The most urgent problems of our time can’t be solved by people like Alvarez alone—but they’ll never be solved without them. In COLLISIONS, I try to explain why. I hope you’ll check it out. (And like everything else I've written, it's a great book for dads.)

Even in outline, Alvarez's life is astonishing. He also embodied a vision of what a scientist could be: curious, audacious, brilliant—and deeply flawed. Writing about him changed the way I think about science, creativity, and what it means to solve problems.

At the very end of his life, he teamed up with his son Walter to prove that the extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid impact, triggering a heated scientific debate that lasted until after his death. (Also a good story for Father's Day!)

Later, he transformed experimental physics with the hydrogen bubble chamber and won the Nobel Prize. He also became a self-styled scientific detective, looking into UFOs, X-raying the pyramids, and shooting melons to support the lone gunman theory of the Kennedy assassination.

And the events that it covers are equally extraordinary. In WWII, Alvarez helped invent airborne radar, then worked on the atomic bomb. He was the lead scientific observer at Hiroshima. He was friends with Oppenheimer, but testified against him at his 1954 security hearing.

I wrote about Alvarez for a simple reason: I was shocked that nobody else had. If you had told me that there was a biography that would let me talk about the Manhattan Project, the pyramids, the JFK assassination, and the extinction of the dinosaurs, I wouldn't have believed you.

Today is the publication day of my new book COLLISIONS: A Physicist’s Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs (@wwnorton). It’s the first biography of Luis W. Alvarez—a scientist whose life took him to the most incredible places imaginable. https://t.co/biFb1uLeD4

I'm still a little embarrassed that I didn't mention this in the Fuller book

Because a novelette can be written in a shorter timeframe than a full novel, it allows writers to develop and refine skills that will be useful for longer projects, while also providing a form that is deeply rewarding in itself.

🚀 Join our Writing the SFF Novelette online seminar! Discover the secrets of crafting otherworldly tales in 10,000 words or less.👽 🪐 Unearth hidden alien worlds! 🧙‍♂️ Learn to make wizards wave wands! 🚀 Warp speed plot development! Don't miss it! #SciFiFantasyNoveletteSeminar

The novelette (between 7,500 and 17,500 words) can be a challenging but rewarding form for SFF writers. As a novel in miniature, it requires authors to think about narrative structure in ways that differ from the specific requirements of the short story.

The Whole Earth Catalog, a counterculture icon from the 1960s, has just landed online! You can now explore the entire digital library of this historic publication and its descendants for free. Here's how: 📸 Cameron Getty; Getty, AP; Alamy // 🔗 https://t.co/keEveP5kUQ

This reference to "Byron's image as the personification of the Byronic hero" reminds me of what Homer Simpson said when told that he had a genetic condition known as Homer Simpson Syndrome: "Oh, why me?"

Me pitching exactly the same random essay idea every time I get a new editor's contact information

It is a fascinating case study in myth making even in our modern communications age where everything can be verified. I knew Bob's tale for years & took it to be true until @nevalalee did a clinical autopsy. This 🧵 is mostly this article 👇 https://t.co/k7vBtG4wop

Now I just feel like I'm writing the world's longest Oppenheimer fanfic

@nevalalee I learned about Alvarez from this video, and I didn't realize he's the subject of your next book until I listened to your Hugos There podcast

A nice mention of my boy Luis Alvarez in the opening of this great piece by @__katrinarenee in the @nytimes. (To be fair, the article that Alvarez saw that day didn't mention Meitner either—I've read it!—but I agree that she deserves a lot more credit.) https://t.co/fruDy1zsnz

A great piece in @slate from @dan_sinykin about the editing / publishing career of Lester del Rey, which I wasn't able to cover in ASTOUNDING—although now I wish I had! But I couldn't have done a better job than this. https://t.co/CRZhIHOZ00

@nevalalee @hugospodcast I appreciated your balanced perspective. My father read his fiction and non-fiction. I've referred others to your https://t.co/rT95FaShCL article.