On a train ride to a metallurgical conference in Chicago, a consultant tries to avoid the debate between pure and applied sciences, but he cannot avoid it when he gets cornered in the washroom by two professors and an undecided bright new recruit.

An academic prides herself in her powers of observation, but finds herself unable to change the fate of those suffering around her—whether it be a microscopic rotifer in biology lab, a long-dead boy whose letters she reads from the 1800s, or her twenty-one-year old cousin.

When a physics professor reaches the cusp of his greatest work, he pressures his friend into sharing research information and lands himself into trouble with the U.S. military.

When he comes back home from work to find that his wife has been cheating on him, a mad scientist builds a time machine to go back in time and ensure that her mother never gives birth to her, but things don’t turn out as expected.

When a scientist discovers science-based information that negates his world's established creation myth and belief system, he sends the world into chaos, with some zealots clinging desperately to their dogma, while others attempt to embrace the unknown future.

Two female biologists spend a few months in a hotel in the Northeastern United States to research shore life, and whereas one pursues romance with men, the other feels spurned by unrequited love.

A young girl dreams of becoming the first famous Dominican geologist, but when her brother commits suicide, she must abandon her dreams and take care of her family.

While recovering from a serious illness, a ninety-year-old scientist wades through his patchy memory, piecing together fragments of images and emotions from his childhood as an immigrant in the once-moving American 1940s. He thinks about his admiration for airplanes, which have been outlawed in this alternate history. He considers how such scientific advancements can also bring about great destruction.

While he pens an excuse to withdraw from a community project, a biology professor reflects on other times he avoided confrontation and ruminates on unresolved dilemmas in his life.

A scientist reminisces about an old affair while he watches his time-machine lab burn down.