Don Lincoln

Chicago

Senior Scientist at Freelance

Featured in: Favicon

cnn.com (+1) Favicon

forbes.com Favicon

msn.com

cbsnews.com Favicon

foxnews.com Favicon

huffpost.com Favicon

pbs.org

yahoo.com (+3) Favicon

scientificamerican.com Favicon

csmonitor.com + 83 more

Articles

Is mathematics the empress of science? A physicist weighs in.

Jan 16, 2025 | bigthink.com | Don Lincoln

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people Social media can be a snarky place, with people locked in an endless game of one-upmanship. I am sad to say this behavior can also be seen among science enthusiasts when debating over which discipline is more fundamental.
Will physics ever prove that gravitons are real?

Jan 9, 2025 | bigthink.com | Don Lincoln

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people In 2009, the British journalist Ian Betteridge wrote an article in which he asserted his maxim that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered, “No.” This maxim has come to be called Betteridge’s law. This article will demonstrate that, as with all proverbs, the real-world situation can be much murkier. Gravitons are theoretical subatomic particles that some scientists think transmit the force of gravity.
Einstein wins again: Exotic gravity theories take a blow from new observations

Nov 27, 2024 | bigthink.com | Don Lincoln

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people Modern astronomy has an unsavory secret: Astronomers don’t understand how the Universe works. Galaxies spin faster than can be explained by the observed matter and well-established laws of physics. Individual galaxies within vast clusters of galaxies move so fast that those clusters shouldn’t exist. And when researchers look at very distant galaxies, they are distorted as space acts like a giant lens.
You're made of energy: The strange truth about where mass comes from

Nov 25, 2024 | bigthink.com | Don Lincoln

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people If I asked you where your mass comes from, your answer might involve an extra muffin or two. However, if I ask a science enthusiast the same question, I would expect to hear that the real origin of mass is from a physical phenomenon called the Higgs field. While that claim is often seen in popular science stories, it turns out not to be true at all.
Signs of "neutrino fog" emerge, complicating the search for dark matter

Nov 11, 2024 | bigthink.com | Don Lincoln

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people According to the theory favored by most scientists, the stars and galaxies that dot the night sky are just a small fraction of the mass and energy budget of the Universe. A form of matter called dark matter is thought to be five times more prevalent than ordinary matter.
Will protons last forever? Why scientists are searching for signs of decay

Nov 5, 2024 | bigthink.com | Don Lincoln

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people The Universe seems to be eternal — or close enough. For nearly 14 billion years, stars have lived and died, galaxies have spun, and matter has moved in stately ways throughout the cosmos. That might not seem remarkable at first — until you realize that this stability requires ordinary matter not to decay. And that’s not normal. Decay is common.
Sky smiley face

Oct 24, 2024 | pubs.aip.org | Don Lincoln |David Horne |Hans C. Mayer

Topics Cloud and fog physics, Aerodynamics, Atmospheric optical phenomena, Optical properties, Educator “Professor, look at the rainbow in the sky!” I was walking across campus one beautiful (and apparently clear) November morning. Two days prior, I had been explaining to a class the calculus-based mathematics underlying rainbow formation.
Apparatus Named After Our Academic Ancestors-VII

Oct 24, 2024 | pubs.aip.org | Kenyon College |Don Lincoln |David Horne |Hans C. Mayer

Topics Galvanometers, Hydroturbines, Electromagnetism, Educator, Museums, Physicists One of my pleasures is walking through the museum wing of the Greenslade house in Gambier, Ohio. This wing was added to the 1857 house in 2005 to accommodate a fraction of the 800 pieces of physics teaching apparatus that have been given to me by individuals and physics departments for safekeeping.
CERN experiment unlocks new insights into the W boson

Sep 19, 2024 | bigthink.com | Don Lincoln

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people Building new physics facilities tends to advance our understanding of the fundamental laws of nature. They create new capabilities and open unexplored horizons. But this is not the only way scientists can explore the unknown. Another is to make very precise measurements and compare them to calculations. Sometimes, a tiny difference points us in a new direction.
Dark matter search: Are scientists looking in the wrong direction?

Sep 12, 2024 | bigthink.com | Don Lincoln

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people Dark matter is thought to be the most prevalent form of matter in the Universe, comprising about five times as much mass as the ordinary matter found in stars and galaxies. There’s only one problem: Despite half a century of effort, scientists have found only indirect evidence of its existence. Now, a measurement from an ultra-precise new facility is hinting that scientists may have been looking in the wrong direction.