Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is a researcher at Princeton University, and she showed me her lab this June. When I first met Jamie, she was testing instruments to be launched on NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. The spacecraft has approac...
science - 4 months ago
If I ever mention a crazy high-school English teacher to you, I might be referring to Mr. Lukacs. One morning, before the first bell rang, I found him wandering among the lockers, wearing a white bea...
It’s the beginning of another summer, and I’m looking forward to outdoor barbecues, swimming in lakes and pools, and sharing my home-made ice cream with friends and family. One thing that I won’t enc...
The Noncommuting-Charges World Tour (Part 3 of 4) This is the third part of a four-part series covering the recent Perspective on noncommuting charges. I’ll post one part every ~5 weeks leading...
Many people ask why I became a theoretical physicist. The answer runs through philosophy—which I thought, for years, I’d left behind in college. My formal relationship with philosophy originated w...
Even if you don’t recognize the name, you probably recognize the saguaro cactus. It’s the archetype of the cactus, a column from which protrude arms bent at right angles like elbows. As my husband pointed out, the cactus emoji is a saguaro: . In Tucson, Arizona, even the airport has a saguaro crop...
