ABOUT US
"I couldn't tear myself away from 3 Quarks Daily, to the point of neglecting my work. Congratulations on this superb site."—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, and The Language Instinct.
"I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks."—Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, Unweaving the Rainbow, Climbing Mount Improbable, River out of Eden, The Devil's Chaplain, and The Ancestor's Tale.
"I've recommended your site to a number of friends and colleagues who've bemoaned the dearth of sites with any literary/scientific muscularity. Keep up the wonderful work."—John Allen Paulos, Professor of Mathematics at Temple University, and bestselling author of Innumeracy, Beyond Numeracy, A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, Once Upon a Number, and A Mathematician Plays the Stockmarket.
"3QD is always interesting--you (and your other contributors) have a fine eye for good writing in both the arts and the sciences, which is a very rare thing indeed."—Rochelle Gurstein, author of The Repeal of Reticence, and frequent contributor to The New Republic, Salmagundi, and American Scholar.
"3 Quarks is a daily must-read for intellectuals of all stripes. It is perhaps even smarter and better and more comprehensive than Arts & Letters Daily, the de facto gold standard of the smart set on the internet."—Laura Claridge, former Professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, and author of Romantic Potency: The Paradox of Desire, Tamara de Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence, and Norman Rockwell: A Life.
"Mighty interesting website! I've added it to my favorites."—Daniel Dennett, University Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, and author of Content and Consciousness, Brainstorms, Elbow Room, The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Kinds of Minds, and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays.
"Just wanted you to know I’m one of many who reads and enjoys 3 Quarks....almost daily."—David Byrne, musician, former lead-singer of the Talking Heads, artist, intellectual.
"It is a great honor to be mentioned in one of my two ONLY portals to the internet—and the world, since I do not read newspapers. My discipline, to avoid drowning in information, is not to cruise the web outside of these two points. I tried many sites; yours has CHARM."—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan. [The other site NNT is referring to is the excellent Arts & Letters Daily.]
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ABOUT 3 QUARKS DAILY
On this website, my guest authors and editors and I hope to present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating. We want to provide you with a one-stop intellectual surfing experience by culling good stuff from all over and putting it in one place. In other words, we are what has come to be known as a "filter blog". And we try not to be afraid of challenging material. Please leave comments or send me an email with any comments/criticism. Thanks.ABOUT THE NAME
When Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig postulated the existence of three new subatomic particles in 1964, Gell-Mann decided to name them "quarks", an unusual word meaning "croak" or "caw" which James Joyce had used in Finnegans Wake: "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" In present-day physics, there are more than three quarks, and some are said to have properties named strangeness and charm, which, we think, describe this weblog as well. We have also used the name to symbolize our connections to science, art, and literature; and because we mistakenly thought it short and memorable.MONDAYS AT 3QD
Though we are a filter blog on all other days, on Mondays we have only original writing by our editors and guest columnists. These are some of the current Monday columns: (All the Monday columns are conveniently collected here.)Each of us writes on any subject we wish, and there are no length restrictions. Look for these on Mondays.Monday Musing:
written every week, rotates between three of the 3QD editors: Abbas Raza, Morgan Meis, and Robin VargheseDispatches:
written every other week by S. Asad RazaSelected Minor Works:
written every third Monday by Justin E. H. SmithPoetry and Culture:
written every fourth Monday by Peter NicholsonPerceptions:
an art image is posted every Monday by Sughra Raza
Rx:
written every fourth Monday by Azra RazaNegotiations:
written every fourth Monday by Timothy DonLunar Refractions:
written every fourth Monday by Alta L. PriceTalking Pints:
written on the first Monday of every month by Mark BlythTemporary Columns:
written every fourth Monday by Ram Manikkalingam
Old Bev:
written every fourth Monday by Jane RenaudBelow the Fold:
written every fourth Monday by Michael BlimRandom Walks:
written every fourth Monday by Jennifer OulletteTeaser Appetizer:
written every fourth Monday by Shiban Ganju
LETTER TO 3QD READERS
On the occasion of the 1,000th post at 3QD, I wrote a letter to our readers which you can read here.READER SURVEY
In April 2005 we polled our readers to see what changes they would like to see on the site. The results, along with a number of comments, can be seen here.EDITORS
