What Makes a Good Science Fiction Story (in my humble mathematical opinion)

The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016 (Edited By Rich Horton) was the ideal selection to quantitatively examine factors which contributed to my having a high opinion of a science fiction or fantasy short story and the range and frequency of these factors considered appropriate for the short fiction market. I read all the Read More …

Back at Caltech: Supermassive Excitement

I’m delighted to be back doing numerical relativity research at Caltech after taking a year leave to deploy to the South Pole with the South Pole Telescope collaboration. I will continue to be involved with the South Pole Telescope data analysis in parallel with my work at Caltech to simulate formation pathways for supermassive black Read More …

When Antarctica Just Isn't Cold Enough: South Pole Telescope (SPT) Fridge Cycle

As you might have heard on my website, my newsletter, my Twitter, or, if we’re colleagues at Caltech, at work, I am currently working on the South Pole Telescope (SPT) onsite at the South Pole in Antarctica for January-November 2016 (I am employed by the University of Chicago). I have taken a sabbatical from my NSF Astronomy Read More …

the matter behind someone who chose to spend 10+ days in the mind of a monk

I spent the last 12 days (10 full days) at a silent meditation retreat in the southern California desert where I learned the art of vipassana meditation from S.N. Goenka and his assisting teachers. My previous post details why I went. This post goes into how it went, and followup. Going into potentially psychological surgery Read More …

the mind behind someone who chose to spend 10+ days in the mind of a monk

I spent the last 12 days (10 full days) at a silent meditation retreat in the southern California desert where I learned the art of vipassana meditation from S.N. Goenka and his assisting teachers. If 10 days sounds long, the practice used to be to teach the technique in 7 week retreats, gradually to adapt Read More …