I’ve been falling down a little in the area of shameless self-promotion, but I will be at Boskone this coming weekend, where I’ll be doing three program items: Reading: Chad Orzel (Reading), Fri 19:30 – 20:00 This will be a section from the forthcoming book, probably involving Emmy and particle physics. Or possibly William Butler… Continue reading Upcoming Appearances: Boskone
Category: Books
Syncretic Pre-Schooler Blogging
We send SteelyKid to preschool at the Jewish Community Center in Schenectady, because when we looked at day care programs back in the day, they had the one we liked best. This is a mixed blessing in a number of ways– they close for a lot of religious holidays when nothing else closes, creating some… Continue reading Syncretic Pre-Schooler Blogging
Random Note That Wouldn’t Bother Normal People
In a book that I read recently (either The Cloud Roads or The Serpent Sea— I finished the first and immediately started the second), as some characters are traveling from one place to another, there’s a passing mention that they weren’t able to hunt at night because the moon wasn’t out and it was too… Continue reading Random Note That Wouldn’t Bother Normal People
How to Teach Physics to Your Polish Dog
I have a Google alert set up to let me know whenever my name or the title of one of my books turns up in one of the sources they index. This is highly imperfect, sometimes missing interesting articles, and often blorting out 57 different pages on which my name appears in a sidebar link.… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Polish Dog
Reminder: How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog Photoshop Contest
A quick reminder: How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog (cover in the left sidebar) will be released at the end of the month. If you’d like to win a signed copy early, though, you can enter our Photoshop contest. Just edit a picture of Emmy into another picture having something to do with physics.… Continue reading Reminder: How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog Photoshop Contest
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog: Photoshop Contest
It’s now officially February, and the release date for How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog is only a few weeks off– the official release date is Feb. 28. Of course, I’ve got a copy already: If you would like a copy of your very own, you can either wait until the release, or take… Continue reading How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog: Photoshop Contest
Critical Pronunciation Poll
I’m using Dava Sobel’s Longitude this week in my timekeeping class. The villain of the piece, as it were, is the Reverend Dr. Nevil Maskelyne, who promoted an astronomical method for finding longitude, and played a major role in delaying the payment to John Harrison for his marine chronometers. It’s a good story, with lots… Continue reading Critical Pronunciation Poll
It’s a Real Book!
I was going to write something about the politics of scientific publishing, but instead, I want to focus on what’s really important in modern publishing: That’s right, I got a couple of early copies of How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog in the mail this morning. It’s a real book, with pages and everything…… Continue reading It’s a Real Book!
Simple Video Editing Software?
So, back when How to Teach Physics to Your Dog was coming out, I did a few “dramatic readings” of bits of the book, such as this one on the Quantum Zeno Effect: This was made with Windows Movie Maker, because it was free (came with the computer) and dead simple. However, Movie Maker on… Continue reading Simple Video Editing Software?
End of Year Self-Promotion
I will eventually do a “Year in Blog” post with a bunch of links to top posts and so on, but not until the year is actually over. At the moment, I’m too busy prepping next term’s class to do all the link chasing. That doesn’t mean I can’t engage in a little self-promotion, though.… Continue reading End of Year Self-Promotion