Last winter, I was walking to campus after several snowy days when everything around me was a slight modulation of gray. Suddenly, a figure popped out of the gloom. What made him stand out on this monochrome day? He was wearing camouflage. Not the seasonally appropriate arctic type that makes you look like a gun-carrying […]

“Alan Turing, the brilliant English mathematician and computer scientist, anticipated most objections to the possibility of ‘thinking machines’ more than 60 years ago. One common argument goes something like this: Sure, computers might be able to do X, but they’ll never be able to do Y.  Turing countered that most Y’s are things that it […]

An anagram is a rearrangement of the letters in one word to form a new word. Mathematicians call such a re-arrangement a permutation, and if the permutation leaves no letter in its original position, they call it a derangement (which is also a synonym for insanity). If you write an anagram below the original word, […]

Baltimore may be home base, but for many in the Johns Hopkins community, travel is an essential part of the job. Research, scholarship, and clinical trials take faculty all over the world, and for some, years of dedicated study have fostered an intimate relationship with a particular locale. Here we talk to five Johns Hopkins […]

“The deep cultural chasm in America about guns mirrors broader political divisions that have hampered our nation’s ability to tackle other social problems. One side distrusts government and values self-reliance, including arming oneself for protection. The other believes that certain social problems are best addressed through government safeguards such as gun regulations. When mass shootings […]

According to Lord Tennyson, “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” Much is wrong with that: Only in the spring? Just young men? Why “lightly”? Another problem? Germans. In the spring, it turns out, many of their fancies turn to Karl May, an author who inspires at least three […]

1. d; see Genesis. 2. a; see Job. 3. f; see minor prophets (Jonah). 4. c; see Genesis. 5. b; see Joshua. 6. e; see Genesis. 7. j; see 1 Kings. 8. k; see Jeremiah. 9. i; see 2 Samuel. 10. h; see Exodus. 11. g; see 1 Kings. 12. l; see minor prophets (Joel). […]

The letter yod begins many names in the Hebrew Bible, and most of these start with the letter J in English translations of the Old Testament. (A few begin with I, e.g., Isaac, Isaiah, Ishmael, and Israel; and at least one, Ezekiel, begins with E.) Here are the names, as usually spelled in English with […]

Robert Rivkin, A&S ’61, is trying to learn his 10th language: Turkish. He already knows English (his native tongue), French, German, Latin, Italian, Greek, ancient Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese. Rivkin graduated from Johns Hopkins with a double degree in biological sciences and Romance languages. He then launched what would turn into a 49-year career (so […]