Matter | Physics
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Chapter one
In Theory
Numbers | Sociology
Math Shall Set You Free—From Envy
How to do divorce, divestment, and death properly.
Numbers | Math
Impossible Cookware and Other Triumphs of the Penrose Tile
Infinite patterns that never repeat have moved from fantasy to reality.
Chapter two
Akimbo
Culture | Sociology
Stress Gives You Daughters, Sons Make You Liberal
We affect our children’s gender, and it affects us back.
Culture | Psychology
Want to Get Out Alive? Follow the Ants
Ants show that emergency exits can work better when they’re obstructed.
Culture | Fiction
Two-Stroke Toilets
The trouble with time travel.
Chapter three
In Your Head
Ideas | Evolution
James Doty’s Helper’s High
He gave away his last $30 million and felt free—a case study in altruism.
Biology | Psychology
What Do Animals See in a Mirror?
A controversial test for self-awareness is dividing the animal kingdom.
Culture | Neuroscience
How to Learn to Love Your Doppelganger
Hallucinating yourself can be both a symptom and a tool.
Chapter four
Bodies
Biology | Animals
Half Male, Half Female, Total Animal
Mixed-sex animals teach us about our own multifarious nature.
Culture | Neuroscience
An Expert’s Guide to Celebrity Faces
The way we process faces means that symmetry is only part of the story.
Ideas | Neuroscience
“We Are Visual Animals, Driven By Images”
The head of the Max Planck Society discusses the science of creative visualization.
Ideas | Neuroscience
Picasso and Einstein Got the Picture
Breakthroughs in science and art begin with an image.
Chapter five
Blast Off
Matter | Astronomy
When the Earth Had Two Moons
A new model—“The Big Splat”—explains the strange asymmetry of the moon.
Ideas | Computer Science
Ingenious: Gregory Laughlin
An astrophysicist looks into the future and the distance.
Ideas | Computer Science
Third Data Server From the Sun
The Earth is becoming a computer visible across galactic distance.
Matter | Physics
The Disappearing Physicist and His Elusive Particle
He ushered symmetry into theoretical physics, then vanished without a trace.
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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The Most Symmetrical Objects in the World
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