In talking to a reporter about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog on Wednesday, I learned of a mistake in the text of the book– a footnote on page 71 says that Scientific American published an article on how to make your own “quantum eraser” in April 2007, when in fact it was May… Continue reading How to Teach Psychics Physics to Your Dog
Category: Books
The Problem With Urban Fantasy: I Want The Ponder Stibbons Story
Most of my fiction reading at the moment is done while rocking SteelyKid to sleep at night, using a Palm as an e-book reader. This does not really lend itself to the reading of weighty Literary Novels, but rather lightweight genre trash. Which means I’ve been reading a bunch of “urban fantasy,” because that is… Continue reading The Problem With Urban Fantasy: I Want The Ponder Stibbons Story
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update and Miscellany
There isn’t all that much news for a real obsessive update, so I’ll lump in a few writing-related items of possible interest to people who read books other than mine. A real obsessive update item: BradDeLong doubts my book can help his dog. How to Teach Physics to Your Dog gets four out of five… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update and Miscellany
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
I should probably start date-tagging these updates about miscellaneous How to Teach Physics to Your Dog news. I don’t really mean this to become a second daily links dump, but it’s kind of looking that way… — As a general matter, it’s dangerous for authors to acknowledge the existence of Amazon customer reviews (acknowledgment leads… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Why Every Dog Should Love Quantum Physics 6: Superconductors
If you’re still not sure whether you should be teaching physics to your dog, here’s another good reason: Superconductors. The “super” in “superconductor” refers to the fact that these materials conduct electric current with absolutely zero resistance, better than the best ordinary metals. This has obvious applications in the green technology field (which dogs should… Continue reading Why Every Dog Should Love Quantum Physics 6: Superconductors
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Today’s miscellaneous information about How to Teach Physics to your Dog: — Following on yesterday’s discussion about Barnes & Noble, which seems to have numerous in-store copies everywhere but New England, where I am, it’s not some system-wide issue– B&N stores have a healthy number of copies, and have sold a pretty reasonable number of… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Quantization of Books 3: How Many Books Is That?
When I saw the data generated by the sales rank tracker Matthew Beckler was kind enough to put together, I joked that I hoped to someday need a logarithmic scale to display the sales rank history of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Thanks to links from Boing Boing, John Scalzi, and Kevin Drum,… Continue reading Quantization of Books 3: How Many Books Is That?
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Various and sundry updates regarding How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, now available wherever books are sold: Well, ok, that last sentence is a slight exaggeration. I spent a little while punching ZIP codes of places I’ve lived into the Barnes and Noble page, and couldn’t find any stores that have copies in stock.… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Move Over, Schrödinger’s Cat
A couple of quick book-related items that I can’t resist posting, even while on vacation: First, the sales rank cracked the top 500 on Amazon last night, peaking at 396. I don’t know if this is just a matter of relative sales volume being low, or what, but it’s a huge kick all the same.… Continue reading Move Over, Schrödinger’s Cat
The Ethics of Santa
Janet has a post grappling with the ethical implications of telling children about Santa Claus. SteelyKid is too young for this to be an issue yet, but on this issue, like many others, I turn to my favorite literary philosopher, Terry Pratchett: “All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to… Continue reading The Ethics of Santa