Steve Maran is an astronomer and an author– he wrote Astronomy for Dummies and a host of other books. It is not an exaggeration at all to say I owe my career to Steve; I gave a brief synopsis of the story in my book’s acknowledgements page, and someday I’ll write the whole story down. He’s the press officer for the American Astronomical Society, so he knows just about every astronomer in the country, as well as every science journalist. A better connected astronomer would be hard to find!
Steve is also great writer, and when you put this together with his knowing everyone, you get a wonderful article about the story behind the latest Nobel prize for physics. I love stories that talk about the people behind the science, and Steve has some very good stuff in that article. There’s even a Seinfeld connection! He is truly master of his domain.
October 29th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
B.A.
One of the reasons I like this site is the clarity of your writing and the interesting and well thought responses from the bloggers. The best science writing is the best writing – informative, interesting, clear and concise. I realize that collections of essays listed as “best of” are often only the opinions of the editors. Nevertheless, let me recommend The Best American Science Writing 2006 as worth a look. It is not restricted to astronomy, but to a wide array of topics. The editors are Atul Gawande and Jesse Cohen. Good wriing is good whatever the topic, I think.
Will. M.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:06 am
“Everything is built by the engineers,†he said, “but the astronomers get all the publicity.â€
Funny, when I think of the all the probes and satellites we send up, I always think of the engineers first. Programs on The Science Channel focus a lot of time on the engineering teams, but perhaps as individuals they don’t always get the prize. Name a famous engineer…
October 30th, 2006 at 7:13 am
Eiffel, Rutan (doubt I spelled that right…), umm, the Hungarian (?) guy who designed the Brooklyn Bridge, umm, nuts you’d think I’d do better than that, since I’m allegedly an engineer… I had a mechanical engineering prof who took this professional pity party one level further: “I get sick and tired of all the electrical and electronic engineers taking credit for the information revolution: if it wasn’t for mechanical engineers figuring out how to MAKE the stuff, none of the grand designs would have ever left the lab.”
October 30th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
2669 Blog Verification…
2669…
October 30th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Contrary to the article, a six inch orbiting telescope can be useful. Canada’s MOST (Micro-variability and Oscillation of STars) satellite is one – PI Jamie Mathews at UBC and the NEOSSat is another which will be looking for ATEN class asteroids – PI Alan Hildebrand U of Calgary. The Canadian Space Agency likes to call MOST the Humble Telescope.
Notwithstanding the above – I enjoyed the article!