Big Think Interview with Lisa Randall

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Big Think

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I'm grateful to Professor Randall for creating a bridge for non-scientists to begin to be able to grasp the questions that particle physicists are grappling with on a daily basis. I find it thrilling. I turn to science and scientists for metaphors, which are the source of a writer's energy.

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Her books:

Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, by Lisa Randall

Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions, by Lisa Randall

 

Fog + Sun = Light Show

5th in a series of 5

 

We had a day of sun and fog in Chicago, a few years ago, and it played against the John Hancock building to great effect. This is the fifth, and final, in the series. The photos are RAW shots, untouched by photoshop, except to resize them.

Fog + Sun = Light Show

4th in a series of 5

We had a day of sun and fog in Chicago, a few years ago, and it played against the John Hancock building to great effect. This is the fourth in a series. The photos are RAW shots, untouched by photoshop, except to resize them.

Fog + Sun = Light Show

1 in a series of 5

We had a day of sun and fog in Chicago, a few years ago, and it played against the John Hancock building to great effect. This is the first in a series. The photos are RAW shots, untouched by photoshop, except to resize them.

My Two Suns - Chicago

See what happens when you leave a camera mounted on a tripod unattended...

I tried to duplicate the angle of the camera to the window the next day, but I couldn't get it to do that again!

What I'm reading...

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I saw Charlie Rose interview Lisa Randall and I immediately wanted to read her books. She has a speaking style that's very interesting; she is able to convey the excitement she sees in particle physics in layman's language -- no small trick, that -- and she is almost bursting with the information she has to pare down. The containment and delivery of bite size bits of info, minus the math which is the road itself, is an art form.





Lisa Randall: Knocking on Heaven's Door - Great Teachers




Physicists Anxiously Await News of the 'God Particle' - NYTimes





Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, by Lisa Randall


Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions, by Lisa Randall



























  

              
  
    
  
    
  
  

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  



 
  

  


  
    
  

    

      
        On the business of books -- Creative Destruction: Elegy for a Bookstore and a Book Culture
      
    

    

      
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Creative Destruction* is now a business term meant to convey the necessity of clearing the way for the new -- capitalism's periodic way of preparing the foundation by leveling existing structures, if necessary, all in the goal of new efficiencies, progress, etc., etc. The book business is in the midst of one such leveling. Like all situations where euphemisms are attached, the term is often in jarring dissonance with what is witnessed on the ground, where real lives and livelihoods are impacted directly.


It's common news now for bookstores, long in business, to be closing their doors. Village Voice Bookshop in Paris is closing after a thirty year run. It's also common to say, of course...this is the way of life, as we all turn toward our laptop screens and tablets for more minutes and hours of the day. Most in the book business were never in it for the money; surely, not the independent booksellers, those that provided a physical space where it was never solely about the purchase of a book. In business terms, judging by marketplace efficiencies, the move to e-books has been a no-brainer. What we're losing with this predominately economic mindset is worth noting.


Independent bookstores have long provided their communities with an intellectual space where like minds -- book lovers -- could gather. Each bookstore expressed the quirkiness of the owner and said something about the local community, too. The pleasure of browsing, the potential for chance meeting with an author, usually in the form of a book, sometimes at a reading, or bumping into another patron with similar taste, was always in the air. The business of a bookstore was always socially minded. The pure arrangement of aisles and bookcases reminded you how much the world offered and how little one lifetime allowed. 


At the same time that bookstores are folding from economic pressures, library funding is being questioned in many communities. The recession has had a great impact on budgets, and library hours and staffing are being cut back. The library has always been the primary landscape and provider of the common good, where no one was ever turned away for the lack of money.


As books become something only read on devices, we will all be locked into the culture and cultural limitations of the device providers and their shareholders. The grand hope of the democratization of publishing, with the fall of the gatekeepers, will exclude those not able to pay the initial device fee and the ongoing per item cost. Libraries matter, if community matters, and if the common good matters.  


Community can be made online, though it is difficult -- not impossible -- to do from behind a screen. With time and thought maybe real communities will form. Matthew Stadler is trying to do so with Publication Studio. I've learned much from him. 




 


I have novels ready to publish. I've been thinking about finding another agent, but I've hesitated so far. For many reasons, I may publish on my own. I do so with full knowledge of what's at stake and what has been lost along the way. We're at a crossroads, culturally; a clear path has not been cut yet. As readers and writers we need to take these steps mindfully, with suasion.   


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the history of Creative Destruction on wikipedia



























  

              
  
    
  
    
  
  

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  



 
  

  


  
    
  

    

      
        Regarding Water
      
    

    

      
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I took this shot at Lake Alice, in Gainesville, FL. The bird is an Anhinga, sometimes called a snake-bird, because when it's in the water its body is submerged and the bend of its neck has a snake like appearance from a distance.