Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.– Robert Frost
So goes the epigraph of Katie Mack‘s excellent new cosmology book, The End Of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). It is an entertaining and curiously enlightening read about how the universe might end. At 240 pages, it’s a quick and accessible read that somehow manages to cover a great deal of ground. Among its topics:
- What might the universe be?
- Where might it have come from?
- What the heck happened during those first fractions of a second?
- How might the universe end?
- Where do universes go when they die?
These first three points are critical to understanding the rest, and Mack, a theoretical cosmologist and science communicator, does an excellent job explaining them. But she spends most of the book drilling down into these last points. She discusses, among other things, the big crunch, heat death, the big rip, bouncing ‘branes, vacuum decay, and life after (heat) death.
I’d always found heat death–the irreversible transformation of all things into tepid soup–to be deeply depressing. Entropy, an unstoppable juggernaut that slowly makes things less organized, will simply have its way with everything. But the things I read in this book really made me reconsider that.
First, heat death is far from guaranteed. The big crunch–a reversal of cosmic expansion–was assumed to be the fate of the universe until George W. Bush was president. Who’s to say this won’t change again? Is another shift in thinking in fact inevitable?
Second, even if the universe’s final form is a uniform just-above-absolute-zero puddle, there’s no reason to believe this is its truly final form. Random quantum fluctuations can theoretically produce any arrangement of particles. At infinite time horizons, one could argue that these fluctuations will produce any arrangement of particles. Including a very temporary consciousness that believes itself to be a human reading this blog post on the Internet. Or a singularity… and we know where those can lead.
Even freaky apocalypse scenarios like vacuum decay, where a change in the Higgs field suddenly creates a bubble of quantum annihilation that spreads inexorably outward at the speed of light, don’t sound so bad in Mack’s telling: there’s plenty of universe out there that’s traveling away from us even faster. In fact, for all we know, this has already happened a bunch of different places. And, at the end of the day, it would be a painless way to go, and literally impossible to see coming.
So, if you’re in the mood for some surprisingly uplifting eschatology, why not pick up a copy? I got mine from the library, but if you’re looking to buy, this Amazon affiliate link will send some scratch to the blog.
What have you been reading lately?
CDC Guidelines For Fully Vaccinated People
No One of Consequence
The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, or GTFO.
Peace,
NOoC
p.s. Been reading Tales of The Malazan Empire. On something like an 8th or 10th read-through.
jeffreyw
I am almost at the place where I don’t read books anymore and it sadden me. I do listen to audio books every night but if I find myself paying attention to the story I might as well get on up because I’m done sleeping for the night.
Baud
Oh, sure. Let’s talk abour the end of the universe now that Biden is president. Figures.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: really puts the national debt into perspective!
Brachiator
@jeffreyw:
I am in a similar boat. Get tired if I read for too long. Audio books don’t always suffice.
I have been watching YouTube clips, especially British quiz and game shows.
Watched the first episode of the Saint TV series with Roger Moore.
That the universe had a beginning and might have an end is fascinating. But we will have been gone for a long, long time when it happens.
Along those lines, watched a video appreciation of HG Wells’ “The Time Machine.” The Traveller goes forward to the end of things. They depicted it well.
Keith P.
I’m buying into the idea of a fractal universe (every black hole is its own universe, and we’re a black whole in another universe). Mainly because I can’t get around the idea of the universe just existing (and expanding) without nothing else to expand into. Or we’re a simulation running at a Planck resolution
Frank Wilhoit
The Second Law probably conditions all of our conscious and unconscious thoughts and attitudes much more deeply and comprehensively than we realize.
Then there is Bucky Fuller’s Law of Cosmic Irreversibility:
1 pot T –> 1 pot P; 1 pot P !–> 1 pot T
Old School
I’ve been reading Hogfather so I’ll be ready for the book club when it comes up again next year.
Steeplejack
Dubya doesn’t get enough credit for the good things he did.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Vacuum decay could happen any second! Or never!
trollhattan
@Steeplejack:
Dark energy and Dubya go together like pretzels and beer. Dark matter seems more Dick Cheney’s realm.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
I started watching The Saint a few months ago and was surprised to find that I liked it. Surprised because I hate Roger Moore as James Bond. Now realize it’s because he played Bond the same way he played Simon Templar. It works for the lighter TV fare, not the big Bond stuff.
