Tom Siegfried

Tom Siegfried

Contributing Correspondent

Tom Siegfried is a contributing correspondent. He was editor in chief of Science News from 2007 to 2012, and he was the managing editor from 2014 to 2017. He is the author of the blog Context. In addition to Science News, his work has appeared in Science, Nature, Astronomy, New Scientist and Smithsonian. Previously he was the science editor of The Dallas Morning News. He is the author of four books: The Bit and the Pendulum (Wiley, 2000); Strange Matters (National Academy of Sciences’ Joseph Henry Press, 2002);  A Beautiful Math (2006, Joseph Henry Press); and The Number of the Heavens (Harvard University Press, 2019). Tom was born in Lakewood, Ohio, and grew up in nearby Avon. He earned an undergraduate degree from Texas Christian University with majors in journalism, chemistry and history, and has a master of arts with a major in journalism and a minor in physics from the University of Texas at Austin. His awards include the American Geophysical Union's Robert C. Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism, the Science-in Society award from the National Association of Science Writers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science-Westinghouse Award, the American Chemical Society’s James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public, and the American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award.

All Stories by Tom Siegfried

  1. Science & Society

    50 years later, it’s hard to say who named black holes

    In 1964, Science News Letter was the first publication to print the term black hole, but nobody is really sure who used the term first.

  2. Cosmology

    Cosmic inflation has its flaws, but so do its critics

    Philosophical predispositions color efforts to debunk a popular theory about the evolution of the universe.

  3. Math

    Rise of Big Data underscores need for theory

    Big Data can help scientists cope with complex systems, but only with an appreciation of its limits and recognition of the need for theoretical modeling.

  4. Math

    Why Big Data is bad for science

    Big Data is supposed to be a scientific bonanza, but it challenges the capabilities of computer science, statistical tests and perhaps calls for revamping the scientific method itself.

  5. Cosmology

    For proposals that challenge paradigms, peruse arXiv.org

    The online physics archive offers crazy ideas to confront cosmological challenges.

  6. Science & Society

    Top 10 revolutionary scientific theories

    Quantum theory, game theory and evolution all make the list of history’s paradigm-busting revolutionary scientific theories.

  7. Science & Society

    Replacing paradigms requires open minds

    Cosmological crises require creativity, but science enforces conformity.

  8. Math

    Scientists who claim ‘hot hand’ is a myth have never had one

    The “hot hand” in basketball is more than a lucky streak or defiance of statistical chance.

  9. Physics

    Top 10 scientific supers

    From supersonic to supernova, superego and supersymmetry, a roundup of science’s super superlatives.

  10. Particle Physics

    Higgs mass isn’t natural, but maybe it shouldn’t be

    Famous particle’s perplexing properties suggest physicists should change their expectations.

  11. Physics

    It’s too soon to declare supersymmetry a tragedy

    Supersymmetry is the odds-on favorite to solve many of the mysteries about the physical world that have stumped theorists for decades. Supposedly the LHC should produce actual evidence for SUSY, but it hasn’t. And so some physicists have begun to declare SUSY dead, or at least on life-support.

  12. Particle Physics

    Higgs owes his Nobel to an editor and a biologist