Any science fiction writer who tries their hand at hard science fiction usually ends up doing some back-of-the-envelope calculating and figuring. It comes with the territory. Having a background in astronomy or physics often helps. It can be fun, calculating the acceleration of a spacecraft, figuring how long it will take to get from point…
The first astronomy book I ever read was The Nine Planets by Franklyn M. Branley when I was six years old. What caught my interest in astronomy at that young age were the pictures in the newspaper of Jupiter as the Voyager spacecraft made its flyby. My parents got me a telescope and I started…
Yesterday, Ken Jennings had an blog post about how schools are starting to ban wikipedia use. He makes some good points. I agree with them and reiterate them here with some of my own thoughts added. Ken points out that this is really nothing new. Teachers have been telling students not to use the encyclopedia…