The basic idea of Western science is that you don't have to take into account the falling of a leaf on some planet in another galaxy when you're trying to account for the motion of a billiard ball on a pool table on earth. Very small influences can be neglected. There's a convergence in the way things work, and arbitrarily small influences don't blow up to have arbitrarily large effects.

Cyberspace, especially, draws us into the instant.

Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.

Ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility.

Running for president is the new selfie.

The history of life is written in terms of negative entropy.

Children and scientists share an outlook on life. If I do this, what will happen? is both the motto of the child at play and the defining refrain of the physical scientist. ... The unfamiliar and the strange - these are the domain of all children and scientists.