics might not save you from stacking boxes for a living.
3rd Sep 2025
A degree in mathematics might not save you from stacking boxes for a living.
Melting Asphalt
Minimum Viable Superorganism
Originally published at Ribbonfarm. Of all the remarkable things about our species — and there are...
11th Feb 2016
Originally published at Ribbonfarm. Of all the remarkable things about our species — and there are many — perhaps the most striking of all is our ability to band together and act as a united, coherent superorganism. E pluribus unum.…
Read more ›
Works in Progress...
Who cares about plagiarism?
Plagiarism is unforgivable in academia but it’s not plagiarism itself that should trouble us. It’s...
21st Jan 2022
Plagiarism is unforgivable in academia but it’s not plagiarism itself that should trouble us. It’s carelessness and a lack of originality.
SubAnima
Have We Already Found Life On Mars?
Definitions are a funny thing..
4th May 2022
Definitions are a funny thing..
Casey Handmer's blog
Terraform Talent Development
Originally posted at the Terraform Blog on November 17, 2025. Terraform Industries is the vehicle by...
24th Nov 2025
Originally posted at the Terraform Blog on November 17, 2025. Terraform Industries is the vehicle by which I build the people that build the team I need to build the future I am determined to build. One of the unexpected privileges of founding an ambitious, future-oriented...
The Quanta Podcast
Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome 'Tectonics'
Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the...
14th Apr 2022
Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be.
The post Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome ‘Tectonics’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Hydrogen Tech
I often get questions like the one below:
“I live part time in Japan. Everyone sees hydrogen powered...
3rd Jul 2026
I often get questions like the one below:
“I live part time in Japan. Everyone sees hydrogen powered generators, trains, trucks, etc regularly. High density population means it’s easy to get enough synergy to justify the infrastructure. So sad we aren’t doing more to utilize this...
Long Now
Paul Hawken: The New Great Transformation
### Humanity's immune system
The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has...
9th Jun 2007
### Humanity's immune system
The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has two referents, he explained. Economist Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, _The Great Transformation_ , said that the "market society" and modern nation state emerged together in Europe after...
Eukaryote Writes...
There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From...
3rd May 2021
Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From 'dendro', the ancient Greek root for tree.
Confessions of a...
Marine science, the environment, and the 2013 Australian election
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write about the upcoming election in this blog; after all the point of...
10th Sep 2013
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write about the upcoming election in this blog; after all the point of this blog has never been about anything political! However, for better or worse the state of our environment (including our oceans) are inextricably linked to politics, so here...
Long Now
James Holland Jones: The Science of Climate Fiction: Can Stories Lead to Social Action?
The warming planet is increasingly the subject of all kinds of fiction. Beyond entertainment or...
4th Apr 2019
The warming planet is increasingly the subject of all kinds of fiction. Beyond entertainment or distraction could climate fiction (“Cli-Fi”) actually help us in solving the climate dilemma? Biological anthropologist and environmental scientist [James Holland...
IEEE Spectrum
Tiny Exploding Houses Promoted 18th-Century Lightning Rods
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological...
1st Apr 2023
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological concept to the general public. Done right, tech literacy might soar! A compelling visual example can really help people understand the applications and implications of new...
The Roots of...
Can we “cure” cancer?
In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes:
Ask most biologists...
1st Feb 2023
In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes:
Ask most biologists about the cure for cancer, and they will tell you it doesn’t exist: cancer is many diseases that are mostly unrelated to each other, and that all have to be cured one at a...
Cremieux Recueil
Will Making Your Kids Tall Shorten Their Lives?
Bonus: How to get human growth hormone (HGH) for cheap
1st Jul 2026
Bonus: How to get human growth hormone (HGH) for cheap
Cremieux Recueil
The Boring Reason GDP is Inevitable
GDP is a reviled metric, but it's highly correlated with everything we care about. I explain one...
17th Dec 2025
GDP is a reviled metric, but it's highly correlated with everything we care about. I explain one mathematical reason why.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Good Meteor Shower Coming August 11-12
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer
The post Good...
27th Jul 2024
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer
The post Good Meteor Shower Coming August 11-12 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Long Now
Juan Enriquez: Mapping the Frontier of Knowledge
### Mapping Life
"All life is imperfectly transmitted code," Enriquez began, "and it is...
13th Oct 2007
### Mapping Life
"All life is imperfectly transmitted code," Enriquez began, "and it is promiscuous." Thus discoveries like the one last month of an entire bacterial genome inside the DNA of a fruitfly is exploding the old tree-of-life models of evolution. The emerging map...
Works in Progress...
The first non-opioid painkiller
For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally...
6th Oct 2025
For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally made something better.
SubAnima
Can Biology Be Reduced To Physics?
"Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
11th Nov 2022
"Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
The Works in...
Heat waves
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
12th Jul 2024
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
Drew Ex Machina
Pioneer 3: JPL’s First Moonshot Attempt
With the new push by the United States and other space faring powers to renew the exploration of the...
6th Dec 2022
With the new push by the United States and other space faring powers to renew the exploration of the Moon, miniaturized spacecraft have been made part […]
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How To (Properly) Text Patients | Out-Of-Pocket
Do’s and don’ts + tactical tips from an actual doctor
10th Apr 2024
Do’s and don’ts + tactical tips from an actual doctor
NeuroLogica Blog
Cognitive Legos
We have all likely had the experience that when we learn a task it becomes easier to learn a...
1st Dec 2025
We have all likely had the experience that when we learn a task it becomes easier to learn a distinct but related task. Learning to cook one dish makes it easier to learn other dishes. Learning how to repair a radio helps you learn to repair other electronics. Even more...
Works in Progress...
