A physicist friend taught me something really cool once that I thought I’d share.

I’m an engineer. Those of you who know engineers know that when it comes to theory… well, let’s just say, we like empiricism juuuuust fine. This truism (which like most truisms isn’t really true; without theory we engineers would have nothing to work with in coming up with practical applications, and without empirical data, scientists would have no way to falsify and thus prove their theories; still, there is a grain of truth there) is best explained by a mathematics joke illustrating infinity by halves.

Imagine that a scientist and an engineer are standing across the room from your favorite movie star, who is giving them both the bedroom eyes and showing them gorgeous female cleavage/ male pecs (depending on your preferences). Put yourself in their shoes. Ooh la la! They want you, you want them; let’s go, baby!

But Einstein’s ghost appears, looking sympathetic yet unyielding, and puts up a hand. “I’m sorry, my friend,” he says, “but you may travel only by halves in each move.”

In other words, you may go half the distance in the first move, and in the second move half the remaining distance, and so on.

Read More »

I was working on this post and its associated materials when the Eat Our Brains host went down. After waiting until two in the morning I gave up, so, you get it this morning.

---

I wrote “The Touch of Their Eyes” in 1979 and sent it into a contest/workshop that was being run by AggieCon, my home convention. (Back in 1974 it was the first convention I’d ever been to and I chaired Aggiecon V the following year.) The stories were going to be evaluated by the Guest of Honor that year–Theodore Sturgeon.Now, this was only the second story I’d ever completed. My first, a story called mumbledy-mumbledy, I sent off to Analog and it was rejected with a personal letter by Ben Bova who was editor at that time. I understood that to be a fairly encouraging thing–the letter actually said let me see your future work.Now, “Touch” reached the convention committee on time but it was apparently slightly over the length requirements so there was some debate as to whether they would be forwarding the story to Mr. Sturgeon or not. Eventually they did, though.

I showed up for the convention and was told, “He didn’t get your manuscript. It missed him in travel. We’ve given him the mss when he got here but we don’t know if he’ll be able to read it.”

Well, the workshop was in two hours–the first day of the convention. I didn’t have high hopes, but I showed up for the program slot anyway.

Read More »