Astronomy Misconceptions in Literature

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

Recently I highlighted an astronomical blunder by literary giant Ernest Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea. He is far from unique. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Dickens, James Thurber, Edgar Allen Poe, and others of similar literary greatness, have all similarly blundered.  A lot of the mistakes involve the moon: “Till clomb above the […]

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Challenging Science Fiction Reads

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

This is the subject of a new Mind-Meld post over at sfsignal.com, which I contributed to: Mike Brotherton Mike Brotherton is the author of the hard science fiction novels Spider Star (2008) and Star Dragon (2003), the latter being a finalist for the Campbell award. He’s also a professor of astronomy at the University of […]

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So You Want to be an Expert? You Can Be.

Monday, August 16th, 2010

By “expert” I mean world-class, whether or not you’re super smart or super talented. I’m starting to lose my faith in innate “talent” after some recent reading.   Two of the books are Talent is Overrated and Outliers.   I’ve got another book on this topic coming, too, more on the inspirational side of things.   Some of […]

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The End of Books?

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

I’m not exactly talking about ebooks or transitions of technology.   I’m talking about Larry McMurtry’s contention that we may be living in the twilight of the novel.   (Note that he happens to be giving his talk on this topic, ironically perhaps, at Rice University where I literally read hundreds of novels as an undergraduate in […]

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