Orange County Was Not Immune to the 1960s

Photographs and Memories Reveal the Darker Side of a Symbol of Postwar Suburban Order

The Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California bills itself as “the first great metropolitan park of the 21st century,” but until recently it was the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro. The base was commissioned in 1943 and served as an airport for President Richard Nixon as he shuttled between the Western White House and Washington, D.C. After El Toro was decommissioned in 1999, the site was dormant for years. Then, after a long and contentious debate, voters approved a plan to create the Great Park. In 2011, I …

Don’t Trust Your Instincts

Your Brain Is Lazy and Sometimes Mistakes Truthiness For Truth

True or false: “The Eiffel Tower is in France.” Most of us can quickly and accurately answer this question by relying on our general knowledge. But what if you were …

Scientists Need Luck, Too

Experiment All You Want, But Serendipity Goes a Long Way Toward Making a Great Discovery

What role does luck play in science? Are most scientific discoveries serendipitous—fortuitous happenstance—or the result of persistence and the need to understand why? Let me tell you the story of …