Almost every person knows a form of transportation, which can been learnt in childhood and used by nearly everyone until old age: cycling. Whether one thinks of the athlete that places himself in the aerodynamically optimal position almost belly down flat on the frame or the elderly lady sitting comfortably upright on the bike seat, […]

One of the most interesting questions in both the natural sciences and philosophy deals with the nature and essence of time. Here we see ourselves confronted with a remarkable dichotomy: the chronology of everyday life is almost entirely based on recurring cosmic and earthly processes, the daily course of the sun, the monthly cycle of […]

Of the many bizarre things that theoretical physics has confronted us over the last 100 years, “black holes” are probably among the most peculiar. After Albert Einstein had formulated the basic equations of his general theory of relativity in November 1915, it took less than a year for the physicists to understand the dramatic consequences […]

In a recent article, the concept of “symmetry” has been suggested to serve as a rare discursive bridge between physics and the arts. While most of the ancient and modern art conceptions regard symmetry as an essential criterion of beauty, theoretical physics of the twentieth century discovered in it a grounding principle in mathematical disguise. […]

    Still a hundred years after its formation quantum physics offers abundant grounds for confusion among non-physicists – and sometimes even physicists. To understand it with our common sense proves practically impossible. The nature of the quantum objects with properties such as wave-particle dualism, superpositions of distinctly different states, measurements depending on the observer, […]

A concept that moves scientists and artists alike and which seems to be suitable like no other to strike a rare discursive bridge between their two disciplines is the concept of beauty, in a narrower context “symmetry”. Most of the ancient and modern art conceptions regard symmetry as an essential criterion of beauty. Theoretical physics […]

Our conventional idea of political demonstrations is that either the politically oppressed, people who consider themselves as economic underdogs, or those who commit themselves strongly to a particular politic cause meet in order to express their displeasure about their situation or the state of world. University professors and scientific staff have hitherto less likely been […]

In the eyes of many people in the second half of the twentieth century science had encountered a real epistemological and identity crises. If concepts like fields and waves, invisible forces (gravity) and movements, heat and entropy had already had the character of the bizarre and incomprehensible for non-physicists in the nineteenth century, these concepts […]