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 sound like Dan Brown. When the subject turns to the size of the proton, though, I sound like Douglas Adams.

Maybe it’s just that the random variety of topics on the blog throws it off, though. I have, after all, written an entire book explaining quantum mechanics through conversations with my dog, which ought to be consistent. So, what does it make of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog?

The dog dialogue that goes with chapter 5, on the Quantum Zeno Effect evidently sounds like Mark Twain. The start of the serious explanation in that chapter, describing the historical paradox proposed by Zeno of Elea, is reminiscent of Vladimir Nabokov. Moving a little later in the book, the Bunnies Made of Cheese dialogue in which I talk to Emmy about quantum electro-dynamics bears a striking resemblance to Arthur Conan Doyle (I’m not sure which of us is Holmes). And, finally, the opening section of that chapter in which I explain the energy-time uncertainty relation is apparently hard to tell apart from the work of H.P. Lovecraft. That’s probably my favorite result of the lot, given that the section in question is a breezy discussion of time and frequency illustrated by discussions of dogs wagging their tails.

I wonder if it would be possible to get those names on the cover of the paperback edition? “If you like Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Vladimir Nabokov, or H. P. Lovecraft, you’re sure to like at least part of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog…”

6 comments

  1. Are you sure all these famous writers just don’t write in your style?

    I’ll let you know what I think in a couple of weeks (I just purchased your book on the Amazons earlier today).

  2. I checked that out last night. My poetry is like Vonnegut and Rowling. My prose came up as Dan Brown.

  3. I tried a few passages from different documents I have recently prepared. Apparently I write papers like Arthur C. Clarke, proposals like Douglas Adams, and referee reports like Dan Brown. The second of these is not necessarily a Good Thing.

  4. Yes, well it’s the regression theory: so many people were Cleopatra in the last but fifteen lives, it makes Cleopatra as beguiling as Cheryl Cole.
    Try inserting some genuine James Joyce – who seems to correspond with scarce or, lack of, punctuation – and see what happens. I searched for an almost content free piece of text, plopped that in, and found the author wrote like JK Rowling. I recognise all the names, Dan Brown,, Nobokov, David foster Wallace etc. It’s just to get you to sign up to their newsletter & how to write money thing.
    On a darker side, it does sort of cloud the view – a residue of ‘other people’ floating as one writes.
    It’s the vanity wot does it.

  5. IWL strikes me as a sick, sad joke. First, every input greater than some minimum length will return some famous author. A few paragraphs of “Lorem ipsum”, a recipe translated into chinese, or “A aaa a aaaaa aaaa…”

    The last one comes back David Foster Wallace.

    Second, the results return much too quickly for the app to be doing anything more sophisticated than perhaps a bayesian analysis on the individual words. A few tests indicate that sentence length factors in too, but still, nothing approaching a sophisticated analysis. So it claims to be detecting *style*, not artifacts of your word choices.

    Third, they’re clearly selling products and services to writers, and clearly pandering to the egos of their targets. It’s a really manipulative combination.

Comments are closed.