ScienceBlogs

The letter below is from Perfectly Reasonabe Deviations From The Beaten Track, a book of letters of Richard Feynman. It is one of the most moving letters that I have read. Tomonaga mentioned below shared the 1965 Nobel prize for physics along with Feynman

Writing in 1866, John Venn (of Venn diagram fame) wrote:To many persons the mention of Probability suggests little else than the notion of a set of rules, very ingenious and profound rules no doubt, with which mathematicians amuse themselves by setting an

I'm currently reading "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter. I'll be posting a review of it after I finish it. A "strange loop" is Hofstadter's term for a Gödel-esque self-referential cycle. A strange loop doesn't have to involve Gödel style problem

This is an enhanced version (with some upgraded images and text) of an article I first wrote over two years ago. It is just as valid today as it was back then, only today, I have a special offer to go with it. Next week, a bunch of cosmologists and myself

Last night I mentioned that diphenhydramine is a somewhat promiscuous molecule, binding to a number of disparate receptors. One of its effects is some inhibition of serotonin reuptake. As you've probably read in countless pop science articles by now, this

The Cylob Cryptogram is a little-known, but fascinating crypto mystery. Here are a few new thoughts on it. The crypto mystery I call "Cylob Cryptogram" was discovered by British rock musician Cylob (Chris Jeffs) in the 1990s. If you don't know Cylob, here

Crypto expert Frode Weierud has published a collection of unsolved cryptograms from 1969. If you're looking for a challenging codebreaking project, here you go. Many readers of this blog certainly know Frode Weierud. Frode, a retired software developer fr

SYNAESTHESIA is a neurological condition in which there is a merging of the senses, so that activity in one sensory modality elicits sensations in another. Although first described by Francis Galton in the 1880s, little was known about this condition unti

US crypto expert Jim Gillogly broke over 1,000 transposition cryptograms created by IRA activists in the 1920s. Only one of these messages remained unsolved. Now, it has been broken by Richard Bean from Brisbane, Australia. Decoding the IRA is the title o