Last week’s talks were using sci-fi space travel as a hook to talk about relativity, and my original idea for the talk was to explain how faster-than-light travel ultimately ends up violating causality. Some observers will see effects happening before the events that cause them, and that’s just weird. In How to Teach Relativity to… Continue reading Dark Energy, Faster-Than-Light Travel, and Fine Structure Bombs
Category: Books
Cover for Eureka! Discovering Your Inner Scientist
My Thursday presentation here in Houston went well, though it was a pretty small crowd. I’ll be doing it again today before running to the airport to get home. I didn’t really have an opportunity to do shameless self-promotion regarding the new book, but I did get a copy of the official cover for it,… Continue reading Cover for Eureka! Discovering Your Inner Scientist
Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn by Amanda Gefter
One of the pop-physics books I’ve read recently was Amanda Gefter’s much-discussed Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn. I was going to post a review of it back in March, but literally the day I was planning to write it, I got email from an editor at Physics Today asking if I had any books I’d like… Continue reading Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn by Amanda Gefter
In Which I Read Hard Science Fiction
Astonishingly, in the last few weeks, I’ve actually found time to read some– gasp— novels. In particular, I finished two books that probably belong in the “Hard SF” genre: A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias and Lockstep by Karl Schroeder. Both Jim and Karl are people I’ve met many times at cons; I’ve enjoyed… Continue reading In Which I Read Hard Science Fiction
Superheros are Anti-Science
I’m not really a comic-book guy, but I’ve watched a bunch of comic-book movies recently. Kate was really fired up for the new Captain America movie, so I finally got around to watching the first one as background for that, then when I was sleep-deprived last week I watched the second Thor movie via on-demand… Continue reading Superheros are Anti-Science
The New SAT, Reading, Gaming, and Jargon
Given the academic circles I run in, it’s not surprising that one of the most repeated stories crossing my social media feeds yesterday had to do with the changes to the SAT. Starting in 2015, the essay section will no longer be mandatory, and they’re going to reconfigure the reading and math sections to emphasize… Continue reading The New SAT, Reading, Gaming, and Jargon
Struggling With Sincerity
In October 1988, I trashed my parents’ basement in order to get into college. OK, the causal connection is a little indirect, but it’s there. I was applying to college that fall, and needed to write an essay to go with my application. I’ve always been able to write stuff with very little effort, so… Continue reading Struggling With Sincerity
Work. Finish. Publish.
A couple of days ago, John Scalzi posted a writing advice open thread, asking people to share the best advice they’d gotten on the craft of writing. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, much of it fairly specific to fiction writing– stuff about plotting, the use of synonyms for “said,” how to keep… Continue reading Work. Finish. Publish.
Five Billion Years of Solitude by Lee Billings
It’s taken me a disgracefully long time to finish the review copy of Lee Billings’s Five Billion Years of Solitude I was sent back in the fall, mostly because I didn’t read anything not immediately related to the book-in-progress for most of November and all of December. Which is to say, the long delay is… Continue reading Five Billion Years of Solitude by Lee Billings
On Persistence and the Counting of Things
Kameron Hurley did a blog post on what it took her to become a writer, which I ran across via Harry Connolly’s follow-up. These are fairly long, but well worth reading for insight into what it means to be a writer– and they’re both very good at what they do. You should buy their books,… Continue reading On Persistence and the Counting of Things