Stories, told in whatever shape they need.
Writing
EssayHow do you paint loneliness?
How do you paint sadness and loneliness with no face and no symbol? From Bruegel’s Icarus to Picasso’s blue and Friedrich’s ship, and why every viewer finishes a painting with their own life.
In praise of asking
Part one
Answers got cheap, so where does a good question come from? The story starts with a parrot asking “What’s that?” in front of a mirror, and goes on to silent classrooms and an AI that never needs anything.
Part two
Why should a simple question cost so much? A nine-year-old tested a healing method with a towel and a piece of cardboard, a doctor drank a glass of bacteria, and Socrates drank the hemlock; each price depended on the certainty the question shook.
StoryHow AI guesses the next word
How does a program that only guesses the next word write sentences people believe? The story starts with Betty Shannon guessing a sentence one letter at a time, and reaches a lawyer who handed a court six cases that never existed.
StoryHow a bubble holds its shape
A soap bubble’s wall is a hundred times thinner than a hair. How does something like that hold its shape? The story starts with an 18th-century painting and ends with a blind physicist who worked out the bubble’s rules from what other people told him.