It’s a banner day for science explainer things I wrote, as a piece I wrote has just gone live at Tor.com:<\/p>\n
\nWhy Gandalf Is Wrong<\/a><\/p>\n
Even as a kid, reading J. R. R. Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings<\/cite> at the golden age of twelve or so, Gandalf\u2019s response to Saruman never sat well with me. Splitting white light into its component colors is awesome, and taking things apart is the best way to learn how they work. Knowing how things work is the first step toward making them work better, a process that leads to the technologies that make modern life comfortable enough to, among other things, provide Oxford dons with enough free time to construct elaborate fantasy universes.<\/p>\n
With an attitude like that, it was probably inevitable that I would grow up to be a scientist. And as I grew up to become a physicist working with atoms and lasers, I\u2019ve only become more convinced that Gandalf is wrong. Splitting light isn\u2019t a mistake, it\u2019s the first step on the path toward our modern understanding of the universe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I wrote this about a year ago, and made a few attempts to shop it around, which mostly serves to demonstrate that I’d never make it as a freelance writer, because I don’t have the patience for navigating the submission process. I’m pretty happy to see it at Tor, though, because they’re a great site, and serve an appropriate audience. And, indeed, there are a few comments over there taking issue with my framing…<\/p>\n
Anyway, I’m very happy with the way the piece turned out, so go read it. I’m not responsible for the headline image of Saruman in a Dr. Who jacket, though– that was Tor’s production people, not me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s a banner day for science explainer things I wrote, as a piece I wrote has just gone live at Tor.com: Why Gandalf Is Wrong Even as a kid, reading J. R. R. Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings at the golden age of twelve or so, Gandalf\u2019s response to Saruman never sat well with… Continue reading Gandalf Was Wrong: Spectroscopy and The Lord of the Rings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,265,238,7,37,565,23,11,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-in_the_media","category-optics","category-physics","category-pop_culture","category-precision_measurement","category-quantum_optics","category-science","category-sf","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}