If I remember correctly, I think Bond golden girl Shirley Eaton is in that first episode. She shows up a few more times, as does Honor Blackman.
Alison Rose
Ooh, that sounds great, will add it to my (approximately 6 miles long) TBR list! And if you’re into the topic of that book, I highly recommend Dr. Becky’s YouTube channel–astrophysicist at Oxford who makes great videos that are relatively easy for laypeople to understand. Funny as heck, too.
As for what I’ve been reading, my Goodreads is always linked in my nym if you’re super curious. I read a lot…it’s basically all I do besides work (from home), a little animal crossing, and a little crafting. I’m currently working my way through Dombey and Son by Dickens, which is slow-going because JFC it’s 950 pages and it did not need to be. I always love his writing and characters, but sheesh. Am also reading A Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir, final book in a YA fantasy series set in an ancient Rome inspired world. Have just finished Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, a novella focusing on the systemic misogyny in South Korean society, that made me want to go find random men and punch them.
Out of 34 books read so far this year, I’ve given three 5-star ratings: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado; The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune; and City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert.
piratedan
@No One of Consequence: have you read the series that inspired them (per Erikson) Glen Cook’s The Black Company?
James E Powell
Since summer, I’ve been reading about rock n roll bands & people. Currently reading Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett (Airborne Toxic Event), will start on Nothing But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the 80s Hard Rock Explosion as soon as it arrives. I scorned hair metal when it was popular, but have recently gone back and listened. There was more quality there than I reckoned.
Old School
@Alison Rose:
Good thing I stay home for the most part these days.
Major Major Major Major
@Alison Rose:
Jeez, and here I’ve only read like five, although to be fair one of them was The Stand.
Mike J
Just finishing Wendig’s Wanderers (10ish pages left) and starting Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
TaMara (HFG)
I adore Katie Mack!
Alison Rose
@Old School: In my review of the book, I did note that dudes ought to be thankful for COVID :P
TomatoQueen
“…Random quantum fluctuations can theoretically produce any arrangement of particles. …” reminds me that I’ve just finished our Mr Levenson’s “Einstein in Berlin” and I can hear Einstein’s teeth grinding in despair.
Now I’m reading “A Spy Named Orphan” about Donald Maclean. Oh dear oh dear oh dear what a piteous nightmare, which, if it weren’t so horrible in consequence, would be horribly funny.
Alison Rose
@Major Major Major Major: That book is like 1200 pages, right? So yeah, that’s worth at least 3 or 4, haha. And remember…I do nothing else. Even pre-COVID, reading was basically all I did with my free time. Other people have more of a life :P
Old School
@Alison Rose: Still, I’ll be careful when I take the garbage out tonight.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’ve had a weirdly limited attention span during lockdown. Most recently read N. K. Jemison’s “The Fifth Season” and have a couple of other things I’m slooooowly working my way through. One of my self-improvement projects is to read novels in French. That’s going even more slowly than the English stuff.
I also last month started a project to read through August Wilson’s Century Cycle in approximate order of year. I’ve read the 1900s (“Gem of the Ocean”) and the 1920s (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”). Have the 1910s (“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”) and the 1930s (“The Piano Lesson”) out from the library.
There’s a bunch of non-fiction books waiting in my pile to read. Next one I want to, when I have the brain cells, is a book whose name I’ve forgotten but is by a geneticist who shows how DNA evidence has totally changed the picture of human migration that we developed through archaeology.
Emma from FL
Christ, I need to stay away from this place. My reading list gets longer and longer each week.
Major Major Major Major
@TomatoQueen:
Porque? This is what happens when we start dealing with timelessness.
No One of Consequence
@piratedan: I have read most of what inspired Erickson and Esselmont. Stephen R. Donaldson, Glen Cook, Steven Brust, Zelazny, and more. I find the level of creation/consideration/creativity to be unparalleled in any book of any genre. (Granted, my readings are not comprehensive.)
Good to note though, I loved me some Croaker and Silent.
NOoC
Dorothy A. Winsor
Book related. I blogged about how to get the most from your critique group
https://dawinsor.com/2021/03/08/critique-group/
Doc Sardonic
I am not reading much at all these days, which is a shame because I love to read. The headaches make it unpleasant too do so with an actual book and I hate reading on the iPad. Audio books are a non starter because I HATE being read to, have since i was a non reading toddler. My late mother thought that was why I learned to read way early.
oatler.
Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun contains some speculation about the end of the universe and its rebirth, which he called a “divine year”.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
Liked Moore both as Bond and Templar. You are right, a lot of similarities.
And yet his Templar does have a hard edge. He is a man who knows and has run with criminals, and detests the “ungodly,” those who prey on others.
His Bond was more above it all.
Yep. Fun to see them. Honor Blackman, of course, was also in the Avengers.
It was also interesting to see that Shirley Eaton, in the first episode, is not just a pretty babe, or a damsel in distress.
Some of these shows had more grit and nuance than a lot of modern fare.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Steeplejack: I’ve seen a few episodes of The Saint and thought them OK. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one so my memory is fuzzy. Every once in a while I watch an old Secret Agent show with Patrick McGoohan, in its original British incarnation as Danger Man. I’ve always loved how McGoohan does cold and ruthless.
CaseyL
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve put a hold on this at my library.
The heat death of the universe always struck me as a slow-moving tragedy, as elements of mass get further and further apart, with the background hum of the cosmos slowly thinning to silence.
I don’t see any reason why that would need to be the absolute end, since everything we learn about the universe says it is much stranger than we can possibly imagine.
I just don’t buy the we’re-all-a-simulation, though, since the history of the cosmos is also pretty nuts. Quantum explosions coalescing into gas within nanoseconds? Physical laws of gravity such that random floating matter eventually forms perfectly balanced solar systems? The entire accidental nature of life forming and evolving? Earth, with its history of successive extinctions and Mother Nature having to “try, try again” at getting a viable biosphere going?
If you wrote it as a screenplay, no one would buy the story – it’s much too far fetched.
Salty Sam
Could you decipher please?
Jeffro
I’ve had this on my Amazon wish list for a while and will now bump it up to the top. Thanks, M4!
I’m on a pretty good reading pace this year, and the last three books I’ve read have all been outstanding.
1) Land of Big Numbers, by Te-Ping Chen. Quietly haunting short stories tied to modern China.
2) The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone And How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGee. This book is a keeper. Really eye-opening in all its explorations about how yes, racism hurts people of color the most, but it also exacts a huge toll (financial as well as social, spiritual, and physical) on racist whites.
3) (just finished): Think Again, by Adam Grant. Interesting examples of how people can learn to open their own minds, get through to others whose minds seem pretty closed, and so on.
Not sure what to read next…I think a comics re-read of some kind (Shang-Chi? Iron Fist?) is in order after all that heavy lifting. =)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Salty Sam: I read it as a joke. “1 pot of Tea becomes a pot of Pee, but one pot of Pee does not become a pot of Tea”.
So the T->P reaction is not reversible, as the chemists would say.
Major Major Major Major
@CaseyL:
Wellll, a lot of what you’re describing is based on observations of faraway things and fossil records and stuff, which could be ‘planted’ to give the simulation verisimilitude. We would be talking about an unfathomably advanced civilization, after all. I know it’s mostly a theory that people like to play with on Twitter though so I don’t really give it much attention. The Boltzmann Brain theory I link to above is much more interesting, though also trivial in its own way.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: Graphical works I’ve enjoyed the most lately are Uzumaki and The Incal.
different-church-lady
I just want to be dead before the food riots begin.
Salty Sam
Ah! OK then.
I bludgeoned my way through Fuller’s “Critical Path” 40 yrs ago, and although it was full of indecipherable topological formulae, I didn’t recall the “pot of pee”…
Doc Sardonic
@Salty Sam: Universal equation for the ingestion and divesting oneself of liquid where the constant is P(ee) and the variable is T(ea) but can be replaced by W(ater) or B(eer) or liquid of your choosing. Second half is the instruction not to try to make T or any other liquid mixture out of P
UncleEbeneezer
Phil Plait’s Death From The Skies was also a really good read that covered some of this stuff. It’s from 2009 so I’m not sure how much the science has changed, but I do remember really enjoying it.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
I had a chance recently to see the Honor Blackman Avengers episodes on some third-tier channel—MeTV? Folk?—and thought they were pretty good. She held her own in the classy ass-kicking department.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Which I’m not sure Emma Peel did. Though I had a serious crush on Ms. Peel as a youngster, I was always embarrassed by the shot in the credits where she gives a dainty little kick that’s about 6 inches high and then clearly loses her balance.
