![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Just finished reading Phil Plait's Death From The Skies.
I tell you, it's hard to put down a book that has numbers like Year 10^92* and really feel any sort of awe that we've changed a decade digit.
This book is rocking, by the way--mine's a library copy, but I'm definitely adding it to the permanent collection, because aside from the End Of Everything you also get a blow-by-blow of much more human-scale threats from space, everything from Rocks Fall FROM SPACE MOTHERFUCKER, Everyone Dies to Gamma Ray Bursts: If We Can See Them From Like 9 Billion Light-Years Away, Imagine What Nearby Ones Could Do. It's got some pretty interesting science fiction fodder, most assuredly.
Now I'm on to a less-promising book about conlangs (bad sign: "The primary motivation for inventing a new language has been to improve upon natural language, to eliminate its design flaws"), and a kinda cool YA book about fairies.
*The age the Universe will be when everything has disintegrated, even black holes, and things get immensely boring until something theoretical happens, like a brane slamming into us. Not to be confused with the age in which protons will simply fall apart, which is only, like, 10^40 years. That's roughly the year 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. (Try subtracting the current age of the universe, roughly 13,700,000,000, from that, to get a slightly more accurate timeframe. Your calculator looks at you like you're joking.) You've got to multiply that by itself before you get even CLOSE to 10^92.
I tell you, it's hard to put down a book that has numbers like Year 10^92* and really feel any sort of awe that we've changed a decade digit.
This book is rocking, by the way--mine's a library copy, but I'm definitely adding it to the permanent collection, because aside from the End Of Everything you also get a blow-by-blow of much more human-scale threats from space, everything from Rocks Fall FROM SPACE MOTHERFUCKER, Everyone Dies to Gamma Ray Bursts: If We Can See Them From Like 9 Billion Light-Years Away, Imagine What Nearby Ones Could Do. It's got some pretty interesting science fiction fodder, most assuredly.
Now I'm on to a less-promising book about conlangs (bad sign: "The primary motivation for inventing a new language has been to improve upon natural language, to eliminate its design flaws"), and a kinda cool YA book about fairies.
*The age the Universe will be when everything has disintegrated, even black holes, and things get immensely boring until something theoretical happens, like a brane slamming into us. Not to be confused with the age in which protons will simply fall apart, which is only, like, 10^40 years. That's roughly the year 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. (Try subtracting the current age of the universe, roughly 13,700,000,000, from that, to get a slightly more accurate timeframe. Your calculator looks at you like you're joking.) You've got to multiply that by itself before you get even CLOSE to 10^92.
