Interviews

Helge Kragh
Niels Bohr's Quantum Leap: Helge Kragh Explains the Physicist's Work on Atomic Structure
On the morning of October 6, 1943, Niels Bohr was smuggled out of occupied Denmark in the hold of a small fishing boat, crossing the Øresund strait to neutral Sweden... Read more...
The Quantum of Proof: Frank Close Explains Why Paul Dirac's Antimatter Matters
The Quantum of Proof: Frank Close Explains Why Paul Dirac's Antimatter Matters
In 1932, a young physicist named Carl Anderson was studying cosmic ray tracks in a cloud chamber at Caltech when he noticed something that should not have been there. A... Read more...
Jochen Heisenberg
Not a “Nuclear” Family: Jochen Heisenberg Sheds Light on Werner Heisenberg's Work, Refutes Father's Role in the Atomic Bomb Project
In the spring of 1945, American intelligence officers arrived at a farmhouse in the German village of Urfeld and took Werner Heisenberg into custody. Operation Alsos, the Allied mission to... Read more...
Susan Sellers
Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf: Susan Sellers Explores The Works of the English “Literary Pioneer”
In the spring of 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and walked into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex. She was fifty-nine years old and had... Read more...
Jewel Spears Brooker
Poetry in Motion: Jewel Spears Brooker on Why T. S. Eliot Was “An Exceptionally Gifted Poet”
In the spring of 1922, Harriet Monroe, editor of Poetry magazine, received a submission that ran to more than four hundred lines, shifted between five languages, quoted from dozens of... Read more...
Michael Patrick Gillespie
Revealing Intimacy: Michael Patrick Gillespie on James Joyce’s Profound Sense of the Human Condition
On the morning of June 16, 1904, a twenty-two-year-old James Joyce walked through the streets of Dublin on what would become, in the hands of his mature imagination, the most... Read more...
Edward Erwin
Freud, Right or Wrong? Edward Erwin on Why Freud is Still Important
In the spring of 1896, Sigmund Freud stood before the Society for Psychiatry and Neurology in Vienna and delivered what he believed was the most important paper of his career.... Read more...
David C. Cassidy
The Winds of War: David C. Cassidy Talks About Werner Heisenberg's Work in Nazi Germany
In the autumn of 1941, Werner Heisenberg travelled to occupied Copenhagen to visit his old mentor Niels Bohr. What passed between them during that meeting has never been fully established.... Read more...
Donna Tussing Orwin
From Riches to Rags: Donna Tussing Orwin Explores Leo Tolstoy's Changing Lifestyle and Philosophy
On the night of October 28, 1910, an 82-year-old man crept out of his estate at Yasnaya Polyana in the dead of winter, leaving behind his wife of 48 years,... Read more...
Martin Kemp
Not a Da Vinci Code: Martin Kemp Explains the “Secrets” of Leonardo's Skill and Mastery
In the winter of 1489, Leonardo da Vinci requested permission from the authorities in Florence to exhume human corpses for dissection. He was thirty-seven years old and had already produced... Read more...
Michael White
Beyond the Apple Tree: Michael White Analyzes Isaac Newton's Dark Secrets
In 1936, a trunk of papers belonging to Sir Isaac Newton came up for auction at Sotheby's in London. The economist John Maynard Keynes bought a large portion of them,... Read more...
The Road Taken: Jay Parini on the “Deepest, Darkest Side” of Robert Frost's Poetry
The Road Taken: Jay Parini on the “Deepest, Darkest Side” of Robert Frost's Poetry
In the winter of 1912, Robert Frost was thirty-eight years old, unknown, and running out of time. He had been writing poetry for two decades but had published almost nothing.... Read more...