Words of Wisdom — February 13, 2014

George Washington on Honesty

“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” – George Washington (born on this date in 1732)

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A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” – George Washington (born on this date in 1732)

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Words of Wisdom

George Washington Carver on Common Things

“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” -George Washington Carver (born on this date in 1864 – we think)

Close-up of an analog weight scale needle pointing to zero grams, with a black background.

Hard Science

You’re made of energy: The strange truth about where mass comes from

“A person’s mass is made not of ‘stuff’ in the way we normally think about it, but rather our mass is made of energy.”

An illustration of Galileo Galilei with a historical text and a lunar sketch alongside.

13.8

Why seeing Galileo’s original experiments left me speechless

“I was stunned. Here in front of me was the original apparatus through which a new vision of the world was slowly and painfully brought to light.”

Global geoid map with colorful variations representing differences in Earth's gravity field. The scale ranges from -100 (low) to 100 (high). Europe's position is central.

Starts With A Bang

Scalar fields: the secret sauce of theoretical physics

Scalars, vectors, and tensors come up all the time in physics. They’re more than mathematical structures. They help describe the Universe.

Collage of geopolitical symbols, featuring a close-up of a man's bald head, China's flag, a globe highlighting Taiwan, and circuit patterns.

The Present

Why the USSR and China fell behind the US in the Chip Cold War

Both nations made missteps, but China still has a chance to make up lost ground.

Up Next

Words of Wisdom

Anaïs Nin on Defeat

“Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.” – Anaïs Nin (born on this date in 1903)