A new book covering the history of scientific inquiry invites us to marvel at the elegance of experimentation. Some philosophers have argued that “beauty” in science stands as a proxy for truth. Many ...

Last week over in Twitter-land, Philip Ball asked an interesting question: I’ve written a fair bit about historical science, and read more than I’ve written, so this question stuck with me, and seems ...

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but for the science writer Philip Ball it emerges from within. In “Beautiful Experiments: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science” Mr. Ball argues that ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. In a mind-warping milestone experiment, scientists have been able to ...

The Matter of Everything tells the history of physics through experiments. Any book about the history of science for a general audience will, of necessity, be something of a distortion. The question ...

Older DNA strands are preferentially sorted into stem cells when they self-renew (A). This segregates the DNA most recently replicated, and therefore most error-prone, into cells destined for ...

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in ...