It was said that there was nothing the young James Clerk Mazwell couldn’t decode. Curiosity drove him to figure out how locks and keys and other puzzles worked. Maxwell grew up in Scotland, and his eccentric ways and introverted personality in school made him the butt of jokes among his classmates; they laughed at him…

Commentary Although each essay in this series is pegged to one or more individuals, the series fundamentally isn’t about the individuals, but the ideas they represent. Sir Isaac Newton wasn’t a political thinker like Marcus Cicero or John Locke. He was a scientist. Indeed, he exemplified the Scientific Revolution—an event that changed not only how…

The Associated Press posted an article in 2007 about an Italian musician, Giovanni Pala, who believes he found a piece of musical composition hidden within Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting “The Last Supper.” Pala, a composer and computer technician, raises the possibility that da Vinci may have left behind a somber composition intended to accompany…