Watch men
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the...
2nd Dec 2025
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
Works in Progress...
Samurai city
For three hundred years, Japan enjoyed enviable stability and peace. All it took was locking up its...
2nd Jun 2026
For three hundred years, Japan enjoyed enviable stability and peace. All it took was locking up its warlike samurai elite in the world’s least efficient city.
Yale E360
In an Already Broiling Summer, El Niño Is About to Turn Up the Heat
El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe,...
3rd Aug 2026
El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization. The forecast comes as blistering heat shatters temperature records from Europe to Asia.
Read more on E360 →
Interaction Magic -...
Metaphors mold minds
Every good design is founded on a great metaphor. How to use metaphors to design more a inclusive...
21st Mar 2022
Every good design is founded on a great metaphor. How to use metaphors to design more a inclusive future for our cities. My IXDA Interaction 22 conference talk.
Long Now
Stephen Lansing: Perfect Order: A Thousand Years in Bali
### Hidden order in the Balinese "religion of water"
With lucid exposition and gorgeous graphics,...
14th Feb 2006
### Hidden order in the Balinese "religion of water"
With lucid exposition and gorgeous graphics, anthropologist Stephen Lansing exposed the hidden structure and profound health of the traditional Balinese rice growing practices. The intensely productive terraced rice paddies of...
Long Now
Paul Ehrlich: The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment
### Becoming a Benign Dominant
To track how humans became Earth's dominant animal, Ehrlich began...
28th Jun 2008
### Becoming a Benign Dominant
To track how humans became Earth's dominant animal, Ehrlich began with a photo of a tarsier in a tree. The little primate had a predator's binocular vision and an insect-grabber's fingers. When (possibly) climate change drove some primates out of...
Explorations of an...
2024 (Part 2 of 2)
June and July
I always sound like a broken record each year when discussing June and July. I was...
1st Jan 2025
June and July
I always sound like a broken record each year when discussing June and July. I was fortunate to have a lot of field work in 2024 which kept me occupied for most of these two months. But it's one of the best jobs in the world as I spend each and every day outside,...
The Quanta Podcast
Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries
By digging out signals hidden within the brain’s electrical chatter, scientists are getting new...
13th May 2021
By digging out signals hidden within the brain’s electrical chatter, scientists are getting new insights into sleep, aging and more.
The post Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Announcing Think Stats 3e
The third edition of Think Stats is on its way to the printer! You can preorder now from...
6th Apr 2025
The third edition of Think Stats is on its way to the printer! You can preorder now from Bookshop.org and Amazon (those are affiliate links), or if you can’t wait to get a paper copy, you can read the free, online version here. Here’s the new cover, still featuring a...
Works in Progress...
The housing theory of everything
Western housing shortages do not just prevent many from ever affording their own home. They also...
14th Sep 2021
Western housing shortages do not just prevent many from ever affording their own home. They also drive inequality, climate change, low productivity growth, obesity, and even falling fertility rates.
The Works in...
The San Diego infinite housing glitch
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
2nd Oct 2024
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
Peder M. Isager
Quantifying the corroboration of a finding
A summary of the pros and cons of multiple candidate statistics.
12th Apr 2019
A summary of the pros and cons of multiple candidate statistics.
The Quanta Podcast
Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay
Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that...
2nd Feb 2017
Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that the forces of nature were unified at the beginning of time.
The post Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Nicole’s guide to writing research statements
Sunflowers are blooming, stores are trumpeting back-to-school sales, and professors are scrambling...
11th Aug 2025
Sunflowers are blooming, stores are trumpeting back-to-school sales, and professors are scrambling to chart out the courses they planned to develop in July. If you’re applying for an academic job this fall, now is the time to get your application … Continue reading →
Many Worlds
Getting To Know Rogue Planets
In our Earthling minds, planets exist in solar systems with a Sun in the middle and objects large...
11th Aug 2023
In our Earthling minds, planets exist in solar systems with a Sun in the middle and objects large and small orbiting around it. This is hardly surprising since planets are pretty much exclusively illustrated in solar systems and, until the onset of the 21st century, no other...
Stephen Wolfram...
Yet More New Ideas and New Functions: Launching Version 14.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector...
31st Jul 2024
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector Databases and Semantic Search RAGs and Dynamic Prompting for LLMs Connect to Your Favorite LLM Symbolic Arrays and Their Calculus Binomials and Pitchforks: Navigating Mathematical...
The Quanta Podcast
Why Earth’s Cracked Crust May Be Essential for Life
Life needs more than water alone. Recent discoveries suggest that plate tectonics has played a...
11th Apr 2019
Life needs more than water alone. Recent discoveries suggest that plate tectonics has played a critical role in nourishing life on Earth. The findings carry major consequences for the search for life elsewhere in the universe.
The post Why Earth’s Cracked Crust May Be...
Chris Grossack's...
Internal Group Actions as Enriched Functors
Earlier today this month on the Category Theory Zulip, Bernd Losert asked an
extremely natural...
18th Feb 2024
Earlier today this month on the Category Theory Zulip, Bernd Losert asked an
extremely natural question about how we might study topological group
actions via the functorial approach beloved by category theorists.
The usual story is to treat a group $G$ as a one-object...
wadertales
Curlew nest survival
The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,...
4th Jan 2023
The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK, largely due to a rapid decline in breeding numbers. In this context, the fact that there are a few pink squares (indicating increased numbers) on the map showing breeding...
brr
The Beer Can
Connecting old and new.
18th Mar 2023
The Quanta Podcast
In Game Theory, No Clear Path to Equilibrium
John Nash’s notion of equilibrium is ubiquitous in economic theory, but a new study shows that it is...