Steeplejack
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Danger Man also has been running on Folk, really late on Friday or Saturday night. McGoohan’s character does have a ruthless edge that comes through clearly.
Mary G
I’m reading some of the books on President Obama’s list and am currently on “Twilight of Democracy” by Anne Applebaum. It’s a bit grim, but it makes it clear to me that Trumpism is a global phenomenon and not just an aberration caused by misogyny and the unique brand of racism we practice here in America.
For fun reading, I just finished “A Desolation Called Peace,” by Arkady Martine, who turns out to be a female history professor. Its predecessor, “A Memory Called Empire,” won the last Hugo award and I cannot recommend them highly enough.
Steeplejack
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I don’t remember the Honor Blackman episodes being shown when the series became Secret Agent and ran in the States. I, too, had a huge crush on Emma Peel. In retrospect, I think a lot of people got hypnotized by the leather suit and didn’t see much past that. ?
ETA: In retrospect, as I (re)watch a lot of these old mid-century series, it’s astonishing how rare it was for women characters to be anything more than helpless eye candy. So Mrs. Peel was a big deal.
smedley the uncertain
@Major Major Major Major: But would I notice? I just wink out…
Ken
@Alison Rose: If you’re trying to cut back on punching men, you might want to avoid Burger King’s twitter salute to International Women’s Day.
Major Major Major Major
@smedley the uncertain: It would be physically impossible for you to notice.
Seanly
Worrying about the end of the universe is literally the last concern on my list. Worrying about the Sun going out is the penultimate.
Ken
Sure it is. You just need some tea plants, a lot of extra water, and an uncontrolled thermonuclear reaction parked 150 million kilometers away to provide energy to the system.
Ken
@Major Major Major Major: Unless it’s like in Greg Egan’s novel Schild’s Ladder, where the vacuum collapse expands at exactly half the speed of light from wherever it starts, and you get to watch it coming.
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack:
I’m obviously biased, but I’ve come to realize the problem with Roger Moore’s Bond is the writing, not the acting. The writing got cheesy toward the end of the Connery era and got worse with Moore. I don’t think it’s fair to blame him for the writing, and he was good at doing what they asked of him.
Major Major Major Major
@Ken: At least it would still be painless!
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I think you are biased. Not too sure what gives it away. ;)
But you are right.
The producers wanted a lighter tone, and Moore is the favorite of a lot of Bond fans.
Immanentize
@different-church-lady: The food riots have already begun.
Alison Rose
@Ken: Oy gevalt.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
Bias noted, and I will admit that “I hated Roger Moore” is convenient shorthand for the generally dismal quality those Bond movies. Lots of blame to go around.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I’ve always thought that the concept of a vacuum metastability event was interesting. I think it’s been speculated that’s what the Big Bang actually was and we’re just living in a lower-energy state “bubble universe” that’s expanding.
There’s a pretty entertaining SCP that uses this premise, here
Steeplejack
Quick OT: Any recommendations on sending flowers by mail? Need to send some to my mom, and I realized I haven’t done that (for anyone) since way before the pandemic.
CaseyL
I’ve often thought my perfect afterlife would be as a disembodied consciousness touring the universe, getting a closeup look at the suns, planets, nebulae, etc., that we can only observe from a great distance now. (Yes, it would be lonely – but the past year has taught me I can do pretty well without much social interaction. Also, I wouldn’t have any of the physical-body stuff that leads to emotions like “loneliness.”)
The fun part of that is trying to figure out what a disembodied consciousness would do for a sensory apparatus, and how it would perceive things.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Er, not “by mail.” I meant ordering on line, of course.
CaseyL
@Steeplejack: There’s good old FTD, though I imagine many more florists have branched out into providing nation-wide delivery.
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: If you can find a local florist in her area, I’d see about ordering by phone with them. Most of the online flower delivery services can be………underwhelming at best, as far as what the person receives vs. what is pictured. But there is a site called Bouqs that a friend has used and liked.
Seanly
@Roger Moore:
This is the correct take. The Bond stories were getting worse & worse. Dalton & Brosnan brought it down to earth a bit. I loved Craig & Casino Royale, liked elements of the other films, but the writing for Spectre was dreck. Blofeld was Bond’s step or half brother & created an international criminal cabal to fuck with Bond? The stupidity of that intersectionality rivals the worst of the Moore period writing.
