I was busy yesterday at work, so I managed to avoid looking at the “Conservapedia” until James Nicoll, the bastard, drew my attention to the entry on Relativity: Unlike most advances in physics, the theory of relativity was proposed based on mathematical theory rather than observation. The theory rests on two postulates that are difficult… Continue reading Alexander Pope Was Right
Month: February 2007
Comprehensible Is the New Black
John Scalzi is being railroaded into heading a new movement in SF: The New Comprehensible. He disdains manifestoes (“people who issue literary manifestos should be thrown into jet engines”), but does offer a set of precepts for people seeking to write in the New Comprehensible: 1. Think of an actual person you know, of reasonable… Continue reading Comprehensible Is the New Black
George R. R. Martin, The Armageddon Rag [Library of Babel]
I picked up a copy of the re-issue of The Armageddon Rag in the dealer’s room at Boskone, mostly because Emmet O’Brien raves about it. This is, of course, a little dicey, because Emmet’s a weird guy sometimes, but the premise looked fairly interesting. The book follows washed-up author Sander Blair, founder and former editor… Continue reading George R. R. Martin, The Armageddon Rag [Library of Babel]
Trapping Radium
The AIP’s Physics News Update this week highlights a paper on the laser cooling and trapping of radium by a group at Argonne National Laboratory. This is a new record for the heaviest atom ever cooled and trapped. It’s not quite as cool as the previous record, which involved the trapping of francium atoms that… Continue reading Trapping Radium
Hugo Recommendations
As Kate and I are planning to attend the Worldcon this year, we’re eligible to nominate for the Hugo Awards, which are sort of SF’s version of the Oscars, or maybe the Golden Globes (the Nebula Awards being the other). This is only the third time I’ve had this opportunity, and it’s always kind of… Continue reading Hugo Recommendations
Quantum Gravity: Physics?
The post title is taken from the announcement for today’s colloquium talk. The abstract: Quantum gravity is the theory which is thought to underlie quantum theory and general relativity. I will introduce the subject, emphasizing recent results which suggest that spatial geometry is discrete. Such discrete geometry may have an observational signature, especially if it… Continue reading Quantum Gravity: Physics?
Boskone in Brief
Kate and I spent the weekend in Boston for the science fiction convention Boskone, which we’ve been going to every year for the past several years. I’m not going to do a detailed recap of everything that was said on every panel that I went to, mostly because I don’t keep notes. Also, that would… Continue reading Boskone in Brief
Boskone: Visiting Japan
The first panel I was on was travel advice for the Japanese Worldcon: Visiting Japan, If we attend the Worldcon in Yokohama this August, what knowledge should we bring along? What ten phrases are essential? What societal differences should we be prepared to accommodate? What are Japanese SF fans like? What will we eat? How… Continue reading Boskone: Visiting Japan
Journal of “Well, Duh!”
This one came across the RSS feeds last week, when I was getting ready to leave town and didn’t have time to post, but I really can’t let this slide by without comment. The EurekAlert headling really says it all: Sleep disturbances affect classroom performance: As a night of bad sleep can have an adverse… Continue reading Journal of “Well, Duh!”
Officially Official
In my campus mailbox this morning: Dear Chad: I am pleased to report that on Februrary 10, 2007 the Board of Trustees approved our recommendation that you be tenured effective September 1, 2007 at the rank of Associate Professor. Woo-hoo! It took about half a second to decide to sign the copy indicating my acceptance,… Continue reading Officially Official