James Marshall Smith's Blog

After more than a decade of super-coordinated technical work, the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope—a global network of radio telescopes around the Earth—gave us the first picture of a Black Hole. It is a massive glob of what appears to be nothingness, 55 million light years away. Talk about unintended consequences. Einstein himself found the prediction of a Black Hole in his general theory of relativity implausible. In practice, these supermassive objects are our best laboratory for...

Here is a condensed version of my review of The Atom: A Visual Tour, which appears in the New York Journal of Books:

The Atom: A Visual Tour

Author: Jack Challoner

The MIT Press (2018)

What is all the stuff we touch, smell or see made of? This ageless question contemplated by the early Greek philosophers continues to challenge 21stcentury physicists.  As Jack Challoner brings out in his beautifully illustrated book, we have come a long way from the notion of the basic elements of earth, air,...

Sun Valley, Idaho

July 21-24, 2018

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So many new ideas were lobbed out by so many gifted writers and journalists. And so many old ideas and baggage I had to re-examine. Of course, more than a few speakers had at least to mention, if not expound upon, the Elephant in the Room. Two things are clear: (1) that happens wherever one thousand Americans congregate these days and (2) President Trump most likely loves that! As you might guess, the four conference days had many comments on present day po...

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On this day, March 14, 2018, Professor Stephen Hawking died at age 76. It was ironically the same month and day as Albert Einstein’s birth. Professor Hawking was diagnosed at age 21 with ALS, commonly know as Lou Gehrig’s disease, but amazingly he lived more than half a century longer with that degenerative motor-neuron disease. His search for understanding the physics of Black Holes—a window into the long-sought union of quantum physics and general relativity—has led to ideas about cosmolog...

[image error]They called the killer the “Beast of Gévaudan.”

As 1767 grew to a close in the Cevennes Mountains of southern France, sixty-four people had died from their injuries after attacks over three-years by a ferocious creature. Finally, an elderly villager, Antoine de Bauterne, tracked down and shot the animal. It was identified by its unique color and size: a hybrid wolf.

After reading about that unique tragedy, I thought, “There’s got to be a novel there.”

Then came the key idea: Operation Wolfsto...

Do you have a hard time understanding some of the latest scientific discoveries?

Often, I do, too. And I’m a scientist.

Good science communication is challenging. In this blog I’ll explain in simplest terms what scientists have learned recently about the Great Pyramid of Giza—and how they did it.

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What do the Great Pyramids, cosmic rays, and CT scans have in common?

Answer: READ ON!

An article in the scientific journal Nature (Nov. 2, 2017) describes how a team of physicists, supervised...

November 4, 2016

What follows is what I posted on the PRWire Service today:

“Polonium poisoning is only one of several ways extremists could engage in nuclear terrorism today.”

November 23rd is the tenth anniversary of Alexander Litvinenko’s death. Litvinenko is the Russian ex-secret service operative who, according to United Kingdom authorities, was assassinated with a unique poison, which most experts agree could only be manufactured by a clandestine state-sponsored activity. The poison i...

Often depends on whom you ask: physicist or novelist.

In today’s New York Times Book Review (10/02/16), Anthony Doerr the novelist gives my favorite answer. You remember Doerr, the author of the terrific novel, All the Light We cannot See. Doerr reviews James Gleick’s latest, Time Travel: A History.

In his book, Gleick correctly points out the physicist’s answer, namely, that time travel as imagined by science fiction writers is not possible. One of the greatest science writers of our time, J...

“Let’s have lunch and talk,” I asked Elizabeth over the phone. She hesitated for a while longer than I thought was really necessary, but then agreed to meet for lunch that Friday and talk about my intense interest in her.

I was starting a new program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta and was in quick need of a group of scientists with knowledge of nuclear radiation and its health effects.Arriving early for lunch, I waited at the table and contemplated the...

How about taking an hour out of your week–maybe even a couple of times a week–to dedicate yourself to writing those thank you notes you owe? Or that letter to a grieving friend? Maybe even a special letter you’ve been meaning for months to write to your mother? Or how about a scene for that Great American Novel that you can never seem to find the time start?

I’m not talking about email or texting. I’m talking about like with pen and paper . . . although a keyboard on a laptop works great for...