Mary G
@Steeplejack: It’s been a long time, but I always found that getting the number of a local florist where your mom lives (these days I’d use Yelp) and calling them directly to order gave the best result. It’s kind of like Door Dash, where 1-800-flowers takes 25% of the money and screws over the restaurant/florist
ETA: Also, if they do a crappy job, the recipient tells a lot of people around, so I always got more for my money. One of my mom’s friends must’ve dissed a florist to 100 people between her church, volunteering at the hospital, and playing bridge. My mom also loved flowers and had strong opinions, so I’d ask what they had was good today and build off that.
Mary G
@Alison Rose: Lol, you type faster than I do.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The good news is that as far as we can tell it would take an unimaginably high-energy event to trigger vacuum decay, unless of course we get a quantum fuck-you and the value just tunnels right through the surrounding hills.
Heidi Mom
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I recently read Fences after seeing the filmed version with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. What an incredibly complicated character Troy Maxson is! Compelling, monstrous, charismatic, damaged beyond repair but still trying–there aren’t enough adjectives in the universe.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Seanly:
Did you ever get the impression from “Spectre” that it was apologia for governments spying on their citizens in the name of anti-terrorism?
Alison Rose
@Mary G: GMTA! ;)
Ken
I’m now trying to remember end-of-the-universe stories. Spoilers, sweetie!
OldDave
@Old School: @Old School:
Watch ’em select “The Stupidest Angel” instead. ;-)
Heidi Mom
I read much more fiction than non-, but in the latter category I was really impressed by Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran. He and his parents came from Vietnam to Carlisle, PA, in the mid-’70s, and his father, who’d been a lawyer, IIRC, in Vietnam, went to work in a factory. We just missed each other, as I’d graduated from Dickinson College in 1973. Suffice it to say that my impression of Carlisle–historic old town, beautiful limestone college buildings–was far more favorable than his. The memoir is very funny, very raw and honest (there’s a reason he doesn’t want his kids to read it until they’re 16), and one more testament to the power of books (and teachers) to change lives.
MattF
Also reading Arkady Martine, I’m now halfway through the second novel.
IMO, the big question about the cosmos is whether it is finite or infinite. And, incidentally, whether there is any way to answer that question. A finite universe feels medieval and claustrophobic to me. But an infinite universe, given that the speed of light (and therefore causality) is finite, is extremely peculiar.
Ken
@OldDave: John Scalzi has a Christmas collection. One of the stories even deals with the end of the universe, maybe.
km
Sounds interesting, will have to look for it. One of the books I’ve been reading is an oddball for me, “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain” by George Saunders. It’s essentially a class in writing/reading in book form & I’m finding it calming and illuminating. I’m not a writer but I’m enjoying thinking about how stories are put together and maybe I’ll absorb a little about how to write.
Also reading & enjoying “Caliban’s War” (Expanse series by James SA Corey) and “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson.
prostratedragon
@Baud: I was wondering whether the new era might have led her to shift interests to something less, shall we say, indicative.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: As I recall, the newest thinking in the field is that the universe is indeed infinite. (Might be remembering wrong.) What’s peculiar about it? It wasn’t always the case that things were moving away from each other faster than light.
Also, given the existence of things like quantum entanglement, causality isn’t limited by the speed of light at all.
Kathleen
@CaseyL: I ordered flowers through Kroger if you have one in your area.
GregMulka
Loved Dr Mack’s book. Just re-read Dan Simmons Illum. Starting the sequel Olympos. Also got a copy of the Poetic Edda and Saga of the Volsungs. That should keep me for the week.
Major Major Major Major
@GregMulka: Have you read Njal’s Saga?
Old School
@OldDave: I don’t expect Hogfather to be done again. I was just sheepishly admitting that I’ve been slowly working through a book that I should have completed months ago.
prostratedragon
The End of Everything sounds interesting. Right now, following a post in LGM blog this weekend, I’m reading The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, about the role of law and policy in creating racially segregated cities and suburbs.
frosty
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: OMG who *didn’t* have a serious crush on Emma Peel????!!!??
Just traded emails with a HS friend and she was mentioned.
