physics – Page 3 – Cannonball Read 17

cbr12bingo – How To!

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems by Randall Munroe

September 16, 2020 by andtheIToldYouSos 1 Comment

Randall Munroe, the engineer/author/cartoonist extraordinaire (most importantly- the creator of the excellent webcomic xkcd) is at it again with How To. He takes all sorts of simple questions and expands, explodes, and/or completely blows up the possible answers into a cacophony of hard science and absolute absurdity. Say you want to throw something really far- he starts out with an anecdote about George Washington hucking (technical term) a silver dollar across a river, which turns into a breakdown of how far silver dollars could be […]

CBR12 Book Bingo – Yellow

Recursion by Blake Crouch

September 4, 2020 by randirock Leave a Comment

I discovered Blake Crouch in the Book of the Month Club, where I saw his books featured in the “Members Most Loved” category. Once I dug into Recursion, I immediately saw why. Crouch writes books that are smart, twisty, and feature fully-developed characters, creating a trifecta that leaves the reader wanting more. I don’t normally lean toward science-fiction, but Crouch has almost single-handedly made me a fan of the genre. In Recursion, a mysterious phenomenon begins to pop-up throughout the population that causes its victims […]

A wonderful surprise-an intelligent, articulate science graphic novel

The Dialogues by Clifford V. Johnson

November 16, 2019 by MarkAbaddon Leave a Comment

I attend a science fiction/fantasy convention every year and during one of the panels on the Physics of the Avengers this past year, the speaker recommended this graphic novel, which was written by a friend of his. Hard science explanations in a graphic novel format intrigued me, but I was unsure if it would actually work over the entire work. While it drags in some places, I really enjoyed this graphic novel. There isn’t a coherent story, but rather the author chooses to use the […]

A truly stunning sci-fi book for the ages

November 30, 2015 by alwaysanswerb 2 Comments

Wow, this book. There are a few technical elements that initially justified me wanting to leave off the fifth star, but the sheer audacity of the story and the fact that I cannot stop thinking about it a month later make Seveneves one of my favorite books of the year, and certainly the most thought-provoking. Effortlessly checking off a list of “stuff I want in a sci-fi novel,” Seveneves is technical and speculative, extrapolating from cutting-edge current science to detail seemingly inevitable future technology. Equally […]

Writing Science Fiction #LikeAGirl

June 29, 2014 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

During the past few days, a couple of interesting stories crossed my screen and they are so perfectly related to my current review that they simply must be referenced. First came the #LikeAGirl campaign from Always, encouraging us to turn that pejorative expression into a compliment. Then came this story from NPR about women writers in science fiction: Women are Destroying Science Fiction and That’s OK — They Created It. As I have just finished Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic The Dispossessed, I must say […]

A book easy enough for your dog to understand, but maybe not you.

May 10, 2014 by genericwhitegirl Leave a Comment

I’m a bit of a closet physics fan. It’s hard to admit, seeing as the classes I struggled with most in college were my physics courses. But if you don’t force me to work out equations for things like how a ball bounces, and just talk to me about all the weird stuff that physics predicts, I’m an enthusiastic student. While there are a lot of mysteries to be understood in this world, there is one thing that really bothers me. I don’t get relativity. […]

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Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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