Now, almost one hundred years later, it is difficult to fully appreciate how much our picture of the universe has changed in the span of a single human lifetime. As far as the scientific community...

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing...

Metaphysical speculation is independent of the physical validity of the Big Bang itself and is irrelevant to our understanding of it.

If we wish to draw philosophical conclusions about our own existence, our significance, and the significance of the universe itself, our conclusions should be based on empirical knowledge. A truly open mind means forcing our...

A physicist, an engineer and a psychologist are called in as consultants to a dairy farm whose production has been below par. Each is given time to inspect the details of the operation before making...

Of course, supernatural acts are what miracles are all about. They are, after all, precisely those things that circumvent the laws of nature. A god who can create the laws of nature can presumably also...

The one thing that I want every single child to have experienced at some point in their life, as part of their education, is to have some idea they hold to be true, and at...

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it

More often than you might think, teaching science is inseparable from teaching doubt.

[I]n science we have to be particularly cautious about ‘why’ questions. When we ask, ‘Why?’ we usually mean ‘How?’ If we can answer the latter, that generally suffices for our purposes. For example, we might...

A universe without purpose should neither depress us nor suggest that our lives are purposeless. Through an awe-inspiring cosmic history we find ourselves on this remote planet in a remote corner of the universe, endowed...

The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really...

In 5 billion years, the expansion of the universe will have progressed to the point where all other galaxies will have receded beyond detection. Indeed, they will be receding faster than the speed of light,...