Julian Brown's Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse, June 2, 2001

Research in the physical/mathematical sciences which is in the very new stages tends to be difficult to write up. Quantum computers and cryptography are about as new as research gets. The best creative geniuses probably are capable right now of writing up their ideas in English in such a way that most people would understand them if they try, but they're sort of in the position of a fireman who has to keep putting out fires rather than write his autobiography. The autobiographies and the clarifications will come later. One thing that you can do is to try to puzzle out who the most creative geniuses are from the book. There usually are only relative few in science/mathematics. Most scientists tend to be Ingenious Followers, just moving one step ahead of the last scientist. The Creative Geniuses jump many steps ahead, and they usually do it often. I'll give you a clue - one of the latter is David Deutsch of Oxford University's Clarendon Laboratory. Generally speaking, Great Britain and France and Belgium and the words Creative Genius in Physics/Math/Computers go together. I'm going to let you find the clues for the other Creative Geniuses for yourselves, except to mention for example that some of it has to do with Rolf Landauer of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, who passed away in 1999 just before the book was written. You might also be surprised to find that Professor Richard Feynman of Caltech borrowed somebody else's ideas (at least John von Neumann gave people credit when he did that) - Paul Benioff's of Argonne National Labs in Illinois. Look those people up on the internet and in books and journals. Also, look up entanglement and interference in the book's index and read all the pages about them in the book - the easiest ones first perhaps. I'll just leave you with a thought (I may give some more clarifications another time). Quantum entangled people will behave exactly the same even if they are in different galaxies. It's like the *psychic twins*. If that isn't enough to turn one toward a career in science/math, I don't know what is.

A bizarre true fantasy, June 1, 2001

The main character is Steven Huxley who, at the beginning of the book, is living in France just after the end of the war having served in the British Army. He keeps contact with his brother Christian who is still living at their old parental home in Oak Lodge which is situated on the edge of Ryhope Forest in England. At length he returns home to live with his brother. He has changed almost beyond recognition and acts strangely and his eyes often have a faraway gaze ... The Forest is not your regular kind of forest. It is primal untouched old forest never penetrated by modern man. It is inhabited by mythagos which turn out to be products of one's mind (in some way). This forest was studied by their father (to the family's regret) and he wrote a detailed diary of his findings. Themes of myth, earth, wood, timelessness and time travel, occult, humans becoming animals and vice versa, love and hate, hope and despair are all intertwined in a most intricate and perplexing manner. Because of all these combinations, particularly the real mixed with the fantasy with some occult and ancient legend thrown in, the book has the power to communicate a unique and unsettling feeling. I'm not quite sure what the point of the story is. There seems to be some idolization of the ancient forest and Celtic times; sometimes it has a New Agey feel. I also wonder whether the name given to the brother "Christian" is purely coincidental ... Purely plotwise it is a gripping read, though because it is so bizarre I did feel the need to put it down frequently and read or do something else, something which I did not have with _Ender's Game_ which is tame and realistic compared with this book, which has a sequel called _Lavondyss_. I may be curious enough to read it. As such the book is also well written though the content often overshadows the good writing style. All in all, I can understand why it won the World Fantasy Award.