Books read (early May) and other stuff

[mrissa]

The other stuff first: the plan to get me a new desk has taken another step forward: markgritter disassembled timprov's old desk and reassembled it in the basement to be a home for some of his new work stuff. So now there's room for me to get a new desk or computer table. Of course, that would involve shopping for one, so we won't be planning on that happening

Comments

[wshaffer]

Oh, wow. Do you remember that whole period (I think it was in the mid-to-late 1980s) when quantum mechanics was the current hip explanation for anything remotely weird? It was almost a relief when they moved on to DNA. (Well, not very much of a relief, really.)

Also, I love Sarah Caudwell, but I swear I thought she had only written three books. I'll have to work out which one of those I haven't read.

(Comment edited because apparently I don't love Caudwell well enough to spell her name correctly on first attempt.)

[mrissa]

Former physicist here: there were plenty of people who were still willing to use quantum mechanics as the explanation for anything remotely weird while I was in physics. Realio trulio. More than plenty.

[wshaffer]

Ah, yes - using quantum mechanics as an explanation for anything remotely weird never went away. To the chagrin of physicists and the scientifically literate everywhere. I just have a distinct memory (and it may be false) that it hit a kind of peak in its use in popular fiction and media, and that it's now somewhat been displaced by other easily abused bits of science.

Although maybe it's just that the way they use quantum mechanics has changed. I have a year's best SF anthology from the late 80s that has two different stories that explain the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment in great detail. Nowadays, I think people would just say, "Cat. Box. Handwavium!" and consider it taken care of.

[mrissa]

Indeed. I think that even non-SF readers have a firmer grasp on Schrodinger's Cat as an uncertainty experiment than they did awhile back -- mostly as a general description, I'm afraid, rather than having any genuine understanding of measurement changing a system.

Sigh.

[desperance]

Also, I love Sarah Caudwell, but I swear I thought she had only written three books. I'll have to work out which one of those I haven't read.

That'll be The Sibyl in Her Grave, which was published posthumously and a dozen years later than the others. Easy to miss, but worth chasing down.

[wshaffer]

Oddly enough, The Sibyl in Her Grave was the one I read first, being a latecomer to the Caudwell appreciation club. I'm starting to think I may have read them all, and I just can't count.