One of my books that has been referred to multiple times by others in this discussion is
“Einstein Explained: Special and General Relativity for the Masses” (physics pun intended).
I published it under my maiden name, which is Amy Louise Johnson. I created it in collaboration with my then-teenage sons.
I didn’t mention the book at all in my original post. Then I didn’t mention its title in the replies to the comments on the first post, the second post, or the initial replies to the comments on the second post. This is because I didn’t want to use LessWrong for marketing the book.
However, I decided to mention it now, along with its title, because of the suggestions that I’m not familiar with foundational physics and that I might be a “crank” author (which I think is meant to imply that I have radical or unproven ideas). If I finally just give people the title of the book, they can at least see previews of the pages on Amazon, and decide for themselves on whether I am a “crank” or have not yet learned foundational physics. If I do have radical or crazy ideas, I guess I would probably be the last to know anyway.
I don’t blame anyone for assuming I’m a “crank” author, or that I’m not familiar with foundational physics, because I initially didn’t give any evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, I think I did a really poor job explaining my viewpoints in the initial post.
Caveats about the book:
-When the book was re-titled, it lost its reviews on Amazon, so I assume it doesn’t have any reviews at this moment.
-The first draft of the book was originally all text w/ only a few diagrams. However based on advice that we should make the book more accessible and one-of-a-kind, we limited the text to the absolute necessities, and added the philosophical, Nietzsche-quoting cartoon dogs. I know it’s a little weird.
-I’m proud of the book being “for the masses” (“popsci” I guess). Frankly, I think it is actually more challenging to explain advanced concepts in a way anyone can understand, than it is to explain advanced concepts to people who already have a specialized vocabulary and expertise. It is even more challenging to explain the concepts simply, while also not sacrificing accuracy. I think we did a decent job in meeting the challenge, but people can judge for themselves, if from nothing other than the preview pages on Amazon. If we did make any mistakes, feedback would be greatly appreciated.
-The book was converted from color to grayscale, and reformatted, and I think the result looks pretty bad.
-We received advice to use professional artwork for the cover, but I insisted on using my own drawing of a “cool Einstein.” That’s why the cover looks so unprofessional. The cover on the teens and tweens edition is also my own art.… genius....
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This is my last comment I’ll make on this thread, and I’ve turned off notifications on the thread.
If I don’t respond to future comments, it’s not because I necessarily agree or disagree with them. It’s simply because I can’t afford to spend more time on this. I’ve already spent way too long, and I have other things I should have been doing.
However, despite ending my involvement with this post and the linked one, I did find this discussion to be very productive (for me at least), and I learned a great deal from the feedback (such as how to explain myself better, the necessity of examples, and the importance of reading feedback in a realistic tone of voice, etc.) Thank you to everyone who gave feedback, good or bad, because it was all useful. Best wishes.....
One of my books that has been referred to multiple times by others in this discussion is
“Einstein Explained: Special and General Relativity for the Masses” (physics pun intended).
I published it under my maiden name, which is Amy Louise Johnson. I created it in collaboration with my then-teenage sons.
I didn’t mention the book at all in my original post. Then I didn’t mention its title in the replies to the comments on the first post, the second post, or the initial replies to the comments on the second post. This is because I didn’t want to use LessWrong for marketing the book.
However, I decided to mention it now, along with its title, because of the suggestions that I’m not familiar with foundational physics and that I might be a “crank” author (which I think is meant to imply that I have radical or unproven ideas). If I finally just give people the title of the book, they can at least see previews of the pages on Amazon, and decide for themselves on whether I am a “crank” or have not yet learned foundational physics. If I do have radical or crazy ideas, I guess I would probably be the last to know anyway.
I don’t blame anyone for assuming I’m a “crank” author, or that I’m not familiar with foundational physics, because I initially didn’t give any evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, I think I did a really poor job explaining my viewpoints in the initial post.
Caveats about the book:
-When the book was re-titled, it lost its reviews on Amazon, so I assume it doesn’t have any reviews at this moment.
-The first draft of the book was originally all text w/ only a few diagrams. However based on advice that we should make the book more accessible and one-of-a-kind, we limited the text to the absolute necessities, and added the philosophical, Nietzsche-quoting cartoon dogs. I know it’s a little weird.
-I’m proud of the book being “for the masses” (“popsci” I guess). Frankly, I think it is actually more challenging to explain advanced concepts in a way anyone can understand, than it is to explain advanced concepts to people who already have a specialized vocabulary and expertise. It is even more challenging to explain the concepts simply, while also not sacrificing accuracy. I think we did a decent job in meeting the challenge, but people can judge for themselves, if from nothing other than the preview pages on Amazon. If we did make any mistakes, feedback would be greatly appreciated.
-The book was converted from color to grayscale, and reformatted, and I think the result looks pretty bad.
-We received advice to use professional artwork for the cover, but I insisted on using my own drawing of a “cool Einstein.” That’s why the cover looks so unprofessional. The cover on the teens and tweens edition is also my own art.… genius....
---
This is my last comment I’ll make on this thread, and I’ve turned off notifications on the thread.
If I don’t respond to future comments, it’s not because I necessarily agree or disagree with them. It’s simply because I can’t afford to spend more time on this. I’ve already spent way too long, and I have other things I should have been doing.
However, despite ending my involvement with this post and the linked one, I did find this discussion to be very productive (for me at least), and I learned a great deal from the feedback (such as how to explain myself better, the necessity of examples, and the importance of reading feedback in a realistic tone of voice, etc.) Thank you to everyone who gave feedback, good or bad, because it was all useful. Best wishes.....