the physics of sundays

I very vividly remember the day the Chernobyl accident was announced at the Italian TV, and the news of a few days later when the authorities asked people to stop consuming “wide-leaf vegetables” because of the risk of accumulation of

Carrying loads on the head has been a common practice in many parts of the world. I remember ancient paintings of women from Southern Italy dressed in traditional costumes, carrying water with the typical “conca”, a hourglass-shaped copper or tin container of

Like almost any Italian student of physics of the 70s, I did my share of the experimental measurement of the half-life of the muon. Although I followed the theoretical physics curriculum, we had to pass one painful exam each year

Animal locomotion is a complicate problem for the zoologist, starting from the mechanics of muscles and bones, but linked to physiology, reproduction, food consumption, ecological adaptation, animal metabolism, evolutionary pressure, and many other things that defy the naïve imagination of

On January 14, 1995, a player at Bally’s Casino in Atlantic City bought $100 worth of Keno tickets (a popular lottery played on slot machines) with eight numbers selected on each ticket. After the draw, some mr. Reid Errol McNeal collected his receipts: one of those

In this day one year ago, Freeman Dyson died at age 96. A brilliant mathematician and theoretical physicist, he gave a major contribution to quantum electrodynamics while being still a young research fellow. He was tutored by Hans Bethe and Richard Feynman, but he

Some time ago I was invited through my Springer editor to an event for the International Festival of Science, which takes place every year in Genova, Italy. The theme of the soiree was something entertaining about “scientists making mistakes”. The room was full for

From The New Republic of March 9, 1932, we can read the following, rather surprising note: “A young woman has been appearing at the Warner Brothers’ Theatre, in Hollywood, California, about whom there is an unusual fact. She is a professional prophet; her name is Eugenie

When I first arrived in Argonne, more than a quarter of century ago, I was a visiting professor, and obviously (noblesse oblige…) I could not sit in the communal students’ rooms. Short of individual offices, the only solution was to

Leonardo da Vinci was used to pull brilliant ideas out of nowhere, with a depth of thinking that is still astounding today. Even if some of his scientific and artistic intuitions were just wrong, so many others came so close