In 1609, Johannes Kepler wrote a curious tale about a trip to the moon, hailed now as one of the first works of science fiction. Titled Somnium, or The Dream, the tale has its young astronomer ...

While reading Maria Popova’s “Figuring,” I was thinking a lot about the old science of alchemy, the medieval precursor to chemistry. Before we knew about atoms or different theories of electron ...

“There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives,” writes Maria Popova in the introduction of her debut book, “Figuring.” The central question with which Popova is concerned is one that is far from ...

FIGURING. By Maria Popova. Pantheon. 592 pages. $30. There is no one in American letters quite like Maria Popova. In a world of short attention spans, she pens long essays that bridge centuries of ...