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MAY 2017 Heroes of Science The Stories Behind the Breakthroughs Einstein of Tesla Curie Hawking Newton & DOZENS More! P.34 PLUS BONUS How Plants Think P.52 ONLINE CONTENT Computers With Morals? P.10 CODE p.3 The War Over (Quantum) Reality P.28 The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality TIME ED O Taught by Professor Don Lincoln T FF I E FERMI NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY IM R L 70% LECTURE TITLES 1. Two Prototype Theories of Everything off 2. The Union of Electricity and Magnetism 1 O 3 3. Particles and Waves: The Quantum World R D AY ER BY M 4. Einstein Unifi es Space, Time, and Light 5. Relativistic Quantum Fields and Feynman 6. Neutrinos Violating Parity and the Weak Force 7. Flavor Changes via the Weak Force 8. Electroweak Unifi cation via the Higgs Field 9. Quarks, Color, and the Strong Force 10. Standard Model Triumphs and Challenges 11. How Neutrino Identity Oscillates 12. Conservation Laws and Symmetry: Emmy Noether 13. Theoretical Symmetries and Mathematics 14. Balancing Force and Matter: Supersymmetry 15. Why Quarks and Leptons? 16. Newton’s Gravity Unifi es Earth and Sky 17. Einstein’s Gravity Bends Space-Time 18. What Holds Each Galaxy Together: Dark Matter 19. What Pushes the Universe Apart: Dark Energy 20. Quantum Gravity: Einstein, Strings, and Loops 21. From Weak Gravity to Extra Dimensions 22. Big Bang and Infl ation Explain Our Universe 23. Free Parameters and Other Universes Pick Up the Quest 24. Toward a Final Theory of Everything Where Einstein Failed The Theory of Everything: At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far The Quest to Explain All Reality more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an Course no. 1318 | 24 lectures (30 minutes/lecture) equation that explained all physical reality—a theory of everything. He failed, but others have taken up the challenge in a remarkable quest that is shedding light on unsuspected secrets of the cosmos. SAVE $190 Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln of the world-renowned Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Ranging across time and space, and at +$10 Shipping, Processing, and Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee scales ranging from the subatomic to the cosmic—and even into extra Priority Code: 143060 dimensions, with these 24 lectures you will bridge the eras between classical and modern physics and get a glimpse of the goal that has For over 25 years, The Great Courses has brought motivated physicists for centuries. It’s a dazzling trip! the world’s foremost educators to millions who want to go deeper into the subjects that matter most. No Off er expires 05/31/17 exams. No homework. Just a world of knowledge available anytime, anywhere. Download or stream THEGREATCOURSES.COM/9DISC to your laptop or PC, or use our free apps for iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire, or Roku. Over 600 1-800-832-2412 courses available at www.TheGreatCourses.com. Website access code: DSD1705 Enter this code at: www.DiscoverMagazine.com/code Contents to gain access to exclusive subscriber content. MAY 2017 VOL. 38, NO. 4 SPECIAL SECTION 34 Heroes of Science We celebrate the heroes who propelled science forward, the communicators who brought p.43 science to the public, the families who kept science going for decades and the forgotten researchers p.36 whose work lives on. FEATURING iProfiles of 10 Major p.38 Scientists iUnsung Heroes iScience Popularizers iThe Next Generation of Science Stars iFamily Dynasties AND MORE! p.46 p.42 MARK MARTURELLO May 2017 DISCOVER 3 Contents OTHER FEATURES COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS conservationists want to keep 6 EDITOR’S NOTE 28 The War Over it that way by mitigating light When Heroics in pollution. Now, other U.S. parks Reality Science Define Us are taking notice. Scientific research and its Quantum mechanics explains so much BY ERIC BETZ about the universe — why the sky is explanation of ideas is the foundation of society. blue, why stars shine. But over a century 66 HISTORY LESSONS after its birth, the interpretation of 8 INBOX When Dinosaurs the theory remains as baffling as ever. Readers muse about 21st-century Went Bad Can scientists figure out what it really mummies, physicist Luis Alvarez Early researchers cast the reptiles means? BY TIM FOLGER and a hitchhiking insect. as giant lumbering lizards with nary a feather in sight. Times have 52 Smarty Plants changed. BY GEMMA TARLACH Your flower garden might be brighter 9 THE CRUX 70 PROGNOSIS than it looks, but not because of the Creating a moral compass for artificial intelligence; A Master of Evasion colorful petals. Turns out, plants are the impact of clean-burning Researchers have had little success stoves on our health; a pretty brainy, and science is learning in their fight against pancreatic why and in what ways. biologist recounts the marvel of his first deep-sea dive; cancer. But a revolutionary BY MARTA ZARASKA and an update on a Discover method of using the body’s own story on the possibility of immune system offers hope. meat sans slaughter. BY DOUGLAS G. ADLER 74 20 THINGS YOU DIDN’T 20 VITAL SIGNS KNOW ABOUT … Athlete, Interrupted Earthquakes A marathoner’s race in Southeast Temblors have been shaking Asia lands her in the hospital up Earth for eons. And though with a dangerous condition that technology has helped measure evades diagnosis. BY CLAIRE PANOSIAN strength and flag strike zones, DUNAVAN earthquakes still have a few mysteries that rattle experts. 24 NOTES FROM EARTH BY GEMMA TARLACH Extinction for Easter Island’s Last Endemics The Polynesian island known ON THE COVER for its giant stone heads is also When Dinosaurs Went Bad a cautionary tale of the human p.66 impact on native species. Can its An Island at Risk p.24 remaining denizens be saved? How Plants Think p.52 BY NATHANIEL SCHARPING Computers With Morals? p.10 The War Over (Quantum) Reality Powered by 59 OUT THERE p.28 magazine Protecting Heroes of Science p.34 America’s Last Dark Skies Cover image: Albert Einstein, in his study at home in Princeton, N.J., 1944. 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