Posts published in “Scientific Curmudgeon”

By now, you might have heard that physicists have created a wormhole, which heretofore has existed, as far as we know, only in the imaginations of physicists and science-fiction writers.

I’ve always been obsessed with the limits of science. How far can science go? Can it keep giving us deep insights into nature forever, or will it eventually run into a wall?

The approach of Thanksgiving, that quintessential American holiday, has me brooding once again over scientists’ slanderous portrayals of Native Americans as bellicose brutes.

I have a tendency to sleepwalk through my days, performing tasks automatically: roll out of bed, eat cereal with banana slices, teach freshman humanities class.

Philosophers bicker over what morality means, but you could define it as simply helping others. The moral movement called longtermism says we should do more to help those who might live in the future; we should try to maximize the numbers and happiness of possible people.

Have you ever been gripped by the suspicion that nothing is real? A former student here at Stevens has endured feelings of unreality since childhood.

Pure mathematics fascinates me, precisely because it is so inaccessible. I envision it as a remote, chilly, perilous realm, like Antarctica’s Sentinel Mountains.

I recently asked my first-year humanities classes: Will war ever end? I specified that I had in mind the end of war and even the threat of war between nations.

I admire Sabine Hossenfelder, the iconoclastic physicist. In her writings and videos, she is blunt, clear, courageous, funny. So her advocacy for superdeterminism distresses me.