Abstract

This column is a milestone. It's the 100 th Alternate View column that I've written for Analog over a period of 16 years beginning in 1983. I was on a sabbatical in Berlin when Stan recruited me to write the column after Jerry Pournelle, my predecessor as AV columnist, decided to step down. The AV columns are a soapbox that was too attractive to pass up, and I've used them to promote an interst in science and to feed cutting-edge science ideas, primarily in the areas of physics and astrophysics, to the readers and writers of science fiction