Roger Moore
@Seanly:
A big part of it is that the source material was crap. Flemming wrote a few novels of varying quality and a bunch more short stories. The producers made the, IMO correct, decision to ignore the continuity of the novels and just make movies from the better ones first. The big problem was that by the end of the Connery era they had used up the better novels and were working on the worse ones and the short stories. On top of that, they were further and further away in time from the works they were based on, which meant the stories didn’t seem as relevant anymore. The movies diverged ever more from the source material, to the point that “The Spy Who Loved Me” had nothing in common with the short story it was based on except the title. And, quite frankly, the movie writers during the Moore era just weren’t good enough to wing it that way.
Nora Lenderbee
I’m catching up on authors I’ve never read. Eric Ambler (thrillers), Graham Greene. I also looked for some Reddit threads about “What’s the book you always recommend” and “What classics are still really good reads” and “Books everyone should read.” In the last few months, I’ve gone through some Chekhov and Dostoyevsky (and a bunch more I’ve forgotten). Next up are The Count of Monte Cristo, East of Eden, and (eventually) Moby Dick. It’s fun to discover new-to-me great reads. And there are a few that make me wonder what all the fuss was about. (100 Years of Solitude, zzzzz).
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: No, entanglement does not violate causality. Entanglement is non–local, which means that separated events may correlated because they are triggered by a single multi particle state whose multiple particles can be in multiple different places at the same moment. But correlated events are not necessarily causally related.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I am dying to watch that, but want to wait till after I’ve read it. In fact it was a film that got me started on this project. I watched Chadwick Boseman’s performance in “Ma Rainey”, then decided I wanted to read the play to compare to the film, and also to try to understand Levee (Boseman’s character) better.
That made me decide to read the whole 10-play cycle.
I was also hoping to find some interviews or articles with Wilson talking about these characters, but that doesn’t seem to exist. He obviously intended them to speak for themselves.
frosty
@Ken: Somebody else read Cities In Flight!! I was in my teens, haven’t seen it since then, but other than Wilkes-Barre taking flight I’ve always remembered the mayor: “What city has two names twice?”
raven
@frosty: She was fun in “The Detectorists” with her daughter.
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: (I’m answering your questions in reverse order)
An infinite universe is peculiar (at least to me) because different regions of it can be completely causally independent. Its ‘thingness’ is debateable.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: Ok, so I didn’t mean causality in the term of art sense, and you are correct.
@MattF: I guess that just doesn’t seem weird to me?? But I’ve done a lot of drugs.
frosty
Totally off cosmology but “Up Jumped the Devil” the real life of Robert Johnson is based on intensive research and interviews with family and friends over the last 59 years and debunks every myth and assumption that’s been published since forever.
Spoiler: there was never a crossroads.
Jim Appleton
Wait.
Wha …
Major Major Major Major
@Jim Appleton: oh no, comment decay has begun
Roger Moore
@MattF:
The key thing is that the only thing you can do with an entangled particle is to observe it. You can’t actually set its state and thus affect the state of the particle it’s entangled with. That means you can’t use entanglement to send arbitrary information between the locations of the two entangled particles.
Just Chuck
@Roger Moore: Yes there was some terrible writing. Moonraker, anyone? But your namesake didn’t help matters with the campy bug-eyed slapstick either. I remember A View to a Kill being cringingly full of that.
(The one character that rescues Moonraker, if in a small way, is Jaws)
Rand Careaga
I’m reading the Landmark Julius Caesar—the war commentaries in a new translation, with scads of detailed maps, appendices—most of the latter parked online, because the book is 800 pages as it is—and literally thousands of footnotes in four-point type. This is part of an ongoing series covering such other ancient authors as Thucydides, Herodotus, Xenophon. Just at the moment Caesar is taking a break from his main project of taming and occasionally slaughtering the naughty Gauls, and has crossed the Rhine with a mind to administering a salutary and sanguinary reprimand to some obstreperous Krauts.
jlowe
Currently reading Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future, by Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann; Facing Gaia, edited by Bruno Latour. Climate activists are starting to become a little scary and authoritarian these days. Just finished Permanence by Karl Schroeder which has an arguably unique perspective about life in the the universe.
debbie
I just finished Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships, an account of the Trojan War told from the perspective of the women involved (Penelope, Cassandra, Hecuba, etc.). It’s the only book I’ve actually finished since the pandemic began, so it must have been good. It at least held my attention.
scribbler
I also have lacked the concentration to read much this year, but someone (Subaru Diane?) brought up the Lord Peter Wimsey stories a few months ago, and I am now rereading those and enjoying them immensely.
raven
@Nora Lenderbee: Try “In Dubious Battle” by Steinbeck
raven
I’ve written here before that, for some reason, I don’t read books that other people give me. A friend handed me “Grant” a couple of years ago an I decided I had to break that trend and I’m only 100 pages in but I’m glad I did.
