Writers’ Gallery
Our Writers' Gallery features short pieces about physics by authors who are both renowned physicists and prize-winning writers. Some of these are original contributions and others are excerpts from longer works. Many are linked to more information about the authors and their work.
Insatiable Birdie
Can a book inspire you as a child to grow up and solve one of the most famous mysteries of mathematics? Come take a peek inside Physics for Entertainment to find out. Originally published over seventy years ago in Russia, this classic book answers many fascinating questions that one might not even think are physics questions. “Can an invisible man see? Why are all cats grey when the candles are out?” The excerpt below explains the habits or our beloved drinking bird toy.
The Cosmic Zoom
Most of the scientists and inventors we met started out believing that they had made a great discovery overlooked by everyone else. It never pays to underestimate the human capacity for self-deception.
The Beginning…
This story is about the universe, and unfortunately there are no data for the Very Beginning. None, zero.
In Search of Beauty
My colleagues and I in fundamental physics are the intellectual descendants of Albert Einstein; we like to think that we too search for beauty.
Cosmic Evolution
Simply defined, cosmic evolution is the study of change--the vast number of developmental and generative changes that have accumulated during all time and across all space, from big bang to humankind.
String Training
String theory’s view of the fundamental nature of matter differs significantly from that of traditional particle physics.