12th Oct 2017
John Nash’s notion of equilibrium is ubiquitous in economic theory, but a new study shows that it is often impossible to reach efficiently.
The post In Game Theory, No Clear Path to Equilibrium first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
The State of American Science Funding (For the Next Five Minutes)
A comprehensive but nowhere near exhaustive overview of how the Trump Administration is impacting...
1st Jul 2025
A comprehensive but nowhere near exhaustive overview of how the Trump Administration is impacting American science.
Chris Grossack's...
Where Do Those Undergraduate Divisibility Problems Come From?
Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class
or something...
16th Jan 2025
Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class
or something similar, you’ll be shown problems of the form “prove that for
$n^6 + n^3 + 2n^2 + 2n$ is a multiple of $6$ for every $n$”… But where do
these problems come from? And have you ever...
Drew Ex Machina
The Largest Launch Vehicles in Service – 1957 to the Present
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title...
16th Nov 2022
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title “the largest launch vehicle in service”: the […]
NeuroLogica Blog
The New TIGR-Tas Gene Editing System
Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing...
3rd Mar 2025
Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing system which is faster and cheaper than anything that came before it? CRISPR is derived from bacterial systems which uses guide RNA to target a specific sequence on a DNA strand....
Quantum Frontiers
Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem!
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a...
28th Nov 2024
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a River. The Rat explains how the River permeates his life: “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, … Continue reading →
The Quanta Podcast
Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming...
14th Oct 2021
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer.
Long Now
Bjorn Lomborg: From Feel-Good to High-Yield Good: How to Improve Philanthropy and Aid
## Doing Good...
14th Mar 2017
## Doing Good Better
[](https://media.longnow.org/files/2/lomborghaiti.jpg)
**Lomborg opened with a photo from Haiti** , showing a young girl dressed for school wading through the muck and garbage of a slum, with pigs...
Long Now
Brewster Kahle: Universal Access to All Knowledge
### All knowledge, to all people, for all time, for free
Universal access to all knowledge, Kahle...
1st Dec 2011
### All knowledge, to all people, for all time, for free
Universal access to all knowledge, Kahle declared, will be one of humanity's greatest achievements. We are already well on the way. "We're building the Library of Alexandria, version 2. We can one-up the Greeks!"
Start...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Renewable Energy Updates
I came across a few news items that I could possibly write about today and couldn’t decide which to...
4th May 2026
I came across a few news items that I could possibly write about today and couldn’t decide which to cover, so I will write about all of them, since they all relate to renewable energy. The first is a new study comparing direct air capture (DAC) to installing new wind and solar....
Long Now
Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco, 5
### Lives of San Francisco
"You are the soundtrack," Prelinger told the capacity audience at the...
17th Dec 2010
### Lives of San Francisco
"You are the soundtrack," Prelinger told the capacity audience at the Herbst Theater, and they responded to his mostly silent archival films by calling out locations, questions, comments, and jokes.
They saw footage of a 1941 Market Street parade of...
Chris Grossack's...
$F_2 \times F_2$ is Incoherent -- A Polite Spectral Sequence Computation
Yesterday I watched my friend Jialin Wang defend her thesis,
and as part of her background section...
3rd Sep 2025
Yesterday I watched my friend Jialin Wang defend her thesis,
and as part of her background section she mentioned that the group
$F_2 \times F_2$ is incoherent in the sense that it has a subgroup
that’s finitely generated and not finitely presented. I was curious how
one might...
NeuroLogica Blog
Marmosets Call Each Other By Name
Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has...
3rd Sep 2024
Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has only been identified in a few other species, dolphins, elephants, and some parrots. Interestingly, it has never been documented in our closest relatives, non-human primates – that...
Quantum Frontiers
Building a Visceral Understanding of Quantum Phenomena
A great childhood memory that I have comes from first playing “The Incredible Machine” on PC in the...
6th Aug 2024
A great childhood memory that I have comes from first playing “The Incredible Machine” on PC in the early 90’s. For those not in the know, this is a physics-based puzzle game about building Rube Goldberg style contraptions to achieve … Continue reading →
Quantum Frontiers
My friend Mark Wise
Mark Wise, the John A. McCone Professor of High Energy Physics at Caltech, passed away on July 10 at...
18th Jul 2026
Mark Wise, the John A. McCone Professor of High Energy Physics at Caltech, passed away on July 10 at age 72. At a recent memorial service, John Preskill made these remarks. I’m John Preskill, Mark’s colleague on the Caltech physics … Continue reading →
Conservation...
Newly protected habitat offers hope for the Siamese crocodile
5th Aug 2026
The Quanta Podcast
Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation
After an interstellar asteroid shot past the sun, scientists realized that there’s probably a lot of...
2nd Jul 2020
After an interstellar asteroid shot past the sun, scientists realized that there’s probably a lot of itinerant rocks out there.
The post Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
Ants Live 10 Times Longer by Altering Their Insulin Responses
Queen ants live far longer than genetically identical workers. Researchers are learning what their...
7th Jun 2023
Queen ants live far longer than genetically identical workers. Researchers are learning what their longevity secrets could mean for aging in other species. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Good Times” by Patrick Patrikios.
Uncharted...
Warm Countries’ Poverty & Mountains: Responses to Your Comments
Geographic arguments against the theory: Switzerland, Austria, Colorado, India, Cambodia, Indonesia,...
1st Oct 2025
Geographic arguments against the theory: Switzerland, Austria, Colorado, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, China…Has race had any role in warm countries’ poverty?Does this disregard colonialism?
Long Now
Bruce Sterling: The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole
One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is because technology keeps...
12th Jun 2004
One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is because technology keeps accelerating so rapidly, we assume the world will become unrecognizable in a few years and then move on to unimaginable. Long-term thinking must be either impossible or irrelevant.
