The question in the title of this post involves not one but two enigmas: Artistic merit is an abstract and slippery concept, and assigning intention to the actions of other species is a perpetual challenge. Thus, the question invites various, contradictory answers. Still, I find myself inspired by the activities of other animals, and believe […]

There is more to the world than meets the human eye, a fact that hit home for the 18th-century astronomer Sir Frederick William Herschel when he discovered infrared light—a wavelength of light that lies just outside the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. We can feel its heat, but we can’t see the light—not without […]

The world is your casino. But bettors beware—the house always wins.

One of the last things you’d expect to see at a physics conference is a physicist on stage, in a dapper hat, pounding out a few riffs of the blues on a keyboard. But that’s exactly what University of Illinois professor J. Murray Gibson did at the recent March meeting of the American Physical Society […]

Welcome to Nautilus’ blog, “Facts So Romantic”! The name, if you didn’t see the note on the blog’s homepage, refers to a quote from Jules Verne: “Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” (Verne also helped name the magazine itself; the amazingly hi-tech submarine from 20,000 Leagues […]