If Stephen Hawking, as a scientist, wants to be logical in his boycott of anything associated with Israeli technology, including conferences that are being held in Israel, then he should extend his efforts to banning the use of Israeli developments and products ("Why Stephen Hawking's Israel boycott matters," Web, May 11). Unfortunately, such an action would render his ability to communicate almost nil.
Stephen Hawking, world-renowned physicist and a former math professor at the University of Cambridge, has hopped aboard the boycott bus of Israel, in protest of the nation's perceived poor treatment of Palestinians.
Malthusians can breathe a sigh of relief: If current trends hold, human beings won't fulfill doomsday predictions by making like rabbits after all. Thanks to the success of incessant fear-mongering, the world's population is expected to peak soon and then begin a long slide downward. That's fewer of us "defacing" the planet.
Activists angered by Pope Benedict XVI's recent comment about gay marriage have held a small protest in St. Peter's Square during the pontiff's weekly address there.
A Russian billionaire's foundation is awarding two special prizes of $3 million each to British cosmologist Stephen Hawking for his work on black holes and to seven scientists at the world's biggest atom-smasher for their roles in the discovery of a new subatomic particle believed to be the long-sought Higgs boson.
A year ago, not many people had heard of Lena Dunham. This year, in a sign of her stunningly swift path to major fame, the young creator and star of HBO's "Girls" was one of the top draws of the weekend's New Yorker Festival, the annual gathering where fans of the magazine flock to hear their favorite authors, actors, directors, artists and politicians interviewed, of course, by their favorite New Yorker writers.
William F. Buckley Jr., addressing the issue of complaining in 1961, wrote: "When our voices are finally mute, when we have finally suppressed the natural instinct to complain, whether the vexation is trivial or grave, we shall have become automatons, incapable of feeling." How apt his words are for Joan Rivers, a woman whose complaints are trivial and whose body is almost in the grave.
While the discovery of the Higgs boson — nicknamed "God particle" to the chagrin of many scientists and theologians — may conclude one query into the frontiers of physics, experts already say it will throw open the door to new dimensions of research.
Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher hailed the discovery of "the missing cornerstone of physics" Wednesday, cheering the apparent end of a decades-long quest for a new subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, or "God particle," which could help explain why all matter has mass and crack open a new realm of subatomic science.