The...
Long Now
Ed Moses: Clean Fusion Power This Decade
### Imminent fusion power
All the light we see from the sky, Moses pointed out, comes from fusion...
17th Jun 2010
### Imminent fusion power
All the light we see from the sky, Moses pointed out, comes from fusion power burning hydrogen, the commonest element in the universe---3/4 of all mass. A byproduct of the cosmic fusion is the star-stuff that we and the Earth are made of.
On Earth, 4...
The Quanta Podcast
A Massive Subterranean ‘Tree’ Is Moving Magma to Earth’s Surface
Deep in the mantle, a branching plume of intensely hot material appears to be the engine powering...
9th Dec 2021
Deep in the mantle, a branching plume of intensely hot material appears to be the engine powering vast volcanic activity.
The post A Massive Subterranean ‘Tree’ Is Moving Magma to Earth’s Surface first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Trust and Well-Being
In a previous article, I claimed that Young adults are not very happy. Now the World Happiness...
3rd Apr 2026
In a previous article, I claimed that Young adults are not very happy. Now the World Happiness Report 2026 has confirmed that young people in North America and Western Europe are less happy than they were fifteen years ago, and less happy than previous generations. In this...
Uncharted...
Peak Oil Is Coming
In early markets, hybrids always prevail because there’s not enough electric infrastructure. As it...
3rd Feb 2026
In early markets, hybrids always prevail because there’s not enough electric infrastructure. As it develops and people can charge their cars more easily, the share of EVs increases.
Long Now
Ed Lu: Anthropocene Astronomy: Thwarting Dangerous Asteroids Begins with Finding Them
### The last killer asteroid
Kevin Kelly wrote the following about Ed Lu’s Seminar About Long-term...
19th Jun 2013
### The last killer asteroid
Kevin Kelly wrote the following about Ed Lu’s Seminar About Long-term Thinking (SALT) titled “Anthropocene Astronomy: Thwarting Dangerous Asteroids Begins with Finding Them”...
Last night's SALT talk was one of the most important ones we ever...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Earthrise from Apollo 8 – December 24, 1968
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by...
24th Dec 2023
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by the assassination of prominent public figures, violent protests […]
ToughSF
Riding Sunbeams with Solar Sails
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the...
26th May 2023
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the Solar System, as many times as you want, any time of the year.
Solar sails can carry passengers and they have a nearly unlimited number of uses. You just have to... think...
The Quanta Podcast
New Support for Alternative Quantum View
An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an...
2nd Jun 2016
An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics that eliminates the most baffling features of the subatomic universe.
The post New Support for Alternative Quantum View first...
The Quanta Podcast
Tiny Galaxies Reveal Secrets of Supermassive Black Holes
Dwarf galaxies weren’t supposed to have big black holes. Their surprise discovery has revealed clues...
8th Jun 2022
Dwarf galaxies weren’t supposed to have big black holes. Their surprise discovery has revealed clues about how the universe’s biggest black holes could have formed. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
lcamtuf’s thing
Cursed circuits #5: capacitance multiplier
Capacitor vendors don't want you to know this! Save money on capacitors by spending more on other...
5th Jul 2026
Capacitor vendors don't want you to know this! Save money on capacitors by spending more on other components
Long Now
George Dyson: There's Plenty of Room at the Top: Long-term Thinking About Large-scale Computing
### Long-term thinking about large-scale computing
Ever since his 1997 breakthrough book, _Darwin...
10th Jan 2004
### Long-term thinking about large-scale computing
Ever since his 1997 breakthrough book, _Darwin Among the Machines_ , Dyson has become regarded as a leading historian and interpreter of computer science, bringing a rigorous and unconventional perspective. Thus his willingness...
Melting Asphalt
Crony Beliefs
[Note: if you prefer audio, you can listen to this essay narrated by Grognor on his excellent...
2nd Nov 2016
[Note: if you prefer audio, you can listen to this essay narrated by Grognor on his excellent podcast Second Enumerations. —Ed.] Credits up front: This essay draws heavily from Overcoming Bias, Less Wrong, Slate Star Codex, Robert Kurzban, Robert…
Read more ›
Eukaryote Writes...
Will the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not?
If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected...
25th Jun 2023
If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected meat, my default assumption would be “we're in danger.” But a prion isn’t a virus. Why does that matter?
Long Now
David Grinspoon: Earth in Human Hands
## Cognitive planet
**Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people...
20th Sep 2017
## Cognitive planet
**Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people say we are entering an Anthropocene Epoch, Grinspoon began, but what if the term “epoch” understates the consequence of what is going on? Astrobiologists recently learned that...
Wanderingspace
ISS Looks Like a Toy
These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are...
4th Jul 2021
These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are real. Each frame is taken with ground based amateur telescopes and then pieced together with common image software like Adobe Photoshop.
It is incredible to me that there are people...
Long Now
Lynn Rothschild: Nature’s Hardware Store
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been...
5th Nov 2025
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been invented by nature? In this forward-looking talk, evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist Dr. Lynn Rothschild explores how life’s patterns, materials, and mechanisms, refined over...
Long Now
Alex Wright: Glut: Mastering Information Though the Ages
### A Series of Information Explosions
As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have swarmed in...
18th Aug 2007
### A Series of Information Explosions
As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have swarmed in intense networks for 3.5 billion years. Then a hierarchical form emerged with the first nucleated cells that were made up of an enclosed society of formerly independent...
Casey Handmer's blog
Potentially undervalued companies
I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies...
30th Aug 2024
I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies developing them. 90% of the time, my answer is “I don’t know” but it continues to concern me that aspects of technical feasibility are evidently not legible to financial types (and...
