You know you're a geek when the most exciting thing to happen to you all week is the arrival of a big new bookcase. If you've ever wondered what my dwelling looks like (can't imagine why you would), it probably looks JUST LIKE YOURS. I have too many books(over 2500), many of them big picture books about art and architecture. My apartment is crammed with books, CD's, art stuff, plants, and collectible items, just as yours probably is. I would love to move to larger quarters, but I don't know where. Certainly anything larger in my neighborhood is way out of my price range. When I finally do move, which will happen eventually I hope, it will be a huge undertaking.

There is nothing in the universe, short of a major black hole, more gravitationally attractive than an empty bookcase shelf. Seeing it in my dwelling gives me a kind of drug-like high which says to me: LOOK EMPTY SPACE YOU CAN GET MORE BOOKS! I don't think there are many people left in the world who feel this way, maybe a few thousand in each big city. I happen to know that an old man who lives down the street from me in a decrepit house with junk all over the yard, has an outbuilding in the back where he keeps more than 10,000 books. I wonder what will happen to that collection when the old man goes to the great library in the sky.

Progress in physics

I thought I was making no progress in my physics studies, but it's not true. I really have made progress in this first year of physics. I may not have gotten through standard college classical mechanics yet, but much of it is now familiar to me. It's like learning a language. Let's say physics is like Vietnamese, a language of which I know not a single word. Vietnamese is written in somewhat modified Western characters, rather like physics, so I can read it, but at first nothing means anything to me. But as I learn this language, or, in analogy, physics, bits and pieces start to make sense. Now when I look into classical physics texts or sites, I recognize stuff. Vectors. Acceleration. Gravity. Force and equilibrium. Trajectories. Mechanical advantage. And mass, work, and energy. I am still in the middle of it and will be for quite a long time, but after a year, I am beginning to understand the language. As for Vietnamese, I still don't know it at all, despite the intriguing restaurants.

Posted at 3:38 am | link