Science Capsules

The story that Einstein flunked math is flatly false; he excelled from childhood. Yet the myth refuses to die, and the arguments here dig into why comforting stories outcompete documented facts and what that says about how we talk about struggle and genius in science. Unpicking one famous myth gives you tools for spotting the others you have absorbed.

GPS accuracy depends on precise clock synchronization between satellites and receivers, and that synchronization requires Einstein’s relativity. Readers will understand how satellite motion, gravitational effects, orbital shape, and Earth’s rotation influence GPS timing, and why correcting for these effects is essential to the location accuracy used every day.

Science earns its authority by making predictions that could fail, and string theory doesn't. Against its popularity among physicists, the argument here places untestable theory closer to metaphysics than physics, however elegant the math. Taking this view means judging every theory by whether an experiment could ever prove it wrong.