I used to read a lot of science fiction when I was younger.

One thing I cannot understand - and people are probably going to be upset about this - is why local school boards have control over educational content.

I am in favor of saying, 'Okay, let's get teams of educators and experts in certain disciplines to say, 'What are the basic things that we think are an essential part of an early education for people?'' Put them together and create, as well as possible, a set of goals and tools to learn those things.

Education is far less about a set of facts than a way of thinking, than learning how to critically think. And therefore, what I always think should be the basis of education is not answers but questions.

The notion that anyone in the 21st century could take seriously the notion that the sun orbits the Earth, or that the Earth is the center of the universe, is almost unbelievable.

Symmetries are the playing field on which the physical world works and which determine the rules of the game. The symmetries of nature determine for us things that remain constant, that can't be changed. Those are the guideposts in physics, the quantities like energy and momentum.

Symmetry does mean something different for physicists than for members of the public. It means that an object or a theory does not change when you make some transformation - either rotating or moving it or doing something to the equations.

What we can do is provide the tools, through our educational system, for people to be able to tell sense from nonsense. These tools include the scientific method, skeptical questioning, empirical evidence, verifying sources, etc.

On the question of preserving public lands, Trump replies that our elected officials have spent too long rewarding 'special interests,' by which I assume he doesn't mean petroleum companies and the Bundy family.

Donald Trump's candidacy has been a source of anxiety for many reasons, but one stands out: the ability of the president to launch nuclear weapons. When it comes to starting a nuclear war, the president has more freedom than he or she does in, say, ordering the use of torture.