When Slate magazine recently dropped “FWIW” in the middle of an article, as if those four letters were just another common word we should all know, I felt at once the need for immediate dictionary assistance. Obviously, FWIW was an acronym of the kind that’s created online, as much for...

Physicists try to understand the universe by seeking out its patterns and regularities, all of which are most successfully expressed in the language of mathematics. Amid seemingly endless strings of equations, a handful of numbers stand out. These are the physical constants, numbers that hold...

What is this mysterious thing called self-control? When we fight an urge, it feels like a strenuous effort, as if there were a homunculus in the head that physically impinged on a persistent antagonist. We speak of exerting will power, of forcing ourselves to go to work, of restraining...

Gary Marcus, Director, Center for Child Language, New York University; author, Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind Hamlet may have said that human beings are noble in reason and infinite in faculties, but in reality—as four decades of experiments in cognitive psychology have...