Tell us what science you need to know to be ‘cultured’

Physics World contributor Robert Crease is questioning an odd gap in the New York Times Style Magazine's latest special issue on how to be cultured. The glossy covers film, food, music, theatre, fashion, visual arts, and literature from around the world—but science doesn't appear anywhere. Crease connects this to a nineteen fifty-nine essay by British scientist C.P. Snow, who documented how educated humanists couldn't explain basic physics, while scientists hadn't read Shakespeare. He argues that genuinely cultured people should understand how mass and energy work, know how vaccines function, and grasp the science of climate threats—all concepts that routinely surface in arts and popular culture, from Einstein's equation on Time magazine's cover to the uncertainty principle in novels and comedy. Crease is now inviting readers to propose what science should count toward being truly cultured.

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