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Visual Music
… On a table in the center of Holden Chapel rest a book, an unlit lamp, a … like what would happen if Copland and Ravel lived in a high-rise on an alien exoplanet 200 years from now. Despite the …
Issue: November-December 2021
Walls of Power
… Following the “decisive moment” tradition of Henri … Wing to consider the invasive or even exploitative nature of the photograph, with this upshot: “I stopped taking …
Issue: January-February 2007
Endowments: The Specter of Taxation
… fellow university leaders successfully persuaded members of Congress to sustain federal funding for scientific research—in opposition to the Trump administration’s budget outline—they now find the … from the endowment to support the academic enterprise: $1.8 billion, or 36 percent of Harvard’s revenue for …
An “Oracle of Aqua”
… “Ours is a society of sensual eunuchs, impotent to the callings of the wildness within and as a result, the pull of that …
Issue: January-February 2007
Engineer of Fictions
… When Thomas McMahon, McKay professor of applied mechanics and professor of biology, died … unexpectedly of heart failure on Valentine's Day, 1999, the 55-year-old faculty member left behind an unusually … the minutiae of their imagined worlds, it's somehow no surprise that, according to his daughter Elizabeth, he was able …
Issue: July-August 2004
Botanizing in the “Mother of Gardens”
… The first thing the explorers noticed when they reached the … a few words in Chinese, and Wang Kang, a seven-time veteran of these expeditions, relayed their meaning to the … can set mountainsides in motion. So it was no surprise when Dosmann had to leap from the van on the descent to …
Issue: January-February 2018
Charting the Universe
… Christopher Columbus can claim the world is round all he wants, but it doesn’t … universe is flat. Paul L. Richards ’56, then a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and …
Issue: March-April 2006
Students of Virginity
… story on a Harvard student group founded on the principle of sexual abstinence. The group's … for women's rights." She casts her choice as a marker of strength—resisting temptation and cultural …
Claudine Gay Named Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
… S. Bacow announced this morning that Claudine Gay—Cowett professor of government and of African and African American studies, and dean of social science within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)—will become dean of …
Optimizing Public-School Spending
… follows elections in her local community is familiar with the passionate debate about public-school spending. How much … funding do the schools need? What is the most effective use of those funds? Studies conducted from 2015 on have found … and graduates’ future wages and economic mobility all rise—confirming popular intuitions. Research by economist …
Issue: November-December 2021
The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination
… J.K. Rowling , author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the …
Off the Shelf
… Nature and Nation , by Lisbet Koerner, Ph.D. '93, associate of the department of the history of science (Harvard University Press, …
Words of Wisdom
… daily, watch your diet, and do what you most enjoy.” “One of the best things that can happen is to get fired.” “Don’t … you will end up doing something very meaningful and worthy of your best efforts.” Though these words of wisdom could …
Fictions of Science
… November, 1997, a curious report emerged from physicists at the California Institute of Technology, who claimed that certain subatomic particles … in science, a normal part of the overall enterprise that even contributes to its progress. "The very act of …
Undergraduate English Oration: "Living the Life You Love"
… Turnpike. I was about a month into my term as an editor at The Harvard Crimson , and one of the machines that we use to print the paper had broken beyond …