Some of you might have noticed that I had a short pause in my blog posts (two weeks, to be exact) before yesterday’s post on “The Art of Doing Nothing.” In case you were wondering, the reason is that I was writing the last two chapters of my next book!<\/p>\n
As long-time readers of this blog know, I am actually a writer by day and a blogger by night. Or sometimes a blogger by day and a writer by night … Anyway, the point is that I actually try to make a living by putting one word after another into long pretty strings. You can find (or even buy!) some of my work at Amazon.com:<\/p>\n
The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be<\/a><\/p>\n Visualizing Geology <\/a> (a textbook, co-written with Barbara Murck and Brian Skinner)<\/p>\n What’s Happening in the Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 6<\/a> (with Barry Cipra)<\/p>\n What’s Happening in the Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 7<\/a><\/p>\n What’s Happening in the Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 8<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sometime toward the end of 2011, or the beginning of 2012, another title will join this legacy. The working title is “The Universe in Zero Words or Less.” It is a history of mathematics through equations, starting with the equation 1+1 = 2 and ending with … well, you’ll just have to wait and see!<\/p>\n My main premise in writing this book is that if you buy a book about art, you expect to see photographs of some paintings or sculptures. Yet most popular books about mathematics do not contain a single equation in them! Honestly, how can we expect the public to appreciate<\/em> mathematics if we don’t even let them look<\/em> at it? Are equations some monster that has to be hidden? So in this book I show some of the greatest formulas in mathematical history and explain what they mean, what they are good for, who discovered them and how, etc.<\/p>\n I’ve been working on the book off and on for three years. As I told someone yesterday, that means “Often on, but more often off.” I didn’t even have a publisher until this January, when Princeton University Press<\/a> finally signed on. I couldn’t have asked for a better publisher. Unlike most university presses, Princeton University Press puts out a lot of books for a general audience, in addition to their more specialized scholarly books. Some previous titles of PUP that you might have heard of are e: The Story of a Number<\/a>, by Eli Maor; The Calculus of Friendship<\/a>, by Steven Strogatz; and QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter<\/a>, by Richard Feynman. It will be an honor to join company like that!<\/p>\n Please be aware that the title of my book could change, so don’t go to your bookstore and order a copy yet. I’ll let you know when the title is final and when you can pre-order it.<\/p>\n On a related matter, my wife’s latest book has just come out (publication date was yesterday, March 7). Her book is called Inspired by Tradition: 50 Appliqu\u00c3\u00a9 Blocks in 5 Sizes<\/a>, published by Martingale & Company<\/a>. It’s a gorgeous book, featuring quilt patterns that look<\/em> traditional but are designed by Kay. (Thus the title, Inspired by Tradition<\/em>.)<\/p>\n So, the Mackenzie Publishing Empire is alive and well! We write, therefore we are!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of you might have noticed that I had a short pause in my blog posts (two weeks, to be exact) before yesterday’s post on “The Art of Doing Nothing.” In case you were wondering, the reason is that I was writing the last two chapters of my next book! As long-time readers of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,235],"tags":[1688,7,1687,1691,1692,1690,1693,1689],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-off-topic","tag-amazon","tag-books","tag-equations","tag-inspired-by-tradition","tag-mackenzie-publishing-empire","tag-princeton-university-press","tag-puns","tag-the-big-splat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}