Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about physics, science, academia, and pop culture. Seen from one angle, this is a big surprise— a technology as important ...

Geniuses occupy plenty of space in our history books, but as it turns out, many of them were more than a little — well, eccentric. As Katie Spalding reveals in “Edison’s Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness ...

History has a frustrating habit of spotlighting the loudest voices in the room while quietly forgetting the people who actually changed the world. The names we learn in school - Edison, Darwin, Watson ...

DOCTOR FAUSTUS (510 pp.)—Thomas Mann—Knopf ($3.50). In a poll of the world’s literary critics, Nobel Prizewinner Thomas Mann would probably win the nomination as the greatest living novelist. He would ...