The Tragedy of Never Understanding Our Children

You must face the fact that yours is the last generation of homo sapiens. As to the nature of that change, we can tell you very little. All we have discovered is that it starts with a single individual—always a child—and then spreads explosively, like the formation of crystals around the first nucleus in a saturated solution. Adults will not be affected, for their minds are already set in an unalterable mould. In a few years it will all be over, and the human race will have divided in tw...

 The Chemistry of the Nucleus is Just the Metal for the Gears

For it is not cell nuclei, not even individual chromosomes, but certain parts of certain chromosomes from certain cells that must be isolated and collected in enormous quantities for analysis; that would be the precondition for placing the chemist in such a position as would allow him to analyse [the hereditary material] more minutely than [can] the morphologists ... For the morphology of the nucleus has reference at the very least to the gearing of the clock, but at best the chemistry of the...

 Stable Orbits are Impossible in More Than Three Dimensions

If one assumes that a few hundred million years in stable orbit are necessary for planetary life to evolve, the number of space dimensions is also fixed by our existence. That is because, according to the laws of gravity, it is only in three dimensions that stable elliptical orbits are possible. Circular orbits are possible in other dimensions, but those, as Newton feared, are unstable. In any but three dimensions even a small disturbance, such as that produced by the pull of the other planet...

 The Four Forces of Nature

1. Gravity. This is the weakest of the four, but it is a long-range force and acts on everything in the universe as an attraction. This means that for large bodies the gravitational forces all add up and can dominate over all other forces. 2. Electromagnetism. This is also long-range and is much stronger than gravity, but it acts only on particles with an electric charge. being repulsive between charges of the same sign and attractive between charges of the opposite sign. This means the ele...

 We value throwing a ball through a hoop more than science

That we have come so far in the enterprise of understanding nature, far enough to pry open the nucleus of the atom, to sail through interplanetary space, to lose ourselves in the Internet, and perform medical surgery with laser beams, all of this is cause for great celebration, not fear, and it's time we quit hiding all this under the covers and let these people come out of the shadows into the light of day and take accurate stock of their accomplishments and their failures and make an attemp...