Image of fractal

A Mandelbrot set • Wolfgang Beyer (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Image of astronomical clock

Astronomical clock, Prague • Photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash

Image of the Big Dipper

Ursa Major • Image by Michal Kryński from Pixabay

Science and reality

For the past cou­ple of months I have had a New York­er cov­er tacked on the wall above my desk. The draw­ing on the cov­er, by Eugène Mihaesco, is sim­ple. A pen lays on a white table, its nib dark with ink. An ink bot­tle stands open. The ink in the bot­tle is a map of con­stel­la­tions of the north­ern sky — Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Dra­co — includ­ing the stars Dub­he, Mer­ak, and Mizar.

Electron micrograph of a mite

Electron micrograph of a typical dust mite • CSIRO (CC BY 3.0)

A very small world

Ever since I start­ed work­ing on this col­umn my eye­lids have been itch­ing, and I’ve been invol­un­tar­i­ly scratch­ing at my wrists and the gaps between my fin­gers. It may be psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly induced, but I swear that I feel them — the invad­ing hordes, the micro­scop­ic mon­sters, the aliens.

Image of Walden Pond

Walden Pond, Concord MA • Photo by Pablo Sanchez Martin (CC BY 2.0)

Artwork of neanderthal wearing jacket and tie

Street art in Glasgow, UK • Photo by Crawford Jolly on Unsplash

Image of frog

Photo by Jack Hamilton on Unsplash

Image of Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman, explaining a joke in 1964 (Public Domain)

Image of crystals

Photo by Jason D on Unsplash

Icons of nature’s design

They are “the cos­mi­cal­ly charged cor­ner­stones upon which the great pyra­mids of Egypt were built.” They are “nat­ur­al super­con­duc­tors through which a uni­verse of enlight­en­ment passed to the lost con­ti­nent of Atlantis.” They are crys­tals, and if you know how to use them they can make you healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Image of the Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider in Europe • Photo by Luigi Selmi (CC BY 2.0)