Beyond Op-Eds: New Ways of Advocating the Humanities: the former director of the National Humanities Center discusses ways to get teachers, and students, more involved in explaining how and why the humanities are important. From the article: "...what is most needed right now: not making the case but developing richer and more meaningful ways of [...]
A scientist reads the book of life, without annotations, but through imagery To read the book of life can be a great delight and an edifying experience; but only if one abstains from decorating every page with annotations in the margins and with corrections, and, even more importantly, from tearing them out and throwing [...]
Did Newton practice junk science? A journalist takes issue with Newton's preoccupation with alchemy. As she puts it: ... Newton was super into alchemy, a medieval "science" that preceded chemistry. Practitioners believed it was possible to transform one metal into another. The ultimate goal was figuring out how to transform lead into gold, and the elusive [...]
Nature, time, and self-discovery: a physicist speaks about the mysteries of our lives, hearkening to Lucretius: Nature is our home, and in nature we are at home. This strange, multicolored, and astonishing world that we explore -- where space is granular, time does not exist, and things are nowhere -- is not something that estranges us [...]
Critical reason and the life of the unconscious: at what expense to our lives do we refine our reason, especially when it comes to understanding crucial matters of life and death? A man should be able to say he has done his best to form a conception of life after death, or to create some [...]
Wise fools and foolish wits: what experience should teach us, if we would learn from it: "To learn that we have said or done a foolish thing, that is nothing: we must learn that we are fools, a far broader and more important lesson." Michel de Montaigne, "On Experience"
A quarrel for the ages: Past Present, and Future are at odds with each other. Past: Can you hear me? Future: I am waiting for your voice, and your counsel. Speak up! Present: What's the fuss? Past: I am trying to speak to the Future. Future: I am trying to hear the Past. Present: You [...]
A classics major adds value for engineering and STEM: a profile of Tim O'Reilly, who brings classical ethics and eloquence to the world of technology. From the article: O’Reilly has a deep understanding of how knowledge should disseminate in a society, and how best to make that happen.... Building a knowledge community is an art, [...]
Gambling on the meaning of nothing: how much do we really understand one another, even as friends? Minaccio, a witty man and a gambler, once lost his cash and his coat, too, playing at dice (he was truly poor), and sat weeping at the doorway of the tavern. A friend saw him distraught and in [...]
How the humanities teach us the art of life. A professor of literature asks about life's greater meaning, which the humanities may provide. According to the author, "The humanities interrogate us. They challenge our sense of who we are, even of who our brothers and sisters might be."
