Hello hello, and welcome to our now 13th (XIIIth) writing club update. My dictionary explains that the meaning of “thirteen” is:
One more than twelve.
Truly to words to live by. Shuffling around my books for a more inspirational bit of numerology, I find the chapter in Mervyn Peake’s “Titus Groan” book, wherein we’re introduced to the outsider “Keda” who is to be a wet-nurse for the titular prince of Gormenghast. I’m not sure how that relates to what we’re doing here, but it’s a pretty weird, and cool, book.
Speaking of weird and cool…!
As always, all are extremely welcome to participate in the writing club, regardless of whether they’re in the list above.
Disregard the question in the above comment: this is absolutely metal! I would love to use such a (text)book in my future classes! High schools generally do such a bad job showing why physics is important and how much of what we are surrounded by is explained by the discipline.
Thanks! Yeah, I honestly find that (in my experience) university courses also often tend to get bogged down in examples too far detached from the observable physical world, which can make them demotivating. In my time at the university, I especially found the mathematics courses lacking, as they would focus almost entirely on formal descriptions and rote learning, and avoid using proper examples on the applications of mathematics in the real world. I’m a trained engineer/scientist, not a mathematician. It is the universal language used to describe so much, and yet I would spend my time solving Fourier integral after Fourier integral, not really understanding what I was really doing until it showed up in a physics course later on and within 20 minutes I would have a much better intuition of what I was spending 6 months trying to learn before.
And regarding beta-reading - that could be useful in the future, but as I said, it is first and foremost a personal project for my own enjoyment. But if it turns into something that looks like it could be of value to others as well (i.e. structured, coherent, complete and factually correct enough), I might prioritize trying to get that to a publishable state.