William Poundstone's Blog

Why Don't We See Signs of Extraterrestrial Life?

The Milky Way by Tom Hall (CC2 license)

“Where is everybody?” Enrico Fermi, physicist and Nobel Laureate, asked that question at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1950. He was referring to extraterrestrial life. Why aren’t ETs visiting the Earth in spaceships? Fermi had done the math and concluded that there ought to be many intelligent species in our galaxy. Some would have technologies far beyond our own. They’d have mastered interstellar travel. So where were they? None of Fermi’s colleagues...

The Doomsday Calculation: FAQ

I have found that a good way to write a popular science book is to find a topic on which many smart people disagree. That describes my new book coming out June 4. It’s called The Doomsday Calculation: How an Equation that Predicts the Future Is Transforming Everything We Know About Life and the Universe. In this post I’ll describe it by answering some of the questions I’ve gotten in the two-plus years I’ve been conceiving/researching/writing it.

Q. What is the “doomsday calculation”?

A. It’s a...

A Brief History of Fake News

In 2015 Jay Branscomb posted a photo of Steven Spielberg sitting next to a dead triceratops on Facebook. It was a Jurassic Parkpublicity image. Branscomb added the caption: “Disgraceful photo of recreational hunter happily posing next to a triceratops he just slaughtered. Please share so the world can name and shame this despicable man.”

The post was shared more than thirty thousand times, racking up thousands of outraged comments. Outraged, that is, that Spielberg had shot a dinosaur. Sure,...

Peace Through Ignorance?

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Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator" (1940)

Is it important for a U.S. President to know geography? Recent gaffes by Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who's running as the Libertarian candidate for President, have raised that question. On Sep. 8,Johnson drew a blank when asked about Aleppo, the war-torn city in Syria. He didn't do much better a few weeks later when Chris Matthews asked him to name a foreign leader he admired. Johnson stumbled, and Matthews baited him...

Taste Freeze

The Chainsmokers' "Closer" is the #1 song on this week's Billboard Hot 100. If you're under 25, there's a good chance you're sick of hearing "Closer." If you've over 35, the odds are that you have no idea who the Chainsmokers are.

Age 33 is the point of no return when it comes to popular music. By about then, most people stop listening to top 40 hits at all. This is one of the findings of Big Data. It's even earned a name:taste freeze. Add it to the list of awkward aspects of agingwith funny...

The Icecap Riddle

"Climate scientists believe that if the North Pole icecap melted as a result of human-caused global warming, global sea levels would rise—true or false?"

SPOILER ALERT. You'll want to answer this question before reading on.

Today's New York Times reports that 2016's Presidential contenders are further apart than they've ever been on the issue of climate change. That can't surprise many people, but it's worth pointing out how new this difference is. As recently as 2008 candidates of both major...

Plagiarism and Google

Melania Trump is the latest of a long string of public figures accused of cribbing words from other people. That raises the question: Is there really an epidemic of celebrity plagiarism, or does it just seem that way?

Last night Jarrett Hill, an unemployed TV journalist, was in a Los Angeles Starbucks with his laptop. He noticed that Melania Trump's words at the Republican National Convention sounded familiar. He was quickly able to pull up a clip of Michelle Obama's convention speech from...

Do Misspelled Menus Matter?

We're told the Internet has made spelling and punctuation obsolete. Maybe, but it's also inaugurated a golden age of grammar shaming. There are memes for scolding your social-net friends on every error of spelling and usage; listicles of funny misspellings in signs and menus.Does spelling matter in the emoticon age? Purists say it does. Most others aren’t so sure.

Restaurant menus are a battlefield of this culture war.I live near a restaurant with the slogan "Cuban Food at it’s Best!" Having...

"I Wore the Juice!"

Medium is running an excerpt from Head in the Cloud. "'I Wore the Juice' — The Dunning-Kruger Effect" is about incompetent criminal McArthur Wheeler, who robbed two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight, using lemon juice to make himself invisible.

Confused Britons Ask Google: "What is the EU?"

The “low-information voter” may be a staple of partisan snark, but s/he’s no myth. The latest proof of that is a Google Trends report showing that the second-most popular European Union-related search in the UK lately is “What is the EU?”

Evidently a lot of Britons don’t know the answer. That’s a stunning thing when you consider how omnipresent the UK media coverage of the Brexit debate has been.

It’s also a reminder that knowledge of the issues is a prerequisite for wisechoices. One way or...