This year’s 24/7 Lecturers are hard at work preparing their lectures for the 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. These lectures — a complete technical description of a subject in 24 seconds, followed by a clear summary in seven words — demand more skill and thought than the audience may realize. Here is a […]
Here’s Diego Golombek talking about reading and wondering about time travel—an experience that, when he was a child, excited Diego in a way that led to his eventual unusual career. Diego now studies—and experiments with—biology to try to understand some of the seemingly simply, scientifically mystifying things that happen in nature every day. This is […]
“Have you tried taking a stiff drink or two?” might not be a question that a professional writer would expect from their doctor. Unless, that is, they suffered from writer’s cramp, and their doctor had come across a 2012 case report in the journal Internal Medicine – Alcohol-Responsive Writer’s Cramp – in which Sung-Chul Lim, […]
J.S. Milne (pictured here) wrote a list of “Tips for Authors.” Though intended for mathematicians, it may be equally useful to others. Milne’s list begins with this: If you write clearly, then your readers may understand your mathematics and conclude that it isn’t profound. Worse, a referee may find your errors. Here are some tips […]
