SEDInsights

Julian Schwinger learned physics largely on his own, early and intensely. By his late teens he was already publishing work that senior physicists took seriously. By his twenties, he was doing calculations others could barely follow. This was not speed for its own sake. It was control.  He worked mostly at night. He carried long derivations in his head. He could return months later to a calculation scribbled on a scrap of paper and immediately see what was missing. When others finished a problem in half a year, he had often done it in an evening quietly, without witnesses.  In the late 1940s, quantum electrodynamics needed more than ideas. It needed a framework that could survive precision tests. Schwinger provided it: a relativistically covariant, gauge-invariant formulation that made renormalization work, and made sense of the Lamb shift and the electron’s anomalous magnetic moment. The calculations were long, exacting, and essentially error-free.  At Harvard, his lectur...

Giving money to someone like Maxwell might have seemed the most absurd encouragement of mere "curiosity-driven" science, and an imprudent judgment for practical legislators.  Why grant money now, so nerdish scientists talking incomprehensible gibberish can indulge their hobbies, when there are urgent unmet national needs? Maxwell wasn't thinking of radio, radar, and television when he first scratched out the fundamental equations of electromagnetism; Newton wasn't dreaming of space flight or communications satellites when he first understood the motion of the Moon; Roentgen wasn't contemplating medical diagnosis when he investigated a penetrating radiation so mysterious he called it "X-rays"; Curie wasn't thinking of cancer therapy when she painstakingly extracted minute amounts of radium from tons of pitchblende; Fleming wasn't planning on saving the lives of millions with antibiotics when he noticed a circle free of bacteria around a growth of ...

Logic Gates Explained: Symbols, Boolean Expressions & Truth Tables Logic gates are the foundation of digital electronics and computer logic. This chart neatly compares all major logic gates—AND, OR, XOR, NOT, NAND, NOR, and XNOR—using symbols, Boolean expressions, Venn diagrams, and truth tables. It helps students clearly understand how inputs A and B combine to produce an output. Perfect for exam revision, quick recall, and building strong fundamentals in Boolean algebra and digital logic systems.

One idea can quietly reshape everything we think we know. Some interpretations of quantum physics suggest that death may not be a final ending, but a shift in perspective—an apparent boundary rather than an absolute stop. From this view, consciousness does not simply vanish when the body fails. At the quantum level, reality behaves in ways that challenge everyday logic. Particles exist in multiple states, time behaves strangely, and observation itself appears to influence outcomes. These principles open space for questions science has not fully answered. Rather than offering certainty, this perspective invites humility. It reminds us that human understanding remains incomplete, especially when it comes to existence, awareness, and continuity. If death is not a wall but a doorway we do not yet comprehend, then fear loses some of its grip. The idea encourages reflection on how we live now—how presence, compassion, and meaning may matter more than final outcomes. 

Newton wrote more about theology than about science and math combined. He was deeply religious and spent a considerable amount of time studying the Bible, writing about his interpretations of scripture, and predicting the end of the world, which he speculated would not occur before 2060.

Research shows creativity boosts happiness, slows ageing, and even lowers disease risk. Engaging in creative arts is emerging as a powerful, evidence-based strategy for improving both mental and physical health across the lifespan.  Drawing on large cohort studies, Daisy Fancourt shows that people who frequently participate in activities such as music, dance, crafting, theatre, reading, and writing report greater happiness and life satisfaction, and have lower risks of depression, loneliness, antisocial behaviors, and even some physical conditions as they age. Arts engagement in childhood is linked with better prosocial skills and fewer behavioral problems in adolescence, while older adults who maintain hobbies and attend cultural events show better self-rated health, sleep, cognition, balance, less frailty, and even reduced risks of diseases like diabetes. Biological data suggest that regular artistic activity is associated with lower blood pressure, healthier immune a...

In 1949, John Wheeler and Richard Feynman suggested something radical: particles don’t act on themselves, only on each other ✍️ "The theory of direct interparticle action is equivalent, not to the usual field theory, but to a modified or adjunct field theory, in which: (1) the motion of a given particle is determined by the sum of the fields produced by—or adjunct to—every particle other than the given particle. (2) the field adjunct to a given particle is uniquely determined by the motion of that particle, and is given by half the retarded plus half the advanced solution of the field equations of Maxwell for the point charge in question. This description of nature differs from that given by the usual field theory in three respects: (1) There is no such concept as “the” field, an independent entity with degrees of freedom of its own. (2) There is no action of an elementary charge upon itself and consequently no problem of an infinity in the energy of the electromagnetic field. (3)...

Roger Penrose, one of the most imaginative thinkers in modern physics, believes that gravity holds a special place in the quantum world. While many scientists try to merge quantum mechanics and general relativity into a single theory, Penrose suggests that gravity itself may cause the collapse of quantum states. In his view, the smooth geometry of spacetime cannot fully coexist with the strange superpositions of quantum particles. At some point, nature must choose a definite state, and gravity is the force that makes this choice happen. Penrose argues that when mass is placed in two different positions at once, spacetime is forced into two different shapes. This tension cannot last. The system becomes unstable, and the quantum state collapses into one clear reality. He calls this idea “objective reduction,” meaning that collapse is a real physical event, not just a mathematical trick or an act of observation. This perspective gives gravity a deeper, almost creative role in...

Photons shape reality by acting as light particles and waves at once, driving everything from vision to stars. This dual nature challenges logic quickly and keeps scientists fascinated. Light is not just brightness. It carries energy, information, and structure, making it one of the most important messengers in the universe. A photon is the smallest packet of light possible. It has no weight, yet it carries momentum. It can act like a tiny bullet hitting a surface, or like a spreading wave passing through space. Quantum physics allows this dual behavior without contradiction. Light simply follows rules that differ from everyday experience. This strange behavior explains why light can bend, reflect, interfere, and still trigger precise reactions. Solar panels rely on photon impacts. Eyes convert photons into signals the brain understands. Even photos taken by phones depend on photons behaving reliably. Something so abstract quietly powers modern life without demanding atten...