Double Rainbow

Posted on May 15, 2016 by tkflor

rainbow

Yesterday we saw a beautiful double rainbow. It hovered in the gray sky, two full arcs glowing with iridescent colors. The photos captured some of the splendor that we saw. Continue reading →

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Talking cosmology at a party

Posted on May 12, 2016 by tkflor

“…I barely know her, but if I were you, I would not mention cosmology.”
Jon’s advice was not surprising. Danielle did not mention what she was studying when the likely responses were astonished stares, ill-fitted jokes, and awkward silences before someone said that she must be very smart. Cosmology, experience had taught her and Jonathan, was not a profession one flaunts in a social gathering. It drew embarrassingly little interest, unless someone confused it with cosmetology.”
From Initial Conditions

A man I had briefly met once or twice before approached me at a party. He had heard that I published a book about physicists and wanted to know what qualifications I had to write about the subject. Apparently satisfied with my academic credentials, he shifted the conversation to cosmology. Going over all his remarks is way too long for the blog, but I think that the following three misconceptions are worth repeating and rebutting. Continue reading →

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Sophomore novel – trying to recapture first love, or finding a second one?

Posted on April 21, 2016 by tkflor

“The problem with a second novel is that it takes almost no time to write compared with a first novel. If I write my first novel in a month at the age of 23 and my second novel takes me two years, which one have I written more quickly? The second, of course. The first took 23 years and contains all the experience, pain, stored-up artistry, anger, love, hope, comic invention and despair of a lifetime. The second is an act of professional writing. That is why it is so much more difficult.”
Stephen Fry, at the inaugural awarding of the Encore Prize, established to honor writers who successfully navigate the peculiar perils of the second novel. Quoted by themillions.com

It is often said that most people (about 80 percent of Americans) feel that they have a book in them. But did anyone check how many feel that they have MORE than a single book in them? Is writing more than one novel what separates laymen with literary aspirations from professionals? Continue reading →

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Tourism and fiction

Posted on April 15, 2016 by tkflor

“Japan’s smallest prefecture is aiming to attract more Thai tourists by sponsoring a series of romance novels set in the region.
The southern Kagawa Prefecture has teamed up with four Thai writers for the initiative, who have each penned love stories inspired by their travels around the area, the Kyodo news agency reports. The series has been named Kagawa, Let Love Lead, and was launched at Thailand’s National Book Fair in Bangkok.”
From BBC

Tourists following books are not a new phenomenon. People need to recharge, go away from their daily routine. They can travel to places, or “visit” them through literature, or both.

“The urge to get away, to travel, blends the phenomenon of escapism into the world of fiction. For literary tourists the primal source of escapism comes from the novels they read, inciting the desire to visit the place mentioned in the books. Thus, the ‘derived escapism’ transcends from literature into tourism. The illusion of the fictional world is perpetuated into the real locations used to attract avid readers and cinema buffs alike.”
(from Journeys Beyond Pages: The Use of Fiction in Tourism)

Continue reading →

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Money-laundering – confessions in view of the Panama Papers

Posted on April 9, 2016 by tkflor

Note: This blog-post was written by a guest-blogger who prefers to remain anonymous (read below and you will see why).

It seems that the Panama papers have taken the world by a storm: Continue reading →

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Perceptions of brilliance

Posted on April 2, 2016 by tkflor

Little Prince's Rose at the Museum of The Little Prince in Hakone, Japan

“On the little prince’s planet the flowers had always been simple. They had only one ring of petals; they took up no room at all; they were trouble to nobody. One morning they would appear in the grass, and by night they would have faded peacefully away. But one day, from a seed blown from no one knew where, a new flower had come up; and the little prince had watched very closely over this small sprout which was not like any other small sprouts on his planet…
Then one morning, exactly at sunrise, she suddenly showed herself.
And, after working with all this painstaking precision, she yawned and said:
‘Ah! I am scarcely awake. I beg that you will excuse me. My petals are still all disarranged …’
But the little prince could not restrain his admiration:
‘Oh! How beautiful you are!’
“Am I not?’ the flower responded, sweetly. “And I was born at the same moment as the sun…’
The little prince could guess easily enough that she was not any too modest – but how moving – and exciting – she was!”
From The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s tale, the arrogant flower “cast her fragrance and her radiance” over the admiring little prince, until she drove him away from his tiny planet. According to a highly publicized research (summary here), “expectations of brilliance” may drive away women from certain academic fields “whose practitioners believe that raw, innate talent is the main requirement for success.” Why? Because women are stereotyped as not possessing such talent. To those who immediately start wondering, these results are not limited to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Continue reading →

