Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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Meta
Category Archives: Cosmology
Alan Lightman, The Accidental Universe
Alan Lightman’s THE ACCIDENTAL UNIVERSE (2014) is a short book of seven essays, most previously published, on various ways the universe is not obviously what it appears to be, or is at odds with what humans might prefer. (Lightman is … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Philosophy, Science
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Links and Comments: The Size of the Universe; The Size of the Planets
» NPR’s blog Cosmos & Culture: Lessons From The Beginning Of Time. One report, among many in the past few days, that the apparent detection of ‘gravitational waves’ from the Big Bang, a year ago, was a false alarm: the … Continue reading
Narrative as Reality; or, Reality as Narrative
For tonight, Paul Krugman’s NYT column from a couple days ago: Hating Good Government Evidence doesn’t matter for the “debate” over climate policy, where I put scare quotes around “debate” because, given the obvious irrelevance of logic and evidence, it’s … Continue reading
Sean Carroll on the afterlife, life, death, happiness, and our place in the universe
Today chanced upon this video speech by physicist Sean Carroll, on his blog, upon his winning an Emperor Has No Clothes Award, from the Freedom From Religion Foundation — won previously by everyone from Ursula K. Le Guin to Dan … Continue reading
Posted in Cosmology, Evolution, Philosophy, Physics, Religion
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Links and Comments: Good News about the state of the world; cultural concepts; science; religion and fantasy
Catching up on links and comments from the past three weeks or so, given the holiday lapse. * First some Good News: Slate: Steven Pinker and Andrew Mack: The World Is Not Falling Apart In the world is getting more … Continue reading
Hawking’s Theory of Everything
Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow, THE GRAND DESIGN (2010) This is the most recent book authored (or co-authored) by Stephen Hawking, the well-known brilliant physicist, subject of the recent film The Theory of Everything. The film depicts (in addition to … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Philosophy, Physics, Science
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The Science of Interstellar
Just finished reading Kip Thorne’s THE SCIENCE OF INTERSTELLAR, a big trade paperback with lots of diagrams and a few photos. Takeaways: 1) Thorne was one of the creators of the initial premise for the film, long before Christopher Nolan … Continue reading
Interstellar
To begin with, I haven’t seen anyone note the coincidence that recent two films, Interstellar and The Theory of Everything (the Stephen Hawking biopic), both key off a major unsolved problem of physics, the unification of gravity and quantum theory. … Continue reading
Ann Druyan on Cosmos
Salon’s film critic Andrew O’Hehir interviews the actual creator and author of the recent Cosmos TV series– not Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was just the on-screen host, but Carl Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan. “Why is God telling me to stop … Continue reading
Ann Druyan on Cosmos
Salon: Interview by film critic Andrew O’Hehir of Comos writer and executive producer Ann Druyan. Neil deGrasse Tyson was the visible host, but he didn’t write the show; Druyan, the widow of Carl Sagan, did. You’ve been pretty outspoken over … Continue reading
