Einstein’s Tutor, by Lee Phillips

Posted on July 9, 2025 by skullsinthestars

Book 20 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year! As is now default for me, my link to the book is through my bookshop dot org affiliate account.

I’ve been gearing up lately to plan my next popular science book — if I ever write it — and have been doing some relevant background reading. One thing I wanted to learn more about is the story of the incredible mathematician Emmy Noether (1882-1935), who revolutionized mathematics and physics during the course of her career, even though her accomplishments remained relatively obscure after her death up until the past couple of decades, when historians and science writers worked to introduce her to both the scientific community and the general public.

Remarkably, there was not a detailed history of her life published until late last year: Einstein’s Tutor, by Lee Phillips.

The title refers to Noether’s significant influence on Einstein’s efforts to mathematically formulate his ideas of general relativity. Einstein was not a strong mathematician, so he ended up turning to the mathematicians at the famed University of Göttingen for help. This included Emmy Noether, who was one of several that Einstein turned to; the other was the famous and brilliant David Hilbert.

Continue reading →
Posted in History of science, Mathematics, Physics, Women in science | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A retrospective on my first published scientific paper

Posted on July 6, 2025 by skullsinthestars

I’ve had a pretty long career in physics, optics in particular, at this point: I have published over 150 peer-reviewed papers and have written 5 books. Looking back to the start of my journey in science, I don’t think I could’ve imagined how much I would do. With that in mind, I was recently thinking back to my very first paper — published in 1997, almost thirty years ago — and I thought it would be fun to talk about the paper and its influence on my career.

So here is the title and abstract of the paper:

The “Emil Wolf” in this case was my PhD advisor, one of the most distinguished optical scientists of the modern era. His book Principles of Optics, co-authored with Max Born and commonly just known as Born and Wolf, is one of the most cited scientific texts out there, with some 81,000 citations according to Google Scholar.

Continue reading →
Posted in Invisibility, Optics, Personal | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Tripods: The City of Gold and Lead, by John Christopher

Posted on July 4, 2025 by skullsinthestars

Book 19 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year! As is now default for me, my link to the book is through my bookshop dot org affiliate account.

Last month, I read the first book in John Christopher’s classic young adult science fiction series The Tripods, and was sufficiently intrigued and entertained to pick up the second book, The City of Gold and Lead (1967).

The first book in the trilogy, The White Mountains, leaves the origins of the tripods and their true nature mysterious, and the novel is more of a post-apocalyptic road trip story than a full science fiction tale. The second book steps fully into science fiction, as the protagonist goes on a mission into one of the mega-cities of the tripods in an attempt to find information that can eventually defeat them.

Continue reading →
Posted in Science fiction | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

An Echo of Children, by Ramsey Campbell

Posted on June 27, 2025 by skullsinthestars

Book 18 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year! As is now default for me, my link to the book is through my bookshop dot org affiliate account.

Ramsey Campbell still knows how to catch me off guard. The first chapter of his latest novel An Echo of Children starts with grandparents visiting their children and grandson at their new house in the seaside town of Barnwall. Everything seems very mundane throughout, though there is a bit of tension in the house that eventually gets traced to the grandson Dean having an imaginary friend. That in itself is not terribly worrying, until Dean lets slip a completely unexpected and shocking comment about this imaginary friend.

This is what I’ve come to expect and love about the works of Ramsey Campbell, who I have written about many times on this blog. His stories tend to be a slow burn, with dread building up slowly and inexorably, leaving the reader with the uncomfortable awareness that something is very wrong but unsure of exactly what that is. Even the moments that catch me off guard, like the end of the first chapter of An Echo of Children, is in service towards establishing that dread and uncertainty.

The book comes out in September; Flame Tree Press was kind enough to provide me an ARC of the book to read and review in advance.

Continue reading →
Posted in Horror | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The Tripods: The White Mountains, by John Christopher

Posted on June 15, 2025 by skullsinthestars

Book 17 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year! As is now default for me, my link to the book is through my bookshop dot org affiliate account.

Before there was The Hunger Games, or Divergent, there was John Christopher’s The Tripods, a series of young adult novels about teenagers struggling against a powerful oppressive force in a science fiction dystopia. In one of my random searches on the internet, I came across a reference to the series, and was immediately intrigued enough to go read the first book for myself. That book is The White Mountains (1967), which is still in print today.

