Imagine you are sitting in a big symphony hall, and you’re listening to an orchestra play for the first time. The orchestra is performing a Violin Concerto by Beethoven. As the soloist runs her hands ...

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 ...

It’s not unusual for me to receive mail questioning quantum mechanics and special relativity. I’ll admit, these ideas can sound a bit crazy. For some people, these ideas are simply too ...

In this example we considered the free response of a fixed-fixed string to a set of initial conditions that resulted from pulling the string at its midpoint and releasing it from rest. We found that ...