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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
Order a copy of Death from the Skies! from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Borders.
"If things worked the way I wanted them to, any reporter about to do another 'sensational' story on deadly meteors would consult this volume, and
bang! common sense would find its way into the news. How strange would
that world be?"
-- Adam Savage,
Mythbusters
"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
The opinions and ideas expressed in this blog are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Discover Magazine and/or the James Randi Educational Foundation, of which Dr. Plait serves as President.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:16 am
But wouldn’t I have to leave my basement to try this? I don’t wanna… the outside world is scary.
But if I were to venture out…
June 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Remember, it also works on Kirsten Dunst.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Oh, that’s funny.
I shot this about five years ago: http://journalpix.com/NerdSmart.jpg
It was used as a graphical component for a web site that sold “nerd” stuff.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I’ve never had a problem meeting smart women. Smart single women are another matter. You have to be lucky to find one who hasn’t been snapped up.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
My favorite book (…besides Bad Astronomy and the forthcoming masterwork, of course).
What a sycophant I can be.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
thats awesome!
(and i just finished reading that book about 3 weeks ago! great timing and great reading!)
June 27th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
To meet a smart lady one can do as I did. I issued an e-mail describing her in terms of some charming, romantic thermodynamics one day, we met for lunch & a museum the very next. We were in Vegas getting married just a few months later. That was three years ago and she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
June 27th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Hmm, I currently have this out from the library and am done reading it. Time to find some female-sized fishing hooks…
June 27th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
wow, i was at my local library today studying my books from this online corse im studing, when i was finished with my segment i loked for all the SAGAN books they had, and they have them all
sadly the condition on most is not so good. good to see the works of a treasured gem of a man are treated so well. this book in particular (demon-huanted) had a big rip on the dust cover and the pages were all browned. what really hurt me was to see water damage on billions & billions
to end- i know now i need to read shadows of forgten ancestors, the thickest of his books ive seen. not as thick as halwkings “Standing ont he Shoulder of Giants”. friend of mine is reading and says its a must for those who want to know how they did it, and he say newton is the god of science, lol
June 27th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
i just bought this book for a girl i’m interested in. if she takes to it, i think i’m gonna have to marry her!
June 27th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
That’s a great comic… It made me sad to see it go… Although Three Panel Soul is a worthy follow-up in its own right.
In addition to which, I must add: If you aren’t willing to go to extremes in the persuit of a woman, you aren’t worthy of her. The trick is do it and look like a stalker about it.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Good strategy!
But it’s not like going to the pond, chasing bluegills and tommycocks!
And I’ll need a bigger boat.
Fun part is, what to choose? Should I use Phil’s book, or one by Martin Rees?
June 28th, 2007 at 12:14 am
“Smart” women?
You are joking, right?
June 28th, 2007 at 12:14 am
Wait… there’s smart women?
(Dives into nuclear bunker and locks door)
June 28th, 2007 at 4:41 am
If the book doesn’t work, and you’re really a desperate husband-wannabe, try this t-shirt: http://www.chicadelatele.com/chicadelatele/post/2007/06/26/tecnicas-ligoteo-basico
June 28th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Haha, funny you should post a link to this comic, i’ve got the exact same on saved to the photos section of my MySpace page. I’ve got that book (and audio cassettes) and dammit i’m just desperate enough to try it.
Actually though, i thought the book was sorta dull. I didn’t feel like i’d really learned anything from it like i did when i read Cosmos.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Hey, I am a smart single woman!! LOL
Sadly, finding smart single men in my age group is like looking for water in the desert.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:26 am
It’s awsome !!!!
What can I say?… I have my own book of TDHW!!!
LOL
June 28th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Lol Funny cartoon. My problem was the smart girls always came after me…
June 29th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Just wanted to say thanks for those of you who are linking to noteworthy archives. Those of us who are newer to the blog appreciate it.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I know several smart women – the trouble for guys is that you need to be willing to accept that those women are smarter than you – not easy given the way we’ve been trained by society.
Single Moms are a good place to look (i.e. they were smart enough to leave the jerk). The other positive bias I’ve personally observed (no official survey!) is the number of teachers married to science types. I think they are attracted to our sense of wonder.
August 10th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
I was just reading that in a bookstore! There wasn’t anyone else around, especially not with a fishing rod. In fact, the place was practially deserted. But, man, did I look like a great skeptic, reading Sagan in a Scooby-Doo T-shirt! (Hey, Velma was the original SkepChick!)
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:42 am
I have to agree with a couple of other people. “Smart woman” is pretty much an oxymoron. Seriously. I’ve never met any girls/women who seemed to be smart. I only know of a handful of smart women from seeing them on TV. I find that most women dumb themselves down, stay ignorant about many things, and lack intellectual curiosity. They don’t want to know things. They just like to socialize. In other words, they’re airheads. The vast majority seem to lack much ambition as well. It’s like a chick thing to be stupid. Some girls have even told me that they’re stupid, as if being intelligent isn’t important. My IQ is 140. Almost everyone I meet is far less intelligent than I am. I’m pretty sick of it. I’d love to meet a smart girl who likes watching PBS, appreciates intellectual subjects, doesn’t dumb herself down at all and doesn’t require me to do so to talk to her. This thread was totally unhelpful but I’m going to keep looking for ways to meet smart girls.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:28 am
Robert Jackson lives in an incredibly small world AND/OR is only dating women who are more concerned with their looks than their brains. You have either got to lower your physical requirement standards, or else hope for that rare “ugly duckling”. The same problem is in full effect for the boys–you just don’t notice, because you’re straight. The “prettier” someone is, the less likely they are to have developed other characteristics. Why should they? Why put effort in, when everyone treats them like a god/dess anyway? And more importantly: why risk losing the top-dog position by turning down parties to read a book instead? It’s just not…well…smart.
Now, as for ambition in women, there are many other factors leading into that, which have very little to do with actual intelligence…but you should already know that.
Your logical flaws lead me to believe that your supposed “140 IQ” was culled from an online test.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 am
Oh yeah: where do smart men hang out?
…Where do smart, yet not necessarily geeky, obsessive types hang out? I don’t want to go to any more anime conventions.
August 15th, 2009 at 8:28 am
High IQ relationships, right…:|.
). Solution try to meet more people, with the amount of stupid ones increase so dose your chance of meting your “smart one”.
1.Lets put it this way, with and IQ over 130 that means that 98% of the world surrounding you has a lower IQ then you, take this in an abstract way that will mean 2 people out of 100, depending where you live in your lifetime you will meet probably 97.3 people
2.Getting back to the subject, where do you meet smart people, i presume where “smart things” are, if you have an high IQ use it, do something smart and who knows you will probably meet your Marie Curie/Pierre Curie, the down side is that sometimes society and/or life will stop you in reaching your full potential, then you can only consider your self the smartest human alive and marry a stupid one(which from my point stinks and if you refuse to consider that option don’t worry your not alone, but be aware its a lonely road to walk)
Sadly i don’t think there is a place where smart people usually meet, i recommend focusing on things you like and go from there and yes i know its BS, but thats how things are, unless you believe in destiny then there is nothing to worry about.
P.S. If you know who Jenna Jameson is and don’t know who Marie Curie was, then probably your not that smart.