Peace from insignificance

“How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of Reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only…

Sketch of a place like Havana

An imagined Havana (since I haven’t been there…yet!) You can see a pop-up of salsa dancers, a card-game between fruit-sellers on the street, the “classic” cars, and some architectural features of the buildings which I’ve noticed in pictures of old Havana. Havana is a city difficult to capture in black-and-white because one of its distinctive…

Sketch of a Hummingbird

…More specifically, a sketch of a ruby-throated hummingbird pollinating a shrub of Autumn sage. Hummingbirds are well-known for their small size (a few inches long), swift wing-beating rate (50-80 times per second), iridescent feathers, and, well, their consistent appearance in “fun facts” and “did you know?” nature graphics. Although hummingbirds do not commonly feature in…

Sketch of a Chickadee

Black-capped chickadees are songbirds living in the forests and woodlands of Northeastern America. They famously hide small quantities of food in distributed locations in their environment. Remarkably, memory for these “cache sites” can persist for around 28 days (Hitchcock and Sherry 1990). (Would you remember where your keys were after weeks of hiding them? What…

Ovid, Carpets, and Nature

“So things evolved, and out of blind confusion Found each its place, bound in eternal order.” – Ovid, Metamorphoses (“The Creation”) The quote from the Metamorphoses above celebrates the ordered and layered designs of the natural world. As we know, matter collects into diverse forms—from stars, galaxies, and interstellar dust to trees, oceans, and brains. But what we should take…

Sketch of monkeys in a mountain forest

Sketch of a magnetically sensitive life-form (a European robin)

The Earth’s magnetic field is something we humans take little notice of on a daily basis. Although we can perform experiments and build machines that detect magnetic fields, our bodies have no intrinsic “magnetic sense.” This is not the case for many animal species, who perceive and rely on the Earth’s magnetic field in navigation….

Sketch: Looking across the Amstel

String Theory and the Multiverse—Do we share our universe?

*This essay aims to summarize how seriously the concept of a multiverse should be taken, based off of theoretical, mathematical, and experimental evidence. As we as humans accumulate vast amounts of information through science, we will surely come across some surprises; it is important to know how to rationally come to terms with new knowledge that challenges the way we…

Hippolytus and the psychology of fanatics

Around 2400 years ago, the celebrated Greek playwright Euripides produced several dramatic tragedies, which we moderns continue to enthusiastically study today. Medea is perhaps the most famous of his plays, telling the story of how the sorceress Medea exacts a brutal revenge on her husband, Jason, who left her for a new wife. In addition to witnessing how Medea viciously calculates her revenge, we also are…

What makes something beautiful?

We know beauty when we see it. A snowy Himalayan landscape, a Tchaikovsky symphony, or a Bernini sculpture can all inspire a deep sense of wonder and emotional pleasure within us. To a more or less degree, we tend to equate this feeling with the experience of beauty. If we find something beautiful, our emotional and…

Why study (or draw) a fruit fly?

A few years ago, I had never imagined that I would spend several hours of my winter holidays sketching the central nervous system and muscle plan of a fruit fly. Perhaps you feel share the same thought—why would anyone looking for artistic inspiration turn to the fruit fly? If you want to showcase an animal subject, it may…