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The author of Skulls in the Stars is a professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. -
Category Archives: Personal
Invisibility a Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title for 2023!
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog due to the holiday craziness and a frantic rush to submit a grant proposal before the deadline, but I will hopefully be back on track in the near future. But I wanted … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Personal
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Posting history of science on TikTok!
Just a short note to let people know that I’ve started experimenting with posting videos on TikTok about the weird history of science stories that I know! Will see how long I can put up with the effort! For those … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Personal
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Invisibility reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement!
I’ve been using my blog as a place to keep track of any mentions of my book on Invisibility: The History and Science of How Not to Be Seen, which came out early this year, and there’s one big review … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Personal
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Keene and SanGiovanni bookstore fundraiser!
In the midst of work and travel, I happened to see that fantastic horror authors and amazing people Brian Keene and Mary SanGiovanni are raising funds to open a bookstore specializing in horror, sci-fi, and basically everything weird! They wanted … Continue reading
Posted in Horror, Personal
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A hiatus
My apologies to all, but I’ll be taking a brief hiatus from the blog. My kitty Zoe went in for a broken leg four weeks ago, and today we learned that the surgery wasn’t successful, and she’ll need to have … Continue reading
Fundraising for Zoe’s leg surgery
This morning, my senior kitty Zoe somehow managed to break one of her front legs. She’s incredibly spry for her 17 years of age, and still jumps up and down from the bed and couch all the time, and presumably … Continue reading
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“Deterministic vortices evolving from partially coherent fields” in Optica!
Some exciting personal and optics news: I just had a paper published in the prestigious journal Optica with my student Wenrui Miao and my colleague Yongtao Zhang on “Deterministic vortices evolving from partially coherent fields.” The paper is open access, … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Personal
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16 years of Skulls in the Stars!
Just a quick note that I’ve been blogging now for 16 years, as of today, as WordPress reminded me! It’s wild that 16 years is almost 1/3 of my life that I’ve been writing this blog, and no plans to … Continue reading
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Invisibility talk at Natural Sciences at Raleigh!
Wanted to announce that I’ll be doing a Science Cafe at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences this coming Thursday, August 17th, at 7:00 pm! It will be both an in-person event as well as a livestream on YouTube, … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Personal
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Me on science writing in Optics & Photonics News!
A couple of months ago, the folks who run Optics & Photonics News at Optica, the optical society, asked if I could write a post for their “careers” blog about my path to writing popular science books. Well, the post … Continue reading
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Skulls in the Stars 