Conservation...
News spotlight: Study buoys hope for rare axolotls
1st May 2025
Works in Progress...
Innovation is not linear
Many have argued that innovation develops in a simple linear fashion – from research to...
19th Oct 2020
Many have argued that innovation develops in a simple linear fashion – from research to experimentation to engineering.
Works in Progress...
Watt lies beneath
The earth’s core is hot. So hot, that if we drilled deep enough, we could power the world millions...
15th Nov 2023
The earth’s core is hot. So hot, that if we drilled deep enough, we could power the world millions of times over with cheap, clean energy, supporting renewables when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. But getting there is tough.
wadertales
Four eggs or five?
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their...
6th Mar 2026
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their pointed ends in the middle, as illiustrated in the Ringed Plover nest alongside. There has been an assumption that this is an optimum arrangement for incubation, with strong...
The Quanta Podcast
The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound...
2nd Sep 2021
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics.
The post The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds
Scientists thought that the brain’s hearing centers might just process speech along with other...
6th Jan 2022
Scientists thought that the brain’s hearing centers might just process speech along with other sounds. But new work suggests that speech gets some special treatment very early on.
The post The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds first appeared on...
Probably...
The Frog Puzzle
Here’s a probability puzzle from a TED-Ed video called Can you solve the frog riddle? by Derek...
4th Jun 2026
Here’s a probability puzzle from a TED-Ed video called Can you solve the frog riddle? by Derek Abbott. It came up recently in this Reddit thread: You’re stranded in a rainforest after accidentally eating a poisonous mushroom. To survive the poison, you need to lick a certain...
The Roots of...
Links and short notes, 2025-12-19
The links digest is back, baby!
I got so busy writing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto this year that...
20th Dec 2025
The links digest is back, baby!
I got so busy writing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto this year that after May I stopped doing the links digest and my monthly reading updates. I’m bringing them back now (although we’ll see what frequency I can keep up). This one covers the last two...
Inverted Passion
Notes on doing science and research
I know it’s been awfully quiet here. I’ve not posted for a while. But I’ve been writing prolifically...
23rd Oct 2025
I know it’s been awfully quiet here. I’ve not posted for a while. But I’ve been writing prolifically somewhere else. Earlier this year, I started an AI lab called Lossfunk and that is what has kept me (happily) busy. We have a newsletter there called Lossfunk Letters where I...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is AI Sentient Revisited
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s...
3rd Apr 2023
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s LaMDA may be sentient, based on his interactions with it. This was a fascinating discussion, and even though I think we did a pretty deep dive in the time we had, it also felt...
Casey Handmer's blog
SLS is still a national disgrace
Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the...
2nd Oct 2024
Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the NASA SLS (Space Launch System), I wrote one. If you’re unfamiliar with the topic, you should read it first. It is hard to …
Confessions of a...
Predation of juvenile reef fish in coral patches at Ningaloo Reef
The second research article I have decided to discuss is one I had the pleasure to be involved with!...
11th Feb 2013
The second research article I have decided to discuss is one I had the pleasure to be involved with! In fact, it was the first paper I was a co-author on, after linking up with the Department of Environment and Conservation through an ANNiMS internship program. The paper was...
The Quanta Podcast
Mathematicians Tame Rogue Waves, Lighting Up Future of LEDs
The mathematician Svitlana Mayboroda and collaborators have figured out how to predict the behavior...
1st Feb 2018
The mathematician Svitlana Mayboroda and collaborators have figured out how to predict the behavior of electrons — a mathematical discovery that could have immediate practical effects.
The post Mathematicians Tame Rogue Waves, Lighting Up Future of LEDs first...
IEEE Spectrum
Edith Clarke: Architect of Modern Power Distribution
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career...
10th Jul 2024
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career at General Electric in 1922, she was determined to develop stable, more reliable power grids.
During her first years at GE she invented what came to be known as the Clarke...
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printing With Metallic Gel
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive...
6th Jul 2023
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive manufacturing). 3D printing has already created a revolution in manufacturing, but I think the general public does not have a high awareness of this technology because it is not yet at the...
Quantum Frontiers
A (quantum) complex legacy: Part deux
I didn’t fancy the research suggestion emailed by my PhD advisor. A 2016 email from John Preskill...
20th Feb 2023
I didn’t fancy the research suggestion emailed by my PhD advisor. A 2016 email from John Preskill led to my publishing a paper about quantum complexity in 2022, as I explained in last month’s blog post. But I didn’t explain … Continue reading →
Asterisk
After Work, We’ll Have Each Other
Once you realize what that means, you’ll be giving two cheers for the American work ethic.
2 weeks ago
Once you realize what that means, you’ll be giving two cheers for the American work ethic.
NeuroLogica Blog
Problems with the Institute Of Noetic Sciences
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of...
1st May 2023
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Overall the article is very good, and author Maddie Bender was fair and reasonable in how I was quoted. I can’t always take that as a given. No matter how...
The Quanta Podcast
The New Science of Seeing Around Corners
Computer vision researchers have uncovered a world of visual signals hiding in our midst, including...
1st Aug 2019
Computer vision researchers have uncovered a world of visual signals hiding in our midst, including subtle motions that betray what’s being said and faint images of what’s around a corner.
The post The New Science of Seeing Around Corners first appeared on Quanta...
wadertales
Inland feeding by coastal godwits
Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect...
10th Nov 2022
Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect estuaries but the same is not necessarily true for Black-tailed Godwits. In a 2022 paper in the journal Wader Study, Clément Jourdan and colleagues describe the movements of ten tagged...
