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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. Joe Polchinski
    Cosmology

    Remembering Joe Polchinski, the modest physicist who conceived a multiverse

    String theorists lament the death of Joe Polchinski, one of their field’s most esteemed and respected thinkers.

  2. illustration of a black hole
    Science & Society

    Top 10 papers from Physical Review’s first 125 years

    The most prestigious journal in physics celebrates its 125th anniversary, highlighting dozens of its most famous papers.

  3. SN 2011fe
    Astronomy

    Speed of universe’s expansion remains elusive

    A discrepancy between two measures of the universe’s expansion rate suggests the presence of some unknown astronomical feature.

  4. Noether, Feynman, Joule
    Science & Society

    2018’s Top 10 science anniversaries

    2018’s Top 10 anniversaries include notable birthdays and discoveries in math, science and medicine.

  5. illustration of scientists watching first sustained fission chain reaction
    Science & Society

    First controlled nuclear chain reaction achieved 75 years ago

    The anniversary of the first controlled nuclear chain reaction marks an achievement of immigrants who served America in World War II.

  6. graphic of an evidence hierarchy
    Science & Society

    Philosophical critique exposes flaws in medical evidence hierarchies

    Rankings of research methods for validity of medical evidence suffer from logical flaws, an in-depth philosophical critique concludes.

  7. Physics

    New physics books don’t censor the math behind reality

    Special Relativity and Classical Theory and The Physical World offer deep dives into physical reality’s mathematical foundations.

  8. Science & Society

    An American astronomical evangelist coined the phrase ‘island universe’

    Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, a Civil War general nicknamed ‘Old Stars,’ first used ‘island universe’ in his monthly astronomy magazine.

  9. Aristotle and Werner Heisenberg
    Quantum Physics

    Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities

    Quantum mysteries can be avoided if reality encompasses possibilities as well as actualities, a new paper proposes.

  10. dartboard
    Science & Society

    Debates on whether science is broken don’t fit in tweets

    Amid debates over whether science is broken, many experts are proposing repairs.

  11. Astronomy

    Eclipses show wrong physics can give right results

    Math for making astronomical predictions doesn’t necessarily reflect physical reality.

  12. illustration of wormhole connecting back holes
    Quantum Physics

    Modern-day Alice trades looking glass for wormhole to explore quantum wonderland

    A new paper shows how the possibility of wormholes linking quantum-entangled black holes could be tested in the laboratory.