Advocates of free will can rest easy, for now. A 30-year-old classic experiment that is often used to argue against free will might have been misinterpreted.
In narratives of human existence, technology often plays a dual role as a catalyst of the human subject’s actions towards a fulfilling existence, or as an enemy of social cohesion and the preservation of culture.
New results from a look into the split second after the Big Bang indicate the universe is 80 million years older than previously thought but the core concepts of the cosmos — how it began, what it’s made of and where it’s going — seem to be on the right track. The findings released Thursday…
Three billion years after inanimate chemistry first became animate life, a newly synthesized laboratory compound is behaving in uncannily lifelike ways. The particles aren’t truly alive — but they’re not far off, either. Exposed to light and fed by chemicals, they form crystals that move, break apart and form again. “There is a blurry frontier…
Many of the great physicists of the 20th century have appreciated the importance of philosophy for science. Einstein, for example, wrote in a letter in 1944: “I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to…
As a ball rolled down an incline, young Sylvester James Gates, along with the other students in his class, were tasked with timing it and observing the principles of mechanics in action. “I saw a piece of magic happen right before my very eyes,” he says. “Because, while I was well aware that mathematics was…
When the sun really acts up, spewing out heaps of charged particles in a burst called a coronal mass ejection, space weather can get menacing—and future storms could be even worse than the ones we’ve experienced. Solar storms can damage power grids, fry communications satellites and disrupt aircraft electronics. A few oft-cited historical examples: a…