Brachiator
I have not read this yet, but it is on order, You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism. By Amber Ruffin and her older sister Lacey Lamar.
Another person here recommended it. I love watching clips from Amber’s late night show. She is funny and also has great insights.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve been saying for years these threads need floss
Dahlia
@Ken:
Could that be this story by Stephen Baxter?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Contact
Here’s a link to the story: https://web.archive.org/web/20080725045740/http://www.solarisbooks.com/books/newbookscifi/last-contact.asp
cope
As a geology major, one aspect of it I adored was the “arm waving” component. Then, in my second grad school pass, I took some serious astronomy and thought “…whoa, this is REALLY arm wavy stuff.” I finished out my teaching career teaching astronomy and all the arm wavy cosmology stuff associated with it was always a blast for me. That said, I am completely unable to get worked up contemplating the ultimate fate of the universe.
Current read: “If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future” by Jill Lepore. It’s about the earliest efforts at quantifying human behavior. Lots of interesting characters and a good look at the values, attitudes, interests and beliefs of a certain class of Americans in the ’50s and ’60s.
Roger Moore
@Just Chuck:
I’ll agree that my namesake wasn’t the greatest actor in history, and he contributed to the decay of Bond in his own way. But seriously, the people who think he dragged down the series should watch “Thunderball” and “Diamonds Are Forever” again. The series was in serious decay well before Moore took over the role.
Tony Jay
@No One of Consequence:
Sweet Jeebus in a sinking pedalo, all of them?
When do you find time to… I don’t know… eat?
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Neither was Sean Connery for that matter. He was good looking but a bit of a ham.
frosty
@Rand Careaga: Yeah, the obstreperous Krauts have needed some taming over the years. (Apologies to non-obstreperous Krauts)
Steeplejack
@CaseyL, @Alison Rose, @Mary G:
Thank you so much for your suggestions! I completely spaced on the local angle, which is weird, because on the food front I avoid GrubHub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc. I found a local florist near my mom with a 4.6 rating on Google, called and had a very nice conversation with the owner, Kris. I told her about my mom—farm girl, lifelong gardener and lover of the desert—and Kris is going to put together a bouquet with a wildflower angle. Sounds great, and I’ll get a photo of the finished product sent to my phone when it’s done. Cool.
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: Nice!! Yeah, going local is usually the best bet, and little shops like that are typically thrilled to help out however they can. We had an amazing florist in the town I lived in previously–she’d even made a note on my account that my mother loves yellow flowers :)
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I’ve been reading Bertie Wooster Sees it Through by P.G. Wodehouse. And a collection of Agatha Christie Mysteries that I got for $1.99 on Amazon’s Kindle store – they must be in the public domain to be available at that price. Before those I read something non-fiction but I can’t remember what at present.
I’m currently listening to a podcast on Spotify called A History of Rome…from which I’m learning that humanity keeps repeating the same shit over and over, expecting different results, maybe? Or not. Anyway one used to not be considered educated unless one had a good grasp of what used to be called “classical studies” – i.e. the study of early Western civilization, including some semblance of knowledge of Roman history, so this is my attempt to dabble in that.
Mary G
@Steeplejack: Yay! I’m sure it made her day.
Steeplejack
@Mary G:
Delivery tomorrow, so we’ll see.
Didn’t like to cut it close, but there was some, uh, miscommunication among us brothers. Although, come to think of it, I have no idea what constitutes “too late” when ordering flowers.
Nora Lenderbee
@raven: Read that in college. Maybe it’s time to read it again.
HarlequinGnoll
shout out to the youtube channel sfia. Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur. Who covers many similar topics such as giant mega-structures, fermi paradox great filters, and scenarios to colonize the entirety of the solar system from pluto to even the sun itself.
