Guest Thinkers — February 16, 2011

20%

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20% time for elementary and secondary students? I like it.

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

Diagram of the solar system with gravitational waves emanating from a distant bright source, and a triangular spacecraft array detecting the waves in space.

Starts With A Bang podcast #117 – Gravitational waves and the Universe

Just 10 years ago, humanity had never directly detected a single gravitational wave. We’re closing in on 300 now, with so much more to come!

Mini Philosophy

Why Tolkien thought “sub-creation” was the secret to great fantasy and science fiction

According to Tolkien, fantasy requires a deep imagination known as “sub-creation.” And the genre reflects a fundamental truth of being human.

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: Could dark energy be more negative than a cosmological constant?

The fact that our Universe’s expansion is accelerating implies that dark energy exists. But could it be even weirder than we’ve imagined?

A graphic with text “an excerpt from” on the left and the book cover of “The Never Ending Empire” by Aldo Cazzullo on the right, exploring how the Roman Empire still influences British culture today.

Books

The Empire reflects back: Rome’s lasting influence on British culture

From medieval myths to Shakespeare’s plays and modern cinema, British culture kept the Roman Empire alive long after its fall.

A graphic featuring the text "The Nightcrawler," a black-and-white photo of a lighthouse amid waves that outlast the storm, and a green-tinted portrait of a man.

Business

Why I’m writing OUTLAST: a book about resilience (and hope)

Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

Backlash against progress monitoring

The benefits of ongoing progress monitoring of students on essential academic skills (i.e., “power standards“) are well established. But, as Sherman Dorn notes , some school districts are starting to […]