The Firedoglake Book Salon with Sean Carroll last night was a lot of fun. I was generally impressed with the level of the questions, and the tone of the discussion. We went through all of the questions I had typed out in advance (I type fairly slowly, and revise obsessively, so it’s hard for me… Continue reading From Eternity to the Web
Category: Science Books
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
A few bits and pieces of news regarding How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: We got and accepted an offer for the audio book rights from one of the biggest audio book publishers. Actually, I think there were two offers for the audio rights, which is amazing. I have no idea when it would… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Hard to believe it’s been a couple of days since I posted anything with this title… Anyway, there are a couple of small updates: The vanity search turned up this mention on ScienceBase, in with a bunch of other recent science books that sound pretty good. The Union student paper, the Concordiensis, has a story… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Continuity, Discretion, and the Perils of Popularization
Last week’s Seven Essential Elements of Quantum Physics post sparked a fair bit of discussion, though most of it was at the expert level, well above the level of the intended audience. such is life in the physics blogosphere. I think it’s worth a little time to unpack some of the disagreement, though, as it… Continue reading Continuity, Discretion, and the Perils of Popularization
Upcoming Appearances: How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Live
Two upcoming events related to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: This Saturday, January 30, I will be doing a signing at 2pm at the book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, on Western Ave. in Albany. I may or may not read something– I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do as part of… Continue reading Upcoming Appearances: How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Live
The Popular Science Writing Process
Via SFSignal’s daily links dump, Lilith Saintcrow has a terrific post about the relationship between authors and editors: YOUR EDITOR IS NOT THE ENEMY. I don’t lose sight of the fact that I am the content creator. For the characters, I know what’s best. It’s my job to tell the damn story and produce enough… Continue reading The Popular Science Writing Process
Playing With Graphs: People in Albany Don’t Own Kindles
A few days back, Matthew Beckler added the Kindle edition to his sales rank tracker for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Given my well-known love for playing with graphs of data, it was inevitable that I would plot both of these in a variety of ways. So, what do we learn from this?… Continue reading Playing With Graphs: People in Albany Don’t Own Kindles
Perfect for Readers Who Already Have Eaten Cheese in Physics
The great thing about using Google to vanity search for articles about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, or at least one of the great things about it, is that it’s world-wide. Thus, this Dutch roundup of new books, which includes mine. This is what they have to say: Een erg geestig boek is… Continue reading Perfect for Readers Who Already Have Eaten Cheese in Physics
Single-Photon Cooling: Making Maxwell’s Demon
As mentioned previously, I’ve been reading Sean Carroll’s Wheel arrow of time book, which necessarily includes a good bit of discussion of “Maxwell’s Demon,” a thought experiment famously proposed by James Clerk Maxwell as something that would allow you to cool a gas without obviously increasing entropy. The “demon” mans a trapdoor between a sample… Continue reading Single-Photon Cooling: Making Maxwell’s Demon
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: All the News That’s Fit to Keep Off the Web Page
A few weeks back, I spoke on the phone with a freelance writer who was doing a piece for the Albany Times Union. She was putting together a joint article on How to Teach Physics to Your Dog and the Atomville book put together by Jill Linz and Cindy Schwarz (at Skidmore and Vassar, respectively).… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: All the News That’s Fit to Keep Off the Web Page