Philip Ball

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog. Imagine if all our scientific theories and models told us only about averages: if the best weather forecasts could only give you the average daily amount of rain expected over the next month, or if astronomers could only predict the average time between solar eclipses. In the early days of quantum […]

As scientists chase tantalizing hints of a new force, modern physics hangs in the balance.

An alternative history of the great ideas of science.

As science blurs the real and unreal, we are learning to distinguish them in new ways.

Teaching cursive handwriting doesn’t have nearly the value we think it does.

The biochemist explains the elements of life, sex, and aging.

New insights into mitochondria reveal how life expends energy.

Physics is not just what happens in the Department of Physics.

The geometric rules behind fly eyes, honeycombs, and soap bubbles.

Using physics to describe social phenomena can work—if it’s the right physics.