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S. Abbas RazaOriginally from Karachi, Pakistan, Abbas has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering & computer science from Johns Hopkins University, and graduate degrees in philosophy from Columbia University. He normally lives on Duke Ellington Boulevard in Manhattan with his wife, Margit Oberrauch, but is currently living in the small, beautiful city of Brixen in the Italian alps. Email: s.abbas.raza [at] att.net |
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Robin VargheseRobin Varghese lives in New York City and is failing at his ambition to become a self-sufficient slacker, working instead on information policy issues. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, where he studied Western European political economy. Email: robinvar@yahoo.com |
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Morgan MeisMorgan has a Ph.D. in philosophy. He was supposed to specialize in the Greeks and Romans but managed to write a dissertation on Walter Benjamin. Also, he is the president of an arts collective in Queens called Flux Factory. Also, he writes and edits for Old Town Review. Also, he is a senior consulting editor for the Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal. Email: morgan@fluxfactory.org |
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Azra RazaAzra was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and is an oncologist and research scientist by profession. She lives in Manhattan with her daughter Sheherzad. In these scoundrel times, she is convinced that the best way "to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world" is by promoting and publicizing the achievements of humanity in science, art, and literature. She is specially moved by fine poetry. Email: araza [at] aptiumoncology [dot] com |
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Sughra RazaSughra grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, along with siblings Abbas and Azra (above), and several others. She studied fine arts as an undergraduate, later shifting gears to become a doctor of medicine, specializing in diagnostic radiology. Sughra lives in Boston, Massachusetts, working and teaching at Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She feels most excited in a world of images, invention, art and music; and inspite of Fenway Park floodlights lighting up the sky in her windows, she remains oblivious to the Red Sox battling the Yankees a stone’s throw away.Email: sraza1 [at] partners.org |
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Jim CullenyJim Culleny is the Poetry Editor of 3 Quarks Daily. After a stint in the navy, Jim received a BA in Art Education from William Paterson University and did graduate work in art at NYU. He taught art for several years in NJ public schools in Newark and Bergen County. Taught a little bit of everything else during two years at a remote residential community school in New York's Adirondacks. Was a social worker in Lower Manhattan before Soho was Soho. Made a living most of his life as a carpenter, designer, and builder. Did regular radio commentary for about 10 years during Morning Edition on WFCR.FM in Amherst, Mass. and some for NPR on All Things Considered. Played and sang his way from rockabilly to jazz in numberless band permutations over a period too long to believe. Came to poetry through songwriting. Has had work published in The Third Muse Poetry Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, Penthouse Journal, and in 5-Minute Pieces, a chapbook published in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. He's also been writing a regular op-ed column for the past 12 years for the Greenfield Recorder along the beautiful Connecticut River, and is presently making a living as project manager for an Architectural firm. Jim lives with his wife, Pat, of 31 years, and his 17 year old granddaughter. He has three daughters and four other grandchildren.Email: jimculleny [at] comcast.net |
GUEST COLUMNISTS
In order of seniority at 3QD:
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S. Asad RazaAsad is a doctoral candidate in English and a member of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee at New York University. Born and raised in Buffalo, he went to college in Baltimore and then lived in London for a while. He likes ping pong, eating fish and going to the movies.Email: asad.raza at nyu.edu |
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Justin E. H. SmithJustin E. H. Smith is a writer based in Montreal. Born in the high desert of Nevada, he is a regular contributor to Counterpunch, has published a book on 17th-century theories of sexual reproduction, numerous articles on early modern natural philosophy, translations of Elfriede Jelinek and Aleksandr Blok, and is currently completing a volume of poetry. He invites you to visit his website at www.jehsmith.com.Email: jehsmith@gmail.com |
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Alta L. PriceEducated in the so-called fine arts at the Rhode Island School of Design, Alta L. Price is currently acting as editor, translator, and draftswoman from her Long Island City studio. Early work in Icelandic geology and printing history inspired her incessant habit of being interested in just about everything. She practices certain obsolescent arts, including watermark making and carving signs in stone; in other words, her current work deals with the presence of the past.Email: alprice[at]earthlink[dot]net |
