What Does "Well" Mean?

What Does "Well" Mean?

What does “Well” mean? Or, more specifically, what does ‘Well’ mean when it’s used as the first word in response to so-called ‘Wh-questions’ (which, what, who, whom, whose, where, whence, whither,…
Has A Fish ‘Broken’ A Law Of Physics?

Has A Fish ‘Broken’ A Law Of Physics?

How a fish ‘broke’ a law of physics ... says a press release from Bristol University. A great credit to the French is how, amid the turmoil of their revolution, so many of their scientists and…
How Reliable Are Sniffing Dogs?

How Reliable Are Sniffing Dogs?

A recent article about lie detectors brought up a related topic; drug/bomb sniffing dogs or the more general use of police service dogs.  Let me begin by acknowledging a bias; I love dogs.…
How Accurate Are Those Political Polls?

How Accurate Are Those Political Polls?

Nate Silver, a sports statistician, made waves when he accurately projected the results of the presidential election in 2008.  So a few days go when he predicted that President Obama was 75%…
The Multiverse

The Multiverse

Alan Guth, the discoverer of cosmic inflation, gave a talk at MIT on November 1, which convinced me, a natural skeptic about these issues, that the multiverse may very well exist. Two routes to the…