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“The Ingenuity of an Architect”
… had an epiphany. She remembers walking downtown one day in the early 1990s amid abandoned buildings, graffiti, and … “The place felt unhealthy in a way.” She stopped in front of the massive Hudson’s department store, a ghost of what it had been. Completed in 1911, the 32-floor …
Issue: July-August 2024
“The Risk of Inaction”
… Are you a “Steady Eddy,” “Twin Peaker,” or a “Night Owl”? A software company called Opower has identified what times of the day a large swath of American households typically use … shines, and not otherwise—presenting problems that do not arise from running fossil-fueled or nuclear-power plants in …
Issue: May-June 2015
When Systems Fracture
… As the enormity of September 11 sank in, a fertilizer factory … say the other was almost certainly an accident. But think of the technological vulnerabilities the assailants … disastrously and suddenly when certain thresholds--in the machines' case, marked by red lines on gauges--are exceeded. …
Issue: November-December 2001
Greening Global Finance
… Even as industrialized nations gradually rein in their greenhouse gas emissions, developing countries’ growth … by 2050, without some intervention, the decarbonization of advanced economies will be almost entirely negated by … of reaping the mostly global climate benefits that arise from making green investments.” (The atmosphere …
Issue: May-June 2025
The Marketplace of Perceptions
… began with anomalies, strange facts, odd observations that the prevailing wisdom could not explain. Casino gamblers, … perverse facts are a direct affront to the standard model of the human actor—Economic Man—that classical and … the course of their lifetimes.” Such problems should not arise, according to standard economic theory, which holds …
Issue: March-April 2006
Reviving the Purpose of American Higher Education
… To secure its identity as The Ohio State University, it engaged in a three-year … it is just one particularly absurd (and expensive) example of the widespread focus on brand identity within American … nonetheless can sustain a meaningful sense of common enterprise and support a range of thoughtful responses essential …
Issue: March-April 2023
"The Adventure of Our Times"
… Members of the University community , friends of Harvard from far and wide: we celebrate today a ritual … tensions that are at the heart of the academic enterprise. The university is open to all ideas, but it is …
Issue: November-December 2001
An Extra Layer of Care
… Eric Buck’s life turned upside down in the spring of 2014, after doctors diagnosed the lump in his … fishing. The family moved his bed and medical equipment—machines, monitors, wheelchair, and the like—to the dining …
Issue: March-April 2015
Chairman of the Bored
… Improbable as it may seem, James D. Watson—the co-discoverer (with Francis Crick) of the structure of DNA—has written a Book of Manners: the … world of an academic department, if you don’t create such crises, limited resources will surely go to gutsier …
Issue: January-February 2008
The Black Hole at the Center of the Galaxy
… collaboratively, have created an extraordinary image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Sagittarius A*, a supermassive …
The End of the Harvard Square Pit
… On a hot June afternoon, the Harvard Square Pit was quiet. In the submerged hangout … will be staring at fences: in early July, the city of Cambridge will begin demolishing the Pit, a famous … earlier on June 25. At the Saturday evening celebration of the popular counterculture locale, hosted (perhaps …
Financing Climate Adaptation—and Deciding What to Let Go
… What will happen when sea-level rise, wildfires, droughts, and floods begin to erode the tax base that cities and towns will use to pay for … markets have already begun to price in the probability of such disasters, and that will make future adaptation …
"The Infinitude of the Private Man"
… himself from respectable mediocrity. He graduated in the exact middle of the 59-member Harvard class of 1821, his greatest distinction the dubious honor of being …
Issue: May-June 2003
From the Archives: Image and the Arc of Feeling
… Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory Jorie Graham is a preeminent contemporary poet. From the archives, here is Craig Lambert’s portrait, published … A good poem is always a reaction, a moment of acute surprise that occurred in the soul of the speaker.” The literary …
Enablers of the Unethical
… Elizabeth Holmes. Bernie Madoff. Harvey Weinstein. These are people known for unethical and illegal behaviors, … on a single villain downplays or ignores the network of dozens or even hundreds of people—the personal …
Issue: May-June 2023