Gene Tracy

Chancellor Professor of Physics Emeritus, William & Mary

Gene Tracy is Chancellor Professor of Physics Emeritus at William & Mary in Virginia. He recently published The Icarus Question: Essays about Science, Technology, and the Search for Home in a Changing World, edited by Sally Davies.

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Written by Gene Tracy

An open notebook with handwritten mathematical equations and a geometric diagram on two pages.

ideaComputing and artificial intelligence

How much can we afford to forget, if we train machines to remember?

Gene Tracy

A painting of a stylised planet with rings and circles against a black background, featuring a red oval shape at the top.

essayHistory of science

Behold: science as seeing

One astronomer’s dimpled pie is another’s cratered moon. How can our mind’s eye learn to see the new and unexpected?

Gene Tracy

A group of people standing outdoors. They appear to watch for something, one holds a US flag, the image is slightly blurred.

essayPhysics

A science without time

From past to present, into the future: the flow of time is central to human experience. Why isn’t it central to physics?

Gene Tracy

Painting of a ship with yellow sails battling rough seas at night with a bright star in the sky and water splashing on deck.

essayHistory of ideas

Sky readers

For most of human history, the stars told us where we were in space and time. Have we forgotten how to look up?

Gene Tracy