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Ram ManikkalingamRam Manikkalingam is currently gainfully unemployed. He has been a physicist, a radical activist, a political analyst, a political theorist, a presidential advisor, a beggar, a funder, and of course a slacker. He speaks four languages badly (and none of them are Urdu, Hindi or Punjabi). He likes to think he is a black New Yorker and a leftist Sri Lankan, but his friends and enemies say he is really a WASP from Boston. He writes for 3QD because he is unemployable. |
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Michael BlimMichael Blim teaches anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He writes about equality and global justice and is the author of Economy and Equality: The Global Challenge (2005).Email: mblim [at] gc.cuny.edu |
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Shiban GanjuShiban is the chairman of a biotechnology company in India and a practicing gastroenterologist in the USA. He travels between these two spaces frequently but lives in them simultaneously. He has been a passionate theater worker, reluctant army officer, ambitious entrepreneur, successful CEO and an active NGO volunteer. Still, he is does not know what he wants to be when he grows up; but he wants his epitaph to be "He tried."Email: skganju [at] aol.com |
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Bill HookerBill Hooker was born in Papua New Guinea but had his schooling, second grade through PhD, in Australia. (His education, a different matter entirely, is ongoing.) Being interested in roots and beginnings, he is a molecular biologist by trade; but having not ceased to look up at the hill-tops, or the leaves on trees, or the flowers opening in the air, he is also interested in photography, poetry, community and social justice. He lives in Portland, OR with his wife Cat Connor, likes cheese and rain and late afternoon light, and can be got at through his own website, Open Reading Frame.Email: sennoma [at] fastmail.fm |
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Edward B. RackleyTrained as an academic philosopher, Ed works in conflict and post conflict countries, mostly in Africa. His work involves setting up emergency aid programs, running them, or evaluating them. He keeps a blog on issues related to whatever country he happens to be working in, called 'Across the Divide: Analysis and Anecdote from Africa'.Blog: http://rackleyed.blogspot.com |
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Ahila SornarajahAhila is a lawyer, and resides in London. She lives downstairs from an escort agency, and upstairs from a Morrocan restaurant. After living in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, she is relieved to have found a crazy, messed up place to call home. She likes her work, but likes going to the cinema, and pretending to speak Spanish more. Because she loves it, she thinks it worth saying that her favourite book is “When Memory Dies” by A Sivanandan.Email: ahilasorn [at] hotmail.com |
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Elatia HarrisElatia Harris is a personal chef and cooking teacher in Cambridge, Massachusettes.Website: http://www.lucysmomcuisine.comEmail: elatia [at] lucysmomcuisine.com |
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Beth Ann BovinoBeth Ann works as a senior economist at Standard and Poor's in Manhattan. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University.Email: bethann_bovino [at] standardandpoors.com |
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Alex de LucenaAlex de Lucena is a New York based fiction writer.Email: adelucena [at] gmail.com |
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Jaffer KolbJaffer Kolb is a writer based in London, where he is finishing a master's in regional and urban planning at the London School of Economics. He writes regularly about architecture and urban planning for The Architects' Journal, Blueprint, and The Architect's Newspaper. In addition, he has contributed to Metropolis, Architectural Lighting, and The Real Deal.Email: jafferkolb [at] gmail.comWebsite: www.jafferkolb.com |
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Saifedean AmmousSaifedean Ammous lives in New York and is a candidate for a PhD in Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He grew up in Ramallah in Colonized Palestine and has a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut and a Master's in Development Management from the London School of Economics. He supports Liverpool FC rabidly, cooks the undisputed best shrimp pasta in the world, and blogs at TheSaifHouse.wordpress.comEmail: Saifedean.ammous [at] gmail.com |
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P. D. SmithP. D. Smith is a British writer and independent researcher whose work explores the links between science, literature and popular culture. His most recent book is Doomsday Men: The Real Dr Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon, a cultural history of science, superweapons and other strangeloves. This was published in 2007 by St Martin’s Press in the US and Penguin in the UK. In 2003 he wrote a brief biography of Einstein. His PhD thesis was a study of science in German literature, and this was published in 2000 as Metaphor and Materiality. He writes a regular round-up of science and cultural history books for the Guardian Review, as well as reviewing for The Independent and the Times Literary Supplement. PD Smith can be contacted through his blog and website, Kafka’s mouse (http://www.peterdsmith.com/). |
