A Japanese physicist who I worked with as a post-doc spotted the Japanese edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in the wild, and picked up a copy. He sent along a scan of a couple of pages of the text, one of which I reproduce here: I had totally forgotten that Japanese… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, Sideways
Category: Books
All the Myriad Inceptions
In comments to yesterday’s post about my favorite Many-Worlds story, a couple of people mention “All the Myriad Ways,” a Larry Niven short story. I don’t think I’ve ever actually read the story, but it gets brought up all the time, so I’m familiar with the concept. It’s an angle on Many-Worlds that I don’t… Continue reading All the Myriad Inceptions
Many-Worlds in Fiction: “Divided by Infinity”
Today, Tor.com has posted the complete story “Divided by Infinity” by Robert Charles Wilson. This remains probably the best science fiction story ever using the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics (though it doesn’t call it that explicitly), and also the creepiest: In the year after Lorraine’s death I contemplated suicide six times. Contemplated it seriously,… Continue reading Many-Worlds in Fiction: “Divided by Infinity”
A Reason Why Paper Books Will Survive
Every couple of weeks, there’s another bunch of stories about how e-books are transforming the world, and paper books will soon survive only as collectible fetish objects. It occurred to me this morning that I share a house with a reason why paper books will be around for a while yet, at least in some… Continue reading A Reason Why Paper Books Will Survive
My Hugo Awards Ballot
The voting for the 2010 Hugo Awards closed last night. I sent in my ballot yesterday, but I’m trying to limit my computer time this weekend, so I didn’t post about it until today. The following lists are my votes, with miscellaneous commentary. The Hugos use a complicated vote-counting scheme, including a “No Award” option… Continue reading My Hugo Awards Ballot
How to Teach Physics to Your Japanese Dog
The vanity search this morning turned up something I hadn’t seen before: That’s the Japanese edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I knew one was in the works, but hadn’t heard when it would be out. Of course, I can’t read any of it other than my own name (rightmost column of… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Japanese Dog
The E-Book Experience
A bit more than a month ago, I got a Sony Reader as a birthday present, upgrading my electronic book-reading platform from an old Palm Pilot. this is, obviously, not as sexy as a Kindle or a Nook, but then again, it doesn’t involve me paying fees to use wireless services and further stoke my… Continue reading The E-Book Experience
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Now With More Quantum
If you’re in the UK, you may very well be thinking “You know, I love the idea of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, but I find American idiom very intimidating. If only there were an edition just for people like me…” Well, hypothetical UK person, your prayers have been answered: This is the… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Now With More Quantum
Launch Pad for Quantum Physics
Over at Jeff Vandemeer’s blog, Rachel Swirsky has a series ofm guest posts (start here if you prefer direct post links) about the recently completed Launch Pad workshop. this is a NASA funded workshop bringing a group of writers together for six days of lectures on modern astronomy from working astronomers. From the workshop web… Continue reading Launch Pad for Quantum Physics
I Write Like a Random Selection of Famous People
Via Crooked Timber, there’s a silly web site that lets you put in a chunk of text, and does some sort of statistical analysis of it to determine what famous writer’s prose it most closely resembles. It turns out, I’m kind of hard to categorize. For instance, when I’m writing about Holy Grails, I apparently… Continue reading I Write Like a Random Selection of Famous People