Based on what we know now and can reasonably imagine, there is absolutely no prospect that any human being will ever visit the edge of our own solar system—ever.
BEFORE HE CAME INTO a lot of money in 1839, Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, led a largely uneventful life.
Australians are the biggest gamblers on the planet – one of the more arresting statistics I saw was that the country has less than 1 per cent of the world’s population but more than 20 per cent of its...
At the turn of the century, New York had more speakers of German than anywhere in the world except Vienna and Berlin, more Irish than anywhere but Dublin, more Russians than in Kiev, more Italians tha...
At all events, rather less is known about Lucy than is generally supposed. It isn’t even actually known that she was a female.
Astronomers today believe there are perhaps 140 billion galaxies in the visible universe.
As the economist Herman Daly once put it: The current national accounting system treats the earth as a business in liquidation.
As a rule, you knew it was time to eat when you could hear potatoes exploding in the oven. Happily, all this suited my father. His palate only responded to two tastes - burned and ice cream - so every...
As John Reader understatedly observes in the book Missing Links, It is remarkable how often the first interpretations of new evidence have confirmed the preconceptions of its discoverer. All
Anyway, we did it, Katz said at last, looking up. He noted my quizzical expression.Hiked Maine, I mean.I looked at him. Stephen, we didn't even see Mount Katahdin.He dismissed this as a petty quibble....
An asteroid or comet traveling at cosmic velocities would enter the Earth’s atmosphere at such a speed that the air beneath it couldn’t get out of the way and would be compressed, as in a bicycle pump...
An Association for Prevention of Premature Burial was established in Britain in 1899 and an American society was formed the following year.
Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely, Tryon emphasized that no one had counted the failed attempts. Martin
Although the Spirit of St. Louis looked metallic, and was often described as such in newspaper reports, only the nose cowling was actually of metal. With only a thin layer of canvas between the pilot...
All the light switches in the hallways were timed to go off after ten or fifteen seconds, presumably as an economy measure. This wasn’t so bad if your room was next to the elevator, but if it was very...
All over the inchoate solar system, the same was happening. Colliding dust grains formed larger and larger clumps. Eventually the clumps grew large enough to be called planetesimals.
All over America today people would be dragging themselves to work, stuck in traffic jams, wreathed in exhaust smoke. I was going for a walk in the woods.
All of this is by way of coming around to the somewhat paradoxical observation that we speak with remarkable laxness and imprecision and yet manage to express ourselves with wondrous subtlety—and simp...
Alexander von Humboldt, yet another friend, may have had Agassiz at least partly in mind when he observed that there are three stages in scientific discovery: first, people deny that it is true; then...
After four years, he stumbled from the steamy jungles exhausted, his clothes in tatters, trembling and half delirious from a recurrent fever, but with a rare collection of specimens. In the Brazilian...