Jesse Dunietz

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, is usually associated with famous awardees—people like Bruce Springsteen, Stephen Hawking, and Sandra Day O’Connor. So as a computer scientist, I was thrilled to see one of this year’s awards go to a lesser-known pioneer: one Margaret Hamilton.You might call Hamilton the founding mother of software […]

A few months ago, my aunt sent her colleagues an email with the subject, “Math Problem! What is the answer?” It contained a deceptively simple puzzle:She thought her solution was obvious. Her colleagues, though, were sure their solution was correct—and the two didn’t match. Was the problem with one of their answers, or with the […]

I have an idea that would keep 100 percent of foreign-born terrorists out of the United States. Not only that, it’s far simpler than any presidential candidate’s proposals. All we have to do is this: Never let anybody in. Most of us find this idea ludicrous, of course, and rightly so. Keeping out terrorists is […]

If I claimed that Americans have gotten more self-centered lately, you might just chalk me up as a curmudgeon, prone to good-ol’-days whining. But what if I said I could back that claim up by analyzing 150 billion words of text? A few decades ago, evidence on such a scale was a pipe dream. Today, […]

Let’s play a game. I’ll show you a picture and a couple videos—just watch the first five seconds or so—and you figure out what they have in common. Ready? Here we go:Did you spot it? Each of them depicts the exact same object: a shiny, slightly squashed-looking teapot. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in […]