Skip to content

Sign up for a small monthly payment and enjoy ads-free browsing at 3QD


3 Quarks Daily

Make a one-time donation and enjoy ads-free browsing at 3QD


  • Home
  • About Us
  • Recommended Reading
  • Magazine Archives
  • Support 3QD
  • Log In

The Machinery of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’

Posted on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2026 12:44PMWednesday, July 15, 2026 by Morgan Meis

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.

Post navigation

A Guide to a Muscular Liberalism
I finally understood why the universe needs imaginary numbers

The Curated Links at 3QD *

The usual curated links to articles elsewhere are no longer on the front page. They are on the “Recommended Reading” page which can be accessed by clicking the menu item of that name, just under the main 3QD banner. Try it and see. Or just click here.

Receive 3QD Posts by Email

Please fill out the form below to get our email with all the posts from the previous 24 hours, which is sent out a bit after midnight (NY City time) each day. This is completely free of charge for everyone.
Name: 
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Follow 3QD on Social Media


What People Say About 3QD




"The algorithms that curate your social-media timeline do so with indifference and programmed greed. The humans who curate 3QD do so with love and well-aged wisdom. Read 3QD instead! It’s so much better!"

—Justin E. H. Smith, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Paris.




"Just wanted you to know I’m one of many who reads and enjoys 3 Quarks....almost daily."

—David Byrne, musician, former lead-singer of the Talking Heads, artist, intellectual.




"I couldn't tear myself away from 3 Quarks Daily, to the point of neglecting my work. Congratulations on this superb site."

—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University.




"I've recommended your site to a number of friends and colleagues who've bemoaned the dearth of sites with any literary/scientific muscularity. Keep up the wonderful work."

—John Allen Paulos, Professor of Mathematics at Temple University, and bestselling author of Innumeracy




"I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks."

—Richard Dawkins, previously Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.




"Mighty interesting website! I've added it to my favorites."

—Daniel Dennett, University Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University.




"3QD is always interesting--you (and your other contributors) have a fine eye for good writing in both the arts and the sciences, which is a very rare thing indeed."

—Rochelle Gurstein, author of The Repeal of Reticence, and frequent contributor to The New Republic, Salmagundi, and American Scholar.




"3 Quarks Daily is a warm and often amusing home for intellectuals and other wags."

—Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer.




"It is a great honor to be mentioned in one of my two ONLY portals to the internet—and the world, since I do not read newspapers. My discipline, to avoid drowning in information, is not to cruise the web outside of these two points. I tried many sites; yours has CHARM."

—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan. [The other site NNT is referring to is the excellent Arts & Letters Daily.]




"3 Quarks Daily is a great website which should be supported!"

—Ned Block, Silver Professor of Philosophy, Psychology and Neural Science at NYU; former chair of the philosophy program at MIT.








Recent Comments on 3QD

3QD Design History and Credits

The original site was designed by S. Abbas Raza in 2004 but soon completely redesigned by Mikko Hyppönen and deployed by Henrik Rydberg. It was later upgraded extensively by Dan Balis in 2006. The next major revision was designed by S. Abbas Raza, building upon the earlier look, and coded by Dumky de Wilde in 2013. And this current version 5.0 has been designed and deployed by Dumky de Wilde in collaboration with S. Abbas Raza.

3 Quarks Daily

3 Quarks Daily started in 2004 with the idea of creating a curated retreat for everything intellectual on the web. No clickbait, no fake news, not just entertainment, but depth and breadth —something increasingly hard to find on the internet today. If you like what we do, please consider making a donation.