The black, flea-like shape you see here is the classic Mandelbrot-set icon. Okay, it looks more like Frosty the Snowman tipped over into an inkwell. But in honor of Jonathan Swift (see intro ...

Yup, real small. In this feature, we try to give you a vague sense—for that is all that's possible—of just how small a string is. Starting at an everyday scale, we travel by powers of 100 down ...