OCCASIONAL OR FORMER CONTRIBUTORS
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Marko AhtisaariMarko Ahtisaari was born in Helsinki, Finland and grew up in Helsinki, Dar es Salaam and New York. He studied economics, philosophy and music at Columbia University in the City of New York where he subsequently lectured in logic, philosophy of economics and the history of thought. He went on to be the leader of the mobile practice at the design consultancy Satama Interactive. Currently Marko works as the Director of Design Strategy at Nokia. In the in-between moments he makes music.Blog: Marko Ahtisaari |
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Mark BlythMark Blyth is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He has also been a visiting professor in the UK, France, Germany, and Singapore. He is the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century and is currently working on three projects: a book on party politics and political economy in advanced welfare states called The New Political Economy of Party Politics, an edited volume on constuctivist theory and political economy entitled Constructivist Political Economy, and a series of papers on probability, randomness, and epistemology in the social sciences, which may or may not end up a book. His articles have appeared in Comparative Politics, World Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and Comparative European Politics.Email: mark.blyth[at]jhu.edu |
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Descha DaemgenDescha Daemgen is a doctoral candidate in the American Studies program at New York University. He is currently writing a dissertation on nineteenth-century American literature and financial speculation and working on his long-standing video project, "Two Hundred Steps to the Whitney Biennial."Email: descha.daemgen@nyu.edu |
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Timothy DonTimothy Don is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. He is editor of Radical Society, a quarterly journal of politics and culture. He is currently at work on a novel and can be reached at info@radicalsociety.com. |
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Christopher H. HeaneyBorn in West Australia and raised in New Jersey, Christopher H. Heaney has an undergraduate degree in Latin American Studies from Yale University. He's hacked his way through journalism and oral history up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and his work has appeared in The New Republic and Legal Affairs Magazine. He's fondest of his articles for his hometown newspaper, however. He recently spent a year working in Peru, where he was able to indulge his mild obsession with pre-Columbian ruins, dusty archives and museum dioramas.Email: chrisheaney [at] gmail.com |
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Tom JacobsTom Jacobs is pursuing happiness and a Ph.D in American Literature at NYU. His dissertation addresses the range of anxieties writers expressed in relation to the shifting commodity, material, and visual cultures of the mid-twentieth century. He teaches at the Expository Writing Program, where he can often be found malingering in the halls, wrapt in mysterious thought.Email: tomjacobs@nyu.edu |
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Ruth Kikin-GilBorn and raised in Israel, Ruth studied visual communications at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, and later lectured there. She also co-founded an interactive design consultancy, Max Interactive, and in 2003 moved to Italy with her husband, Erez, to pursue a Masters degree at Interaction Design Institute, Ivrea, from which she is about to graduate in a few months. She is interested in the interplay between social behaviors and technology.Email: ruth@ruthkikin.comWebsite: www.ruthkikin.com |
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Alan KoenigAlan Koenig resides in Queens, New York with his wife, Anna Slatinsky, where they often associate with the Flux Factory. He has a Master’s degree in political science from the New School for Social Research and is pursuing a Ph. D. at the CUNY Graduate Center. His essays have appeared in Radical Society and The Believer and he served as a co-editor for Old Town Review. Email: akynikos [at] gmail.com |
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Jonathan KramnickJonathan Kramnick is an English professor at Rutgers University. He lives in Manhattan.Email: kramnick[at]rci.rutgers.edu |
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Alon LevyAlon Levy was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, went to college in Singapore, and is now studying mathematics at Columbia's graduate school. He lives in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, and considers it more a home to him than any of the countries he used to live in. When he doesn't try to solve problems in abstract algebra, he blogs about politics and occasionally mathematics at Abstract Nonsense.Email: alon_levy12 [at] hotmail.com |
