Is the moon there when nobody looks?

Is the moon there when nobody looks? Reality and the quantum theory

[David Mermin is director of the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics at Cornell University. A solid-state theorist, he has recently come up with some quasithoughts about quasicrystals. He is known to PHYSICS TODAY readers as the person who made “boojum” an internationally accepted scientific term. With N.W.Ashcroft, he is about to start updating the world’s funniest solid-state physics...

Are violations to temporal Bell inequalities there when somebody looks?

– The possibility of observing violations of temporal Bell inequalities, originally proposed by Leggett and Garg as a mean of testing the quantum mechanical delocalization of suitably chosen macroscopic bodies, is discussed by taking into account the effect of the measurement process. A general criterion quantifying this possibility is defined and shown not to be fulfilled by the various experi...

When Nobody Wins*

As young children vividly illustrate with their performance on the wug-test (Berko 1958), the ability to generalize linguistic patterns to novel items is a core property of language. It thus comes as a surprise when we stumble into a dark and dusty corner of language where our boundless linguistic productivity has unexpectedly failed. For example, the English verb forgo ‘to go without’ is unexc...

When it looks like familial hypercholesterolemia...but is not.

My Name Is Nobody

S weet wine, unblended, served Odysseus well in the escape with his companions from the Cyclops' cave during his epic return to Ithaca. The wine, a gift from Maron, grandson of Dionysus, was exceptional. " When he drank it he mixed twenty parts of water to one of wine, and yet the fragrance from the mixing bowl was so exquisite that it was impossible to refrain from drinking. " Odysseus carried...