Jackie
@Steeplejack: I Google the local flower shops in the town where you want them delivered. Fresh, and usually same or next day delivery.
Steeplejack
@Jackie:
Thanks! That’s what I did.
Ken
@Dahlia: Yes! Thank you very much.
There go two miscreants
@James E Powell: On a bit of a tangent, perhaps, but let me recommend When We Get To Surf City, by Bob Greene, and also Always Magic In The Air, by Ken Emerson. The subject of the first one is probably obvious; the second is about the writers in the Brill Building and 1650 Broadway.
Starboard Tack
@Steeplejack:
As a straight adolescent male, that skin tight leather suit was enthralling.
Starboard Tack
While Newton was trying to live
According to laws that God gives
He was looking for proof
Of the ultimate truth,
But to Einstein it’s all relative.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
I don’t think that there is necessarily anything wrong with that. However, I always liked Emma Peel also because she was Steed’s partner, not just eye candy. I felt the same way about Honor Blackman’s Cathy Gale, who was even tougher than Steed.
Also, Emma Peel and Laura Petrie (Dick Van Dyke Show) were two sleek brunettes who wore pants. Loved them both.
There were always exceptions. The detective Honey West, for example.
On the TV Western Maverick, the women guest stars were often very interesting and rarely anybody’s mere eye candy. They were often noticeably smarter than any of the Maverick boys.
Gary K
Frost’s poem reminds me of a story told to me by a local minister. (So you know it must be true.) He was a student at Kenyon College, hitchhiking back to campus after a break. He accepted a ride from a man in a truck, who said he was likewise headed to Gambier. In the middle of the conversation, seemingly out of the blue, the driver asked whether he liked poetry, and he responded “Well, I don’t know a lot about it, but I like that poem about the horse stopping on a snowy evening.” The driver said “I wrote that.”
J R in WV
@Alison Rose:
Dickens was paid by the word, so , actually, it DID need to be 950 pages, so he could afford to live and support a family. At least 950 pages. In a periodical, IIRC.
J R in WV
@Heidi Mom:
Quite a coincidence, as I attended Dickinson from 1968-1970, when I was about to be drafted. Actually, I quit studying when I realized I was gonna be drafted, spent a lot of time in the anti-war movement instead.
TomatoQueen
@Major Major Major Major:
Because Einstein hated quantum mechanics and spent his career( after the major papers) trying to make quantum mechanics go away, all the more because he was at least in part responsible for quantum mechanics turning up. On his deathbed, still working, and nobody knows what his last words were (German, aneurysm of the aorta making it difficult to speak) except of course they had to be, “God does not play with dice.”
Our Mr Levenson does excellent explications of among many things spacetime & I strongly recommend his book.
J R in WV
@Rand Careaga:
We were reading J Caesar in my second year of Latin, back in 1966-67… I wish I had kept up and improved my Latin, but alas it was not to be. I’m not sure I want to read someone else’s translation, though.
Not that I intend to attempt to pick up my own Latin again~!~
No One of Consequence
@Tony Jay: Yes, all of it. Though I haven’t perused the Korbal and Bauchelain stuff yet. Nor whatever is after Forge of Darkness, but the Esselmont novels are actually quite good, and a couple of them are just fuggin’ great stories about parties you always wanted to have more page-time in the main novels. Yes, it is something like 4+million words (or a bit more than that now), but one cannot glean everything therein from an initial reading, regardless of the attention paid to detail and nuance. For one, there is just too much. I find new things upon each re-read. I started with other fantasy round about 10 or 11 years of age, and went the Tolkien on in route. But Erickson and the Malazans, its kept me entertained for years and years.
Your mileage may vary of course, but if you are looking for dense, world-building, systems-building, epic fantasy to put the lie to any other pretender, The Malazan Book of the Fallen is worth forcing through to the third and fourth books and if you make it that far, good Lord, you’ll be hooked for years.
Or you’ll say that that NOoC guy is a flippin’ bastard for wasting good oodles of my time like that.
Guessing for one of the two outcomes.
Peace,
NOoC
Heidi Mom
@J R in WV: I remember when the results of the draft lottery were posted in the basement of the Holland Union Building!
GregMulka
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ve never read any of them directly. Just various iterations of Norse Mythology and more various authors takes on the whole stew.
Major Major Major Major
@GregMulka: Njal’s Saga is great!