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Husain NaqviHusain Naqvi is a lecturer in literature and creative writing at Boston University. Before his incarnation as an academic, he was an investment-banker who worked on Wall Street and I.I. Chundrigar Road. During his undergraduate career, he was the recipient of the Lannan Fellowship, the Phelam Prize and served as editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Journal. He has read his poems on National Public Radio, and at Lollapalooza and the Nuyorican Poets Café. Husain fancies himself a renaissance man who has his finger on the pulse of the great global dialectic. He smokes Dunhills.Email: greatglobaldialectic@hotmail.com |
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Dhiraj NayyarDhiraj was born in New Delhi, India in 1978. He has lived, at various times, in New Delhi, Brighton, Calcutta, Washington, DC, Geneva, Oxford, and Cambridge. Convinced, at an early age, and beyond reasonable doubt, that he was unfit for the world of work, Dhiraj decided to pursue a career as a perpetual student in the field of Economics. He is still ‘working’ on his PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge. While doing so, he divides his time inhaling the fresh air of Cambridge, exhaling the chaos of Delhi, and whiling away time in the serenity of the Himalayan foothills, in Dehradun.Email: dn234 [at] cam.ac.uk |
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Peter NicholsonAustralian poet and writer Peter Nicholson lives in Sydney. He is a graduate of Macquarie University and is interested in cinema and music, especially the music dramas of Wagner. He has published three volumes of poetry, A Temporary Grace, Such Sweet Thunder and A Dwelling Place. There is an introduction to his work at peternicholson.com.au [Peter's photo by David Moore]. Email: poetnic@yahoo.com |
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Jennifer OuelletteA former English major turned science writer, Jennifer Ouellette is the author of Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics, and the forthcoming The Physics of the Buffyverse, both published by Penguin. Her work has also appeared in Discover, Salon, and New Scientist, among other venues, and she maintains a populist Weblog called Cocktail Party Physics, along with avatar/alter ego "Jen-Luc Piquant." She has covered such varied topics as the acoustics of Mayan pyramids and New York City subways; fractal patterns in the paintings of Jackson Pollock; and the precarious pitfalls of pseudoscience. She holds a black belt in Niseido jujitsu, and lives in Washington, DC.On the Web: www.jenniferouellette-writes.comWeblog: www.twistedphysics.typepad.com |
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Jedediah PalmerJed was born and bred in New York City. He's traveled a lot, lived for short periods of time in many different cities, and worked a variety of jobs (Circulation Manager, Bookseller, Foreign Rights Assistant, First Press Editor). Currently he lives in Brooklyn and seeks work as a copyeditor and proofreader.Email: jedediahpalmer [at] yahoo.com |
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Abhay ParekhAbhay Parekh grew up in Bombay, India, and attended Cathedral School and St. Xavier's College there before moving to the U.S. He holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematical Sciences from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from MIT. His papers in data networking have won international awards, and one was selected as among the 16 best papers in networking in the last 50 years. Abhay lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children, is a partner in a silicon valley venture capital firm, and is an adjunct professor at Berkeley.Website: www.tecknowbasic.com |
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Jane RenaudJane is an administrative assistant living in Brooklyn. She was born in Palo Alto in 1983. Her grandmother grew up in Nebraska next door to a little boy who sat depressed on the porch report card in hand and said, "Damn teacher knows I can't read." He called his big sister "Old Bev," and for her Jane's column is named.Email: janerenaud at gmail dot com |
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Josh SmithJosh is currently an undergraduate at the University of Maryland in College Park, anchoring one major in English Literature, and leaving the other open for consideration. He has been a guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has worked at two different art galleries, and has published a volume of poetry through his own arts collective. His heroes are Leonardo da Vinci and Elliott Smith. He can be found on the internets at thecolorofinfinity.com.Email: huhwhatduck@gmail.com |
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Ker ThanKer Than is a graduate student at New York University's Science and Environmental Writing Program and a staff writer for LiveScience.com and Space.com. He has an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of California, Irvine and did neuroscience research in the field of learning and memory. He is interested in science in general, but also in its intersection with culture and the arts.Email: kerthan@gmail.com |
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J. M. TyreeJ. M. Tyree helped edit 3QD during its first year. His essays appear in various periodicals.Email: ocra coke post g mail com |
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