Contributed by
F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
Dear Professor Kasman:
Greetings to you from F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, science-fiction author
and amateur physicist. Having enjoyed your
excellent website in the past, I was chuffed (delighted) today to discover
that you've added a mention of myself and my
latest science-fiction story 'A Deadly Medley of Smedley', which appears in
the current (April 2003) number of
'Analog'. As you correctly note, this story indeed has mathematical
content.
However, 'A Deadly Medley of Smedley' is the fifth instalment (British
spelling, ONE 'L') of an ongoing series of
stories about Smedley Faversham, the time-travelling (British spelling, TWO
'L's) confidence trickster. ALL of the
instalments in my ongoing Smedley Faversham saga feature a substantial
amount of mathematical content, as well as a
good deal to do with quantum physics. You may be aware of George Gamow's
stories which attempted to explain the
fundamentals of chemistry and subatomic reactions in a fictional context:
in the Smedley Faversham stories, I
endeavour to do similarly with quantum physics and higher maths. (Why is
'mathematics' singular in Yankspeak but
plural in Britspeak? This may be a question for the English department.)
In the hope that you and/or your colleagues in C. of Charleston's
physics department would like to have a complete
list of the Smedley Faversham chronicles to date, they are (in order):
#1. 'Time Lines', published in Analog, June 1999.
#2. 'A Real Bang-Up Job' (Analog, July/August 2000)
#3. "Put Back that Universe!" (originally published in Analog, October
2000; recently reprinted in a British anthology
which will appear Stateside from Carroll & Graf ... and yes, this title has
double quotation marks)
#4. 'Schrödinger's Cat-Sitter' (Analog, July/August 2001: my favourite
title so far, although some non-physicists
mightn't get the joke)
#5. 'A Deadly Medley of Smedley' (Analog, April 2003)
As I'm an artist as well as an author, I'll add that from the third
story onwards I've illustrated these stories as well as
written them.
To reward you for your attention to my published work, I'll now give
you a scoop which you're welcome to post on
your website: you're the first person to whom I've divulged this. I'm now
writing another Smedley Faversham story in
which he travels back in time to 19th-century Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland
to meet the physicist James Clerk Maxwell.
The title of this forthcoming story is (drum roll, please) 'Maxwell's
Silver Hamster'.
Seriously, although the Faversham stories are mostly humour, I well and
truly intend them as vehicles in which to
explain to the reading public some of the fundamental principles of quantum
physics and mathematics. If I manage to
get a few 'civilians' interested in science and maths, then I've served a
noble purpose.
Straight on till mourning,
Feargus (Gwynplaine MacIntyre)
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