Peder M. Isager
Ganging Up on Psychological Science
Sometimes, the costs of doing good science outgrow the resources available to the individual...
31st Aug 2018
Sometimes, the costs of doing good science outgrow the resources available to the individual scientist. Large scale collaboration projects are quickly becoming our best tool for dealing with this problem in psychology.
Cremieux Recueil
American Elections Are Unfair
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
5th Nov 2024
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
Quantum Frontiers
A (quantum) complex legacy
Early in the fourth year of my PhD, I received a most John-ish email from John Preskill, my PhD...
30th Jan 2023
Early in the fourth year of my PhD, I received a most John-ish email from John Preskill, my PhD advisor. The title read, “thermodynamics of complexity,” and the message was concise the way that the Amazon River is damp: “Might … Continue reading →
Chris Grossack's...
Finiteness in Sheaf Topoi
The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be
tricky for people new to...
19th Aug 2024
The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be
tricky for people new to the subject to understand. For a while now I’ve
wanted to figure out what’s going on with the different versions of “finite”
in a way that felt concrete and obvious (I mentioned...
Works in Progress...
The failure of the land value tax
Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But...
13th Mar 2025
Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But implementing them in early 1900s Britain destroyed the then-dominant Liberal Party.
The Quanta Podcast
The Math of Catastrophe
Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to...
14th Oct 2025
Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to dry out, becoming the desert that we know today. Tipping points are moments in Earth’s history where gradual change suddenly becomes rapid and forms a new equilibrium.
They’re one...
Drew Ex Machina
NASA’s Explorer 18: The First Interplanetary Monitoring Platform
Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the...
27th Nov 2023
Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the characterization of Earth’s magnetic field and the discovery of what became […]
Quantum Frontiers
Winners of the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest
During the past seven months, I’ve steamed across the Atlantic, sailed in a flying castle,...
1st May 2023
During the past seven months, I’ve steamed across the Atlantic, sailed in a flying castle, teleported across the globe, and shuttled forward and backward in time. Literarily, not literally—the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest began welcoming submissions in October 2022. We...
Cremieux Recueil
Did Unions End Long Work Hours?
Is it growth or organized labor that's more responsible for giving us shorter workdays?
4th Sep 2024
Is it growth or organized labor that's more responsible for giving us shorter workdays?
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 1)
Internet Harvest is a selection of the most succulent links on the internet that I’ve recently...
1st Feb 2020
Internet Harvest is a selection of the most succulent links on the internet that I’ve recently plucked from its fruitful boughs.
Peder M. Isager
How to share your data online with OSF
The Open Science movement is here to stay. However, incorporating open practices like data sharing...
2nd Oct 2018
The Open Science movement is here to stay. However, incorporating open practices like data sharing into your work flow can seem like a challenging task. If you have never made data available online before, the process can feel a bit daunting. Where should I put the data? What...
Cremieux Recueil
The Making of an Elite: Japanese Christians
Why are Japanese elites so likely to be Christian when Japan is a 99% non-Christian country?
7th Nov 2025
Why are Japanese elites so likely to be Christian when Japan is a 99% non-Christian country?
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum Algorithms: A Call To Action
Quantum computing finds itself in a peculiar situation. The number one question asked about quantum...
21st Apr 2025
Quantum computing finds itself in a peculiar situation. The number one question asked about quantum computers by outsiders is very common sensical: What are they good for? The honest answer reveals an elephant in the room: We don’t fully know yet. For theorists like me, it’s an...
Stephen Wolfram...
Towards a Computational Formalization for Foundations of Medicine
A Theory of Medicine? As it’s practiced today, medicine is almost always about particulars: “this...
3rd Feb 2025
A Theory of Medicine? As it’s practiced today, medicine is almost always about particulars: “this has gone wrong; this is how to fix it”. But might it also be possible to talk about medicine in a more general, more abstract way—and perhaps to create a framework in which one can...
Inverted Passion
Words are minimum-viable coordination tools
Words have a bewitching tendency as we assume they point to some deep essences. But, game...
4th Feb 2026
Words have a bewitching tendency as we assume they point to some deep essences. But, game theoretically speaking, words exist to get a job done so they operate at the level of coarse graining that’s sufficient to get the job done of the speaker. Evolution doesn’t like to waste...
Asterisk
The Demons of Non-Denoms
Religion in America was once the domain of institutions. How did it grow to be dominated by cults of...
1st Sep 2025
Religion in America was once the domain of institutions. How did it grow to be dominated by cults of personality — and what can the process tell us about the rest of American culture?
Long Now
Ken Dychtwald: The Consequences of Human Life Extension
### What long life means
Ken Dychtwald gave a terrific talk Friday evening to a standing-room...
4th Dec 2004
### What long life means
Ken Dychtwald gave a terrific talk Friday evening to a standing-room audience on "The Consequences of Human Life Extension."
The growing--and soon overwhelming--prevalence of the old in developed nations is leading to a "new old." Ken described meeting...
Quanta Magazine
Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the...
2nd Apr 2025
A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and evolution.
The post Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Hypervelocity Tether Rockets
Rotating tethers can reach incredible velocities when they are built out of high strength materials....
10th Oct 2022
Rotating tethers can reach incredible velocities when they are built out of high strength materials. With some design features, they can greatly surpass the exhaust velocities of chemical or even nuclear rockets. They can become propulsion systems with impressive performance......
Chris Grossack's...
Life in Johnstone's Topological Topos 1 -- Fundamentals
I’ve been thinking a lot about the internal logic of topoi again, and I
want to have more examples...
3rd Jul 2024
I’ve been thinking a lot about the internal logic of topoi again, and I
want to have more examples of topoi that I understand well enough to
externalize some statements. There’s more to life than just a localic
$\mathsf{Sh}(B)$, and since I’m starting to feel like I understand...
