“Students don’t buy a copy of the book—they buy lifetime access. The plan is for the textbook to serve not only as a reference for the class but as a pointer to further knowledge. Instead of publishing revised editions, Savkar’s team will keep the book up to date.” — A New Chapter for E-Books Imagine never…

It would be nice to believe that “the final word” is really the final word, unfortunately it rarely is. Michio Kaku has an interesting article on the possible discovery that the speeding neutrino might overturn Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (and thus much of what we think we know about physics). He writes that “no…

Are you prepared to unlearn faster than the speed of light? You may need to because new results suggest (but are not yet proven) that neutrinos are moving faster than the speed of light. If true, this will call into question the General Theory of Relativity–one of the Cardinal Rules of physics. At this point…

I recently finished reading an insightful chapter in the new book, Future Science: Essays from the Cutting Edge. The book contains a series of essays from some of today’s brightest young scientists. Interestingly, one author kept referring to the notion that his theories were “not uncontested.” He did this on so many occasions occasions that…

"… he has persuaded me that we can solve many of our problems as long as we don't assume that we know more than we do." So concludes John Horgan in his insightful review of David Deutsch's new book, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Will Transform the World. I not only agree with the…

Developing a healthy dose of unconfidence can be helpful in unlearning. Ironically, one of the things many U.S. students must unlearn is their high level confidence in their math and science scores. Did you know that although U.S. students have some of the lowest scores in math and science, they consistently rank highest in how…

“One of the most important disciplines in the twenty-first will be no discipline at all,” writes Frank Moss in his new book, The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices—a new book about MIT’s Media Lab. So does this mean the hard disciplines of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and engineering can be abandoned? Absolutely not. Instead, the school—whose stated mission…

Take a look at the pictures to the right. The symmetry between microscopic neurons and a macroscopic galaxy is rather surprising. Is there a connection between the two? Honestly, I don’t know but I do believe the human mind is capable of discovering the answer. To this end, I invite you to watch this six…

Last week, it was reported that frequent shopping by men and women increases the life expectancy of people in Taiwan.  This is undoubtedly great news for shopoholics but before you rush out to the nearest mall in an effort to boost the length of your life know that it is not true. Although the scientific…

"Clearly there is a lot going on deep in the Earth that is completely unknown to science." So concludes this fascinating article in The Economist on, of all things, carbon. Did you know, for example, that although carbon is critical to life on earth the scientific community has no idea of how much of the…