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Greek Revival buildings in universities

Posted on March 18, 2016 by tkflor

Greek Revival, architectural style, based on 5th-century-bc Greek temples, which spread throughout Europe and the United States during the first half of the 19th century.

The main reasons for the style’s popularity seem to have been the general intellectual preoccupation with ancient Greek culture at the time, as well as a new awareness of the actual nature of Greek art brought about through widely circulated illustrations of notable ancient temples and the Elgin Marbles. The growing recognition of the Parthenon in Athens as a major monument helped secure the dominance of this Grecian form.
Greek Revival, Encyclopedia Britannica


Playmakers Theater, UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Built in 1850.

Continue reading →

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Another reason to celebrate Albert Einstein’s birthday

Posted on March 13, 2016 by tkflor

“Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size.”
Albert Einstein, in a letter, March 1914
(from Subtle is the Lord, Abraham Pais).

Bearing in mind that only a few months ago, detectors on Earth measured gravitational waves produced some 1.3 billion light-years from us, Einstein’s quote sounds prophetic. He made this observation in correspondence concerning his belief in the principles of the theory of general relativity he was working on. Following an intense effort to solve the difficulties he encountered trying to formulate the field equations of general relativity, Einstein published his theory in November 1915.
The first exact solution to Einstein’s field equations predicted the existence of black holes.
In June 1916, Einstein published a paper predicting the existence of gravitational waves which propagate with the velocity of light.
On September 14, 2015, a transient gravitational-wave signal was observed by two LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detectors. Analyzing the features of the signal (“the tail of the lion”) scientists deduced that it was caused by collision of two orbiting black holes!!! Continue reading →

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He or She – some confusion about authors’ gender

Posted on March 4, 2016 by tkflor

“Kawasaki Ninja,” said Wardle. “I know we’re looking for a Honda,” he added, forestalling Strike,“but he crapped himself when we came calling.”
“So do most people when CID turn up on their doorstep. Go on.”
“He’s a sweaty little guy, name of Baxter, a sales rep with no alibi for the weekend of the second and third, or for the twenty-ninth. Divorced, no kids, claims he stayed in for the royal wedding, watching it. Would you have watched the royal wedding without a woman in the house?”
“No,” said Strike, who had only caught footage on the news.
From Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith

Regardless of whether you watched the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, aren’t those assumptions patronizing and chauvinistic?
Yet, Robert Galbraith, an ex-British Army officer who continued to work in security in civilian life, should know exactly how men like Detective Inspector Eric Wardle and army veteran investigator Cormoran Strike are reasoning. “Rosalind Galbraith” might be an officer with similar qualifications and also with a distinguished career (top secret – only her name can be disclosed), but would you trust her fictional depictions? Would you find her storytelling to be as natural and convincing as Robert’s? Continue reading →

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Celebrating first anniversary

Posted on February 18, 2016 by tkflor

I am celebrating the first anniversary of Initial Conditions, with a promotion and a giveaway.

After ten years of writing and rewriting, I published my first novel, Initial Conditions, in early 2015. I watched it take tiny steps and nervously read readers’ reviews. Those who read it, seemed to enjoy a story about love, career and ambition, even if they were not particularly interested in science.
A year after pressing on “PUBLISH”, it’s time to celebrate!

There is a Goodreads giveaway of two paperback copies, for those in the US.

And the ebook price is now 0.99 (USD, CAD, AUD, GBP and EURO) on Amazon, iBooks and Kobo, until February 28. And it’s ¥99 in Japan.

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