Matter | Physics
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Chapter one
Theories of Everything
Biology | Evolution
When Evolution Is Infectious
How “probiotic epidemics” help wildlife—and us—survive.
Matter | Physics
Life Is a Braid in Spacetime
How to see yourself in a world where only math is real.
Matter | Philosophy
Why Science Needs Metaphysics
Science can’t tell us whether science explains everything.
Numbers | Math
Will the Earth Ever Fill Up?
We’ve predicted and broken human population limits for centuries.
Chapter two
Small World
Culture | Astronomy
Why the Russians Decapitated Major Tom
The story of the genetically engineered mouse cosmonaut.
Numbers | Music
The Cello Music of the Spheres
Experience mathematical beauty and symmetry in a multimedia work.
Matter | Physics
The Case for Fewer Dimensions
At small scales, gravity seems to blow up—but not if space becomes 1-D.
Biology | Microbiology
Meet the Neighbors You’ll Never See
Bacteria take a starring role in six vignettes of city life.
Matter | Physics
How Big Can Schrödinger’s Kittens Get?
Scientists are slowly scaling up quantum effects from atomic to human size.
Chapter three
Bigger & Better?
Matter | Aliens
Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?
Vitalism in the age of modern science.
Ideas | Psychology
Why You Didn’t See It Coming
When scale confounds our perceptions, stories can clarify them.
Ideas | Math
The Galaxy That Got Too Big
From atoms to brains, bigger isn’t always better.
Numbers | Technology
The Box That Built the Modern World
How shipping containers made distance irrelevant.
Chapter four
Symbols
Numbers | Math
How to Build a Search Engine for Mathematics
The surprising power of Neil Sloane’s Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences.
Matter | Physics
Ingenious: Lawrence M. Krauss
Cosmologist and communicator.
Matter | Aliens
Why Alien Life Will Be Robotic
If life off Earth exists it has probably transitioned to machine intelligence.
Biology | Neuroscience
Metaphors Are Us
War, murder, music, art. We would have none without metaphor.
Ideas | Math
A Travel Guide for the Fourth Dimension
Say goodbye to stable orbits and knotted shoelaces.
Chapter five
Size of Life
Culture | Education
Why Virtual Classes Can Be Better Than Real Ones
An engineering professor takes online-course critics to school.
Biology | Environment
The Hidden Power Laws of Ecosystems
As nature scales, complexity gives way to universal law.
Biology | Evolution
The Rhythm of the Tide
When I heard data from an island had proven humans are still evolving, I had to visit.
Matter | Physics
Will Quantum Mechanics Swallow Relativity?
The contest between gravity and quantum physics takes a new turn.
Related Facts So Romantic
“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” —Jules Verne
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Biology
How Bioprinting Has Turned Frankenstein's Mad Science Sane
In the United States alone more than 120,000 people are waiting for organ transplants, and many will die before their turns come. What if they didn’t have to wait, because doctors could…
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Culture
The Word “Million” Didn’t Exist Until We Needed It
I would cut off my right hand if you find it.” That was the guarantee retired Columbia history lecturer Jens Ulff-Møller made that there was no word for “million” in Old English,…
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Ideas
Here's How to Make Climate Change Extra Scary
Thirty thousand years ago, a woolly mammoth in Siberia shed a giant virus. It soon became encased in ice and, for tens of thousands of years, the virus slept. As global temperatures warm…
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Biology
Here's Why Most Neuroscientists Are Wrong About the Brain
Most neuroscientists believe that the brain learns by rewiring itself—by changing the strength of connections between brain cells, or neurons. But experimental results published last…
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