Laura Mersini-Houghton is on the trail of, quite literally, the biggest secret code going. Her analysis of the faint microwave radiation that permeates the sky, called the Cosmic Microwave…

Let me tell you the tale of two Nobel Prizes—well, almost. The first Prize I want to tell you about was awarded to Wilhelm Röntgen in 1901 for the discovery of X-rays. The details…

It’s a sunny summer day in Geneva, Switzerland. The birds are singing as lovers canoodle near the Jet d’Eau. Somewhere, someone is listening to techno music a little too loudly.Nearby,…

Let me tell you a short, fictitious story about a very real Spanish conquistador, Francisco de Orellana. In 1546 he was captured and imprisoned in a small, dank cell. Before long he…

One of science’s most crucial yet underappreciated achievements is the description of the physical universe using mathematics—in particular, using continuous, smooth mathematical…