IEEE Spectrum
Xerox Donates Legendary PARC Research Center
Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI...
2nd May 2023
Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI International. The subsidiary’s pioneering research in the 1970s helped give birth to the era of personal computing. Xerox says the move will allow it to focus on its core business.
The...
Long Now
Adrian Hon: A History of the Future in 100 Objects
### Future artifacts
Speaking from 02082, Hon described 5 (of 100) objects and events from this...
17th Jul 2014
### Future artifacts
Speaking from 02082, Hon described 5 (of 100) objects and events from this century’s history he felt most strongly evoked the astonishing trends that have transformed humanity in the past 8 decades.
Not all developments proved to be positive. One such was...
Conservation...
‘Surf and turf’ can have carbon footprint of cross-country road trip: study
16th Jan 2024
NeuroLogica Blog
It’s Just A Correlation
Did you know that the number of Google searches for cat memes correlates tightly (P-value < 0.01)...
5th Aug 2025
Did you know that the number of Google searches for cat memes correlates tightly (P-value < 0.01) with England’s performance in cricket World Cups? What’s going on here? Is interest in funny cat videos driven by the excitement created by cricket victories. Perhaps cat memes are...
Willem Pennings
Fixing my heating system
The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm...
3rd May 2024
The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm water to the underfloor heating system of about a dozen apartments, including mine. During the warm summer months, the system supplies cool water instead. The heat pumps figure out...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Transcarent, AI Therapists, Interoperability, and more | Out-Of-Pocket
Plus Out-Of-Pocket is hiring!!
16th Jan 2025
Plus Out-Of-Pocket is hiring!!
The Quanta Podcast
The Art of Teaching Math and Science
The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational...
26th Jan 2017
The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational theory. What can we learn from the best teachers on the front lines?
The post The Art of Teaching Math and Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Maya Tudor: Can Nationalism be a Resource for Democracy?
A political scientist examines how foundational nationalisms affect democracy globally, using...
6th May 2019
A political scientist examines how foundational nationalisms affect democracy globally, using countries like India and Myanmar to illustrate that some kinds of nationalism can be an essential resource for protecting democracy.
Maya Tudor is a comparative political scientist...
ToughSF
Space Tethers: Stringing up the Solar System
All the methods we have used to reach space so far have been subject to the Tsiolkovsky rocket...
15th Sep 2020
All the methods we have used to reach space so far have been subject to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation - propellant must be ejected and more and more of it is needed to go further.
What if we could break that equation with rotating orbital tethers?
The tether
I have worked...
Beautiful Public...
Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data
Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and...
7th Nov 2022
Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and floodplains.
Long Now
Wade Davis: The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World
### Native guidance
What does it mean to be human and alive?
The thousands of different cultures...
14th Jan 2010
### Native guidance
What does it mean to be human and alive?
The thousands of different cultures and languages on Earth have compellingly different answers to that question. "We are a wildly imaginative and creative species," Davis declared, and then proved it with his accounts...
The Works in...
Issue 12: Houston, we have a solution
Plus: How Mexico built its state, the causes of the Baby Boom, and the 141-year quest for a malaria...
7th Sep 2023
Plus: How Mexico built its state, the causes of the Baby Boom, and the 141-year quest for a malaria vaccine.
The Quanta Podcast
Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start
A series of fossil finds suggests that life on Earth started earlier than anyone thought, calling...
5th Jul 2018
A series of fossil finds suggests that life on Earth started earlier than anyone thought, calling into question a widely held theory of the solar system’s beginnings.
The post Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
Government Comic Books
Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and...
27th Nov 2023
Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and how soldiers should handle homosexuality in the military.
Stephen Wolfram...
Can AI Solve Science?
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for...
5th Mar 2024
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for training the neural nets used here is also available (requires GPU). Won’t AI Eventually Be Able to Do Everything? Particularly given its recent surprise successes, there’s a somewhat...
lcamtuf’s thing
Why I refrain from infosec punditry
If you know about my professional background, the most puzzling aspect of this Substack must be that...
16th Apr 2026
If you know about my professional background, the most puzzling aspect of this Substack must be that I don’t use it to talk about my primary field of expertise: information security.
lcamtuf’s thing
Meta: 7,000
Although I try to keep navel-gazing to a minimum, I’m happy to report that this publication has...
4th Aug 2026
Although I try to keep navel-gazing to a minimum, I’m happy to report that this publication has crossed 7,000 email subscribers (plus an unknown number of RSS weirdos).
Quanta Magazine
The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered
By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have...
2nd Jun 2025
By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have made great strides toward building a “grand unified theory” of math.
The post The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Damn Interesting
A Taste of Italy
In the mid-1800s, Italy was consumed by two parallel fights: one to rid itself of Austrian...
14th May 2021
In the mid-1800s, Italy was consumed by two parallel fights: one to rid itself of Austrian domination (a holdover from the Holy Roman Empire) and the other for unification. At the time, Europe’s boot was a curious conglomeration of separate states, not all of which got along....
Damn Interesting
The Rube’s Dilemma
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly...
28th Oct 2022
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly colored ribbon tied around the crown. Originally popularized by gondoliers in Venice, this jaunty accessory had reached the height of American couture by the turn of the 20th century....
The Quanta Podcast
A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild
Near an Australian desert mining camp, wild dingoes are losing their fear of humans. Their genetic...
9th Aug 2018
Near an Australian desert mining camp, wild dingoes are losing their fear of humans. Their genetic and behavioral changes may echo those from the domestication of dogs.
The post A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Inverted Passion
Do you know what GDP is?