Continue reading →
Posted in Science fiction | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Crypt of the Moon Spider, by Nathan Ballingrud

Posted on June 13, 2025 by skullsinthestars

Book 16 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year! 

The year is 1923. Veronica Brinkley is landing on the moon to get psychiatric treatment at the Barrowfield Home for the Treatment of the Melancholy.

You didn’t read that wrong: she’s landing on the actual moon for psychiatric care in 1923. This is the beginning of the surreal Gothic fantasy Crypt of the Moon Spider, by Nathan Ballingrud, released last year.

Continue reading →
Posted in Horror | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

An introduction to quantum cryptography

Posted on June 5, 2025 by skullsinthestars

I’ve been brushing up on my quantum physics and quantum information science lately, and thought it would be good practice for me to give a little introduction to the idea of quantum cryptography, and one of the first strategies proposed to do it. “Cryptography,” of course, refers to sending coded messages between two people, and the “quantum” part refers to using the inherent properties of quantum physics to make messages harder to crack. This post, then, will be a little bit about the concepts of cryptography and a little bit about the concepts of quantum physics.

We’ll talk about the first protocol for such quantum cryptography first introduced by Bennett and Brassard in 1984, referred to as the BB84 protocol1. My discussion follows my recent read of Stephen Barnett’s book on Quantum Information, which is a very good introduction for physics folks with some background in math and quantum mechanics. The description here, however, will be my own understanding and interpretation, subject to my own still growing understanding of the subject.

Continue reading →
Posted in Optics, Physics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Rise of the Zombie Bugs, by Mindy Weisberger

Posted on June 2, 2025 by skullsinthestars

Book 15 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year! Had a significant hiatus of reading due to life stresses, but still ahead on my goal.

Zombies are everywhere in fiction these days, from The Last of Us to 28 Years Later to The Walking Dead and more. There was a time, back in the Night of the Living Dead days, when zombie stories were somewhat of a niche subject and everyone probably thought that they’d go out of fashion and be forgotten. On the contrary, zombie stories alone have become a mainstay of horror, their own enduring subgenre.

This is why Mindy Weisberger’s recent book, Rise of the Zombie Bugs, is incredibly timely and fun. Though zombification of humans like in the movies appears (for the moment) to not be a thing, it turns out that zombification is a surprisingly common thing among the “bugs.”

Small disclaimer: I’m a longtime friend of Mindy’s, and am acknowledged in the book for providing “bookish wisdom” (though I’m not sure that I was particularly helpful). Also, because we’re friends, it will be weird for me to call her Weisberger through this post, so I’ll stick to Mindy.

Continue reading →
Posted in General science, Horror | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

RIP Cookie, 2010-2025

Posted on May 28, 2025 by skullsinthestars

I haven’t posted in a while because I have had a lot of stuff going on in my life. That culminated today in having to put my kitty Cookie to rest after her seizure episodes returned with intensity and would not respond to any treatment. I have always viewed being a cat parent as a duty from the beginning of their life to the very end, and I was there holding Cookie as she went to her final rest.

Cookie in 2017, next to a megalodon tooth for comparison.

I was there for Cookie’s entire life. She came to me as a kitten only two weeks old, one of the fosters that Beth and I were taking care of. Her eyes weren’t even open yet when we took her in.

Continue reading →
Posted in Animals, Personal | 7 Comments

Invisibility demos at UNC Charlotte STEAM Innovation Expo!

Posted on April 30, 2025 by skullsinthestars

This past Sunday, I participated once again in the annual UNC Charlotte STEAM Innovation Expo, in which faculty, staff and partners present science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics demonstrations and as well as demos highlighting the links between them. Last year, I planned a detailed table of interesting invisibility demonstrations, but I was unable to make it due to life stuff (which happens a LOT these days). However, this year I was able to get my demonstrations together and do the Expo and thought I would share the demos that I did, in the order I did them, with explanations!

Selfie of me in front of my invisibility sign for my table.
Continue reading →
Posted in Invisibility, Personal | Leave a comment