Magicians have one job: To exploit what we don’t know. Whether we’re watching David Blaine withstand a million-volt jolt of electricity or Darren Criss rip bodies apart, we’re entertained because we ...

In yesterday's post about the limits of physics, I noted that the ultimate problem is philosophical-- the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in Eugene Wigner's phrase. That is, physics, like ...

This post grows out of my recent work on the huge vogue in late nineteenth century America for predicting the near future – for utopian and (broadly) science fiction literature. As people projected ...

Science and magic are seen as opposites these days, but that’s been the case for the last century. From the ancient Greek philosophers to the Medieval alchemists, to the Theosophist to the ...