Guest Thinkers — December 21, 2010

Today in San’a

Gregory Johnsen

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

If anyone has some free time and can make it this sounds like an interesting, if predictable, lecture.

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

Two silhouetted figures on a slope; one pushes a large green sphere uphill, while the other lightly kicks a small green ball downhill against a gray grid background.

Smart Skills

How losing all my free time forced me to rethink productivity

Unconsidered productivity might leave you moving efficiently in the entirely wrong direction.

A repeating pattern of wireframe 3D geometric shapes intersected by diagonal yellow lines on a black background, evoking a physics break down of forms at the Planck scale.

Starts With A Bang

Why does physics break down at the Planck scale?

There are limits to where physics makes meaningful predictions: beyond the Planck length, time, or energy. Here’s why we can’t go further.

Bright star at the center of a blue nebula radiates mass energy, surrounded by numerous smaller stars, with diffraction spikes visible from the brightest stars.

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: When do stars turn the most mass into energy?

All stars shine due to an internal source of energy. Usually, it’s nuclear fusion: converting mass into energy. What makes them most bright?

A vintage-style illustration of a celestial scene, echoing science fiction by scientists, features a textured black planet and a whimsical moon with an eye, all enclosed in a pale green border against a starry background.

Books

5 classic science fiction novels written by scientists

What happens when scientists “write what they know”? Some amazing science fiction stories.

Black and white photo of a young woman resting her chin on her hand, set against a green background with circular and brain patterns.

Thinking

Why Hannah Arendt left philosophy behind to face the world

Arendt thought 20th-century philosophy had become too passive and abstract. She called for “active thinking” that prepares us to live in the real world.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

Really easy tea leaves

GENEVA – The United Nations food agency said on Friday a lack of funds had forced it to cut back rations for around one million people in Yemen, despite growing […]