Some bacteria in Africa beat Fermi to

Some bacteria in Africa beat Fermi to the first stable nuclear reactor on Earth by almost 2 billion years. The bacteria enriched the uranium into a critical mass and the flow of water through the reactor kept the reaction going for millions of years.

• bacteria
• nuclear
• physics
• science

Brian Greene on Albert Einstein’s miracle year,

Brian Greene on Albert Einstein’s miracle year, his discovery of the photoelectric effect, and his uneasiness with quantum mechanics.

• Albert Einstein
• briangreen
• physics
• quantum mechanics
• relativity
• science
• string theory

Genius

This seems familiar:

It made Feynman think wistfully about the days before the future of science had begun to feel like his mission — the days before physicists changed the universe and became the most potent political force within American science, before institutions with fast-expanding budgets began chasing nuclear physicists like Hollywood stars. He remembered when physics was a game, when he could look at the graceful narrowing curve in three dimensions that water makes as it streams from a tap, and he could take the time to understand why.

• books
• genius
• jamesgleick
• physics
• Richard Feynman
• science

Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb

Rhodes’ followup to The Making of the Atomic Bomb (for which he won a Pulitzer), while not as tight a narrative as its predecessor, was more interesting to me because I was less familiar with the story. In particular, the Soviet espionage effort during WWII was fascinating.

• Cold War
• darksun
• espionage
• physics
• richardrhodes
• science
• war