Mark W Tiedemann

Category: science

Should I Or Shouldn’t I?

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

The question came up recently among friends about answering the claim that, concerning the wearing of a mask these days, “I have freedom of choice. If I choose to risk getting sick, it’s still my choice.”

My reaction was basic, which I will reveal at the end of this.

Choice is one of those perennial topics that rises and falls with public fashion.  We link it to our ideas of liberty the way we link certain colors and seasonal clothing. At least until it really matters, but then we tend to dismiss it as a right and turn it into a species of moral determination that brooks no debate.…

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Still Reaching, Still Dreaming

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Everywhere else there is news of calamity, sadness, tension, idiocy. It’s Sunday, a beautiful morning.  Something else, then. Something reaffirming, that there is still space for dreams, room for better, and the substance of higher aspirations.

 

(Image courtesy of Linda Overton)…

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Post Ides

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

A departure from the trend of political screeds. The COVID19 pandemic.

People are nervous, uncertain, many frightened.  I’ve always dealt with that kind of thing by finding things out. Information. The more you know, you know.  So here is a link to a very handy, graphically interesting page of data about the thing itself.

The Coronovirus Data Pack.

Study it, absorb it, then—

Reasonable precaution, much of which consists of habits we should already have (but probably don’t).  And if it is your inclination to dismiss it, blow it off, assume it’s either exaggerated or too late, well, so be it, but keep one thing in mind: it’s not about you.…

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March (the Ides of)

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

And I haven’t posted anything substantial since the beginning of February. February turned out to be a difficult month. I came down with some species of flu-like yuck and ended up home in bed for a week. I’m still getting over it, whatever it was, but I am managing to get back to the gym and work on new stories and all.

So I thought I would do an update.

The Ides of March will be here soon.

The current issue of Analog has a new story by me. I’m rather pleased with it. I think I managed to do some things I’ve always wanted to do and never felt quite good enough to pull off.…

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Confessions of a Weekend Nerd

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Apollo. Fifty years.

We landed on the moon. I look back on it now and I am amazed. I understand some of what went into it, how challenging it was, the amazing level of commitment and dedication, and how unlikely it all might have been. As my sense of history developed, long after high school, I began to see all the incredible things people do, especially here, as sort of willed accidents. By that I mean, someone or a group of someones come up with an idea of something to do, a big something, and put it out there. Others sign on and they all move in that direction.…

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True Belief

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

For several years, we have seen shots across the bow from advocates of either pure capitalism or some form of socialism, and except for a few instances of informed theoretical discussions based on a thoroughly de-romanticized view of history, we are treated to schoolyard fights between factions that never seem to care for reasoned discourse, only for planting flags and claiming loyalty.

This is not religion, but for so many people it gets taken as such, and the results are rarely edifying. What is amusing (in a tortured way) is the assumption by such advocates that any move toward the reviled system will somehow strip us of our intellect and render us stupid, incapable of managing things to our benefit.…

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The Absurdity of Unexamined Positions

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Recently I had an exchange with someone over climate change. It was short and frustrating. The basis of the exchange was a report—recycled from 2007 and given a new lease on life because of the recent book and film—on Al Gore’s presumably exorbitant energy use in his home.  Depending on which non-news site you chose, he either uses 34 times more than the average American or 21 times.   The intent of the articles was to show Mr. Gore as a hypocrite, someone preaching the sermon but then balking at the walk.

It’s true, he lives large.  He has a ten thousand square foot home, which is more than five times the size of the average American home, and that doesn’t include the grounds. …

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Light

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Just musing on the amazing quality of light.  I’ve been reading several science books lately, one in particular (The Invention of Science by David Wootton) that goes into considerable depth about actual Seeing as essential to the transformation of culture from a pre-scientific to scientific basis. But all of them deal with light as a founding subject for the apprehension of the world. Einstein won his Nobel because of the work he did on photons, Newton began with a study of optics, and quantum mechanics wouldn’t be giving both the joys and headaches of our present understanding of nature if not for the whole revelation about quanta and photons and wave functions…

It is essential to everything we are, whether we can see it or not.…

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We Prospered: Leonard Nimoy, 1931 to 2015

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

He was, ultimately, the heart and soul of the whole thing.  The core and moral conscience of the congeries that was Star Trek.  Mr. Spock was what the entire thing was about.  That’s why they could never leave him alone, set him aside, get beyond him. Even when he wasn’t on screen and really could be nowhere near the given story, there was something of him.  They kept trying to duplicate him—Data, Seven-of-Nine, Dax, others—but the best they could do was borrow from the character.

I Am Not Spock came out in 1975.  It was an attempt to explain the differences between the character and the actor portraying him. …

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