Gene Tracy
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genetracy.bsky.social
Gene Tracy
@genetracy.bsky.social
340 followers 1.3K following 300 posts
Physicist, sci-fi fan, news junkie. Scribblings have appeared at Aeon, Lapham’s Q, and American Scientist. he/him. Author of The Icarus Question: Essays on Science, Technology, and the Search for Home in a Changing World.
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genetracy.bsky.social
Looking up. #photos
November 9, 2025 at 7:17 PM
genetracy.bsky.social
Gotta love the Fall.
November 9, 2025 at 7:00 PM
genetracy.bsky.social
Just ran across this pithy quote from Ursula Le Guin in "The Language of the Night: Essays on #Writing, #Science_Fiction, and #Fantasy". Great collection from an old master. #Writing #Fiction #Sci-fi #Fantasy
A quote from Ursula Le Guin about writing: "I have never found anywhere, in the domain of art, that you don't have to walk to. (There is quite an array of jets, buses and hacks which you can ride to Success; but that is a different destination.) It is a pretty wild country. There are, of course, roads. Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction--you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart." -- From Fifteen Vultures, the Strop, and the Old Lady, in Clarion II (1972).
October 2, 2025 at 7:24 PM
genetracy.bsky.social
Morning walk today. Saw a Great Blue Heron hanging out in a tree. Lovely sight.
August 16, 2025 at 2:22 PM
genetracy.bsky.social
W&M Memorial to the Enslaved
April 9, 2025 at 5:06 PM
genetracy.bsky.social
Got this from a friend yesterday with the wry comment: "There may be a little disturbance..."
An image showing a pyroclastic flow from a volcanic eruption coming toward the camera, and a car trying to outrun it.
March 6, 2025 at 4:41 PM
genetracy.bsky.social
Was out walking today and saw this. It brought out the old soliton theorist in me. For nonlinear nerds, the full description is in the alt-text. #science #waves #photos #nature
While I was out walking today, I happened upon the scene in the attached photo. The prevailing wind was coming at me from the direction of the shot, looking downriver and the wave field was quite complicated out in the main part of the channel. It's low tide. This exposed a roundish sand bar right in front of me. As the waves from the main channel diffract around the bar, they enter shallow water, no more than a few inches deep, and you get what looks like a beautiful soliton wave train. This is nonlinear behavior, because the shape of the waves has changed dramatically by moving into shallow water, and instead of being simple sinusoids, they are a periodic train of peaks separated by long flat areas. For nonlinear nerds: the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation has such solutions.
March 5, 2025 at 6:26 PM
genetracy.bsky.social
The road to the Giants Causeway. Antrim Coast, N. Ireland
The road to the Giants Causeway, Antrim Coast, N. Ireland. A view looking down from above at the road which follows a rocky coast into the distance. Rugged cliffs under a partly cloudy sky. Off in the distance near the surf, looking very small, there is a tour bus.
August 31, 2024 at 8:43 PM
genetracy.bsky.social
Ballycastle, N. Ireland. Summer 2024.
A public sculpture from Ballycastle, Northern Ireland. Four swans, wings outstretched, in flight.
August 31, 2024 at 8:37 PM