I thought I knew! But the more I introspected, the hazy my understanding got. Is GDP amount of stuff...
1st May 2025
I thought I knew! But the more I introspected, the hazy my understanding got. Is GDP amount of stuff produced or consumed? Does it include imports or exports? What does it have to do with well being? Why does it keep increasing? So, I fired up Claude and started understanding...
Works in Progress...
The secret fast track for animal drugs
Animal drugs are approved much faster than human drugs. Perhaps we could adopt the same model for...
12th Jun 2025
Animal drugs are approved much faster than human drugs. Perhaps we could adopt the same model for humans without compromising on safety.
Quantum Frontiers
Announcing the quantum-steampunk creative-writing course!
Why not run a quantum-steampunk creative-writing course? Quantum steampunk, as Quantum Frontiers...
19th Sep 2024
Why not run a quantum-steampunk creative-writing course? Quantum steampunk, as Quantum Frontiers regulars know, is the aesthetic and spirit of a growing scientific field. Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction. In it, futuristic technologies invade Victorian-era settings:...
Works in Progress...
Why Japan has such good railways
Japan’s railways are the finest in the world. Other countries can copy its formula.
7th Apr 2026
Japan’s railways are the finest in the world. Other countries can copy its formula.
Long Now
Saul Griffith: Climate Change Recalculated
### The Terawatt World
Engineer Griffith said he was going to make the connection between personal...
17th Jan 2009
### The Terawatt World
Engineer Griffith said he was going to make the connection between personal actions and global climate change. To do that he's been analyzing his own life in extreme detail to figure out exactly how much energy he uses and what changes might reduce the...
Inverted Passion
Don’t compete
The Internet is full of people winning all the time. Someone is traveling to exotic locations,...
22nd Mar 2025
The Internet is full of people winning all the time. Someone is traveling to exotic locations, someone else is raising funds, and another person is winning awards. Essentially, everyone around you is succeeding while you do spend your days as the nature intended – sleeping,...
Confessions of a...
Reflections of a postgrad lecturer-in-training: Part 1
In a previous post, I mentioned that I was beginning a stint as postgraduate teaching intern at UWA,...
9th Mar 2013
In a previous post, I mentioned that I was beginning a stint as postgraduate teaching intern at UWA, and that part of the internship involved keeping a reflective journal. So I’ve decided that instead of merely writing down my thoughts (and possibly becoming lazy about it as the...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Color View of the Earth & A Tropical Depression from Space – October 5, 1954
While today we are inundated with color images of the Earth, our earliest views from space were...
5th Oct 2024
While today we are inundated with color images of the Earth, our earliest views from space were confined to monochromatic or black and white images (see […]
Long Now
Danny Hillis: Progress on the 10,000-year Clock
"How's the Clock coming?" Everyone connected with The Long Now Foundation or with Danny Hillis hears...
11th Sep 2004
"How's the Clock coming?" Everyone connected with The Long Now Foundation or with Danny Hillis hears that question all the time.
"Progress on the 10,000-Year Clock," Danny Hillis -- Friday, September 10, 7pm, Fort Mason Conference Center, San Francisco. Doors open for coffee and...
SubAnima
What is a biological individual?
Some individuals have no clear boundaries. Here’s an assortment of some of the most interesting...
6th Sep 2021
Some individuals have no clear boundaries. Here’s an assortment of some of the most interesting problem cases
lcamtuf’s thing
A nicer voltmeter clock
Sometimes, electronic circuit design is mostly about wood
16th May 2026
Sometimes, electronic circuit design is mostly about wood
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 15: More From Explorama Lodge (February 20 - 21, 2024)
February 20, 2024
A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went...
1st Feb 2025
February 20, 2024
A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went off at 5:00 AM. It was going to be a good day.
At dinner the previous night Luis, Laura and I had come up with a plan for our full day at Explorama Lodge. We would begin by taking...
Interaction Magic -...
Orientation
Using Mahony & Madgwick to calibrate and process Arduino orientation data.
1st Jul 2018
Using Mahony & Madgwick to calibrate and process Arduino orientation data.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Coming Up: Einstein without Tears; Religion and Extraterrestrial Life
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The...
29th Sep 2024
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State Presents: A non-technical, 6-week class with Professor Andrew Fraknoi Einstein without Tears Tuesdays from 12:30 to 2:30...
Long Now
Frank Ostaseski: What the Dying Teach the Living
## Death’s Honesty
**In one of Long Now’s most moving talks** , Ostaseski began: “I’m not romantic...
11th Apr 2017
## Death’s Honesty
**In one of Long Now’s most moving talks** , Ostaseski began: “I’m not romantic about dying. This is the hardest work you will ever do. It is tough. It’s sad and it’s messy and it’s cruel and it’s beautiful sometimes and mysterious, but above all that, it’s...
Drew Ex Machina
The Massachusetts Bolide: Witnessing a Once in a Generation Event
As a long time smoker who isn’t allowed to smoke in my home, I spend a fair amount of each day...
1st Jun 2026
As a long time smoker who isn’t allowed to smoke in my home, I spend a fair amount of each day sitting on my front porch […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Tong Test for Artificial General Intelligence
Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing...
2nd Oct 2023
Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing expert Alan Turing in 1950, and originally called “The Imitation Game”. The original paper is enlightening to read. Turing was not trying to answer the question “can machines think”....
The Quanta Podcast
The Hidden Magnetic Universe Begins to Come Into View
Astronomers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date...
3rd Dec 2020
Astronomers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a major cosmological mystery.
The post The Hidden Magnetic Universe Begins to Come Into View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
The world of tomorrow
When the future arrived, it felt… ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow?
2nd Jun 2025
When the future arrived, it felt… ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow?
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