Commentary invited by editors of Scientific American
Saxophone quartets consist of four saxophones, usually a baritone, tenor, alto, and soprano, or maybe a second alto instead of a soprano. Because all saxophones are essentially the same instrument, just at different sizes, the instruments blend remarkably well...
A friend of mine is very hard of hearing — not quite deaf enough to fully belong to the deaf community, but sufficiently deaf that participating in a conversation is terribly hard work for her...
The fictional Iron Man exoskeleton debuted in Tales of Suspense #39 in 1963 and was conceived, designed, created, and piloted by “world’s greatest engineer” Tony Stark.
I wasn’t going to write about this. I was going to keep it to myself. But then Klaus Tschira, the chairperson of the HLF Foundation, mentioned it in his welcoming speech, and he didn’t mince words...
For generations, geometers have gotten used to not being able to see the objects that they prove theorems about. It’s a somewhat sad development in a subject that began in Euclid’s day with the splendidly visual concepts of points, lines, triangles, circles, conic sections and the like...
A global computer-based communication network has fundamentally changed our social, cultural, and political landscape over the past 20 years. As an evolutionary anthropologist, I have to point out that there has been no previous communication revolution of this speed or intensity. Consequently, this communication tool gives us the power to completely restructure our entire existence, [...]..
Mathematics and computer science do not have a Nobel Prize. Instead, these areas have their own prizes to honor outstanding achievement. Mathematics has the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize...
In our society, Big Data plays an increasingly important role. Organizations like Google and the National Security Agency (NSA) have access to an unprecedented capacity of information regarding what we buy, with whom we communicate, and which websites we visit...
Computer science, I think, gets even more neglected by science journalists than math does. Oh, sure, the next iPhone release gets lots of media attention, but that has little to do with how most computer scientists spend their time, and the general public rarely gets much of a view of the breadth and fascination of [...]..
This is a part of a series of Q&As with mathematicians and computer scientists participating at the 1st Heidelberg Laureate Forum, September 22-27, 2013.
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