In 1992 I wrote an article for the New York Times on body doubles—the performers in movies who substitute for stars who aren’t quite buff enough for close-ups or brave enough for nudity. I cited several examples of stars who have used body doubles, including Kim Basinger in My Stepmother Is An Alien and Julia […]
History/Philosophy
In his several books and many articles in magazines and academic journals, Horace Freeland Judson dared to size scientists up, though he wasn’t one. He died on May 6, age 80. He was my teacher and my friend, and I would like to say a few things about his works both to offer tribute and […]
Fifty years ago today, President Kennedy, speaking before a joint session of Congress, said, “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Love that “the.”
I see two problems here. Number 1 is that no squirrel ever slipped and fell off a tree. Squirrels’ understanding of gravitational physics is hard-wired and mathematically immaculate. Number 2 is with AG’s mouse-overed comment, “Not even an insatiable thirst for knowledge can compete with our innate affinity for cute fuzzy little animals.” I agree […]
Socrates (according to Plato) is explaining to a follower, Glaucon, an overly-complex but famous metaphor. Prisoners who have been raised in a cave sit chained facing a wall, which is lit only by the fire behind them. For the prisoners, says Socrates, reality is “only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another.” And […]
Years ago, when her young son was going through a mummy phase, Eve Lowenstein wound up reading a lot of mummy books. A dermatologist and one-time molecular biologist, she was soon hooked on paleopathology, the study of ancient diseases. Her obsession would long outlive her son’s. At first, just curious, she sat down to do […]
How would you describe the Minute Waltz, by 19th-Century composer Frédéric François Chopin? Lighthearted and whimsical? Dainty, delicate, fragile? In some classical music circles, Chopin’s work has a sissy reputation. As a Washington Post critic wrote last year, “Chopin’s music has sometimes been branded effeminate, or ‘salon music’: not quite serious, not quite healthy.” Chopin […]
On April 4, the physics department at Columbia University held an unblinding party. For 100.9 days between January 13 and June 8, 2010, a detector 4,500 feet underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, in central Italy, had been collecting data. Following the protocol of a “blind” analysis, the data had instantly disappeared into […]
