Once Upon a Phylogeny

One of the ornaments that will come down from the attic in the next few weeks has a fairy wearing a blue gown on it; she’s sitting on a crescent moon. This picture has a quote below it: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. If you want them to be […]

The Godless Particle

Last July I ended a post on the Higgs boson with an admonition: “Just don’t get me started on this ‘God particle’ business.” But did Christie listen? “I’m sharing it with my husband,” she emailed me about the post. “This whole ‘god particle’ thing has been driving him completely crazy.” The term, at least in the […]

No Exceptions! None! Nowhere! Never! (Or not.)

Cassandra, for Richard: How do we know the laws of physics are universal? Why can’t there be a far-off galaxy where our laws of physics don’t apply? (Is that a really stupid question?) Richard, for Cassandra: We don’t. There can. (It’s not.) Such was Cassie’s contribution to LWON’s first anniversary post last May. As part of […]

Abstruse Goose: Dangerous

I was going to explain the connection between gravity, general relativity, and time.  But I understand less than half of it and anyway, that’s not what our boy AG is really talking about here.   He’s talking about coming to grand conclusions based on understanding less than half of something.  And the guy he’s quoting, […]

Bang? Whimper? Whatever.

What is the fate of the universe? Cosmologists are converging on an answer, and it ain’t pretty. Or so I gather from people who, hearing that the latest science favors a universe that goes on forever, growing colder and colder, lonelier and lonelier, ask me, “Don’t you find it depressing?” The short answer is, No. […]