A (LONG OVERDUE?) PAT ON THE BACK — by Steve Nadis
I’ve been told to quit carping. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all” is the basic message–a line that harkens back to my gradeschool days. Well, that shut me up for awhile, but now I do have something, if not nice, that is at least positive to say. And if you wouldn’t call it exactly “positive,” at least I’m not complaining about it. Quite the contrary. The other day, by pure chance, I stumbled across something very nice on the web (what a wonderful place the web can be, when it is wonderful and not awful): A Harvard physics professor, a string theorist by trade, wrote that a current article of mine offers “the most detailed semi-popular account of cosmic strings and cosmic superstrings that I’ve seen so far.” He went on to say I explained “all important details” regarding the two known cosmic string candidates, as well as explaining the evolution in theory “from the old-fashioned cosmic strings of Kibble and Vilenkin to cosmic superstrings,” which is, I immodestly submit, no mean feat.
That might not sound like much, but for an underpaid freelance writer like me, those words made my whole day. In fact, two days later they still make me feel good, and I suspect the effect may carry over for another day or two. I realize a post in “Call Me Snake” would not be complete without some sort of complaint, but at the moment I’m plumb out of complaints.
Posted by
at
15:02:36
Good going Snake. Glad you took my advice. Now you see it is possible to write about something nice for a change.
Yes Lindsey, thanks for the encouragement. I did write something "nice," as you put it. But why does it make me feel so bad?
So where IS this article of yours?
Dear Doubter: Sorry to be so cagey. I guess I was feeling a bit uncomfortable about all the self-promotion, but what the heck? (If I’m not going to promote myself, who will?) You can find the article in the October 2005 issue of Astronomy, "The Return of Cosmic Strings" (pp. 46-51). I hope you find it interesting, even if it doesn’t convince you that string theory is the "theory of everything" it’s purported to be.
Will you follow your success up with a monograph about string cheeses?
I haven’t yet figured out what to do for an encore. All I know is it has to be big. In that regard, string cheeses more than qualify.
I’d prefer "string bikinis"–with accompanying photos, of course. (No, not of YOU, Snake.)
Good Gatemouth. I think we’re all relieved on that score.
Bah! Vibrating energy strings, eleven dimensions, what rot! I am a traditionalist. Why dosn’t anybody write about the ether anymore??
I think the ether might be back, in point of fact. They just call it the "cosmological constant" these days but the idea is similar–empty space is not empty at all.