In the world of theoretical physics, some ideas solve a problem. Others reshape an entire field. Jainendra K. Jain’s theory of composite fermions belongs firmly in the second category.Born in rural Rajasthan and now the Erwin W. Müller Professor of Physics at Pennsylvania State University, Jain has spent much of his career tackling questions that…
When Alan Tholkes was just 17 years old, a car accident changed his life forever, leaving him paralysed with a spinal cord injury. Rather than letting the setback define him, the Minnesota native spent decades turning his personal struggles into innovations aimed at helping others with mobility challenges. Over the next 40 years, he designed…
Stanley Milgram (Image source: Wikipedia) Most of us like to think we would never harm an innocent person just because someone told us to. We trust our own conscience to stop us. Stanley Milgram, a psychologist who studied this question, discovered something far more uncomfortable. Again and again, ordinary, decent people went along with orders…
Quote of the day by Rosalind Franklin (Image source: Britannica) Many people think of science as something distant and a little intimidating. A world of labs, equations and experts that has nothing to do with ordinary life. Rosalind Franklin, one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century, firmly disagreed. To her, science was…
Quote of the day by Stephen Hawking In a single sentence, Stephen Hawking manages to make you feel very small and very important at the same time. First he cuts us down to size. We are clever apes, he says, living on an unremarkable planet, circling an ordinary star, in a universe almost too vast…
Sharing images from the exercise, Nasa said the ISS crew recreated a 2019 study using the official World Cup ball to understand how a football’s balance and centre of mass influence its movement. The official match ball for the 2026 FIFA World Cup has made an unlikely stop before the tournament- outer space.Astronauts aboard the…
Artemis III crew including, from left, Andre Douglas, Luca Parmitano, Randy Bresnik and Frank Rubio (Image/AP) Nasa is facing backlash over its decision to select an all-male crew for the Artemis III, a mission named after the Greek goddess Artemis and part of the programme that aims to return humans to the Moon.Critics questioned why…
Drop a glass and it falls, whether or not you believe in gravity. The Earth circles the Sun, whether or not it ever crossed your mind. That stubborn, slightly cheeky truth is the whole idea behind one of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s most quoted lines. He is making a simple point that lands harder the longer…
Sir William Osler (Image: Wikipedia) History is full of people who thought of something brilliant first and got none of the credit for it. Someone else came along later, explained the idea more clearly, pushed it harder, and won the fame. It feels unfair, and in a way it is. But it is also how…
The National Science Foundation on Thursday reversed a decision to dismantle a sprawling ocean monitoring network after vigorous objections from Democratic lawmakers and scientists who rely on it to track everything from ocean circulation to extreme weather.The NSF issued a statement saying that it “appreciates the concerns raised by the range of stakeholders” and would…