Update after a heck of a year

It’s been a heck of a year. Have managed to avoid COVID-19 with a combination of masks, social distancing and vaccination. Am disappointed at the reluctance of people to adhere to measures that could’ve made this pandemic much less devastating. Social distancing is difficult – we are a social species – but wearing a mask just isn’t that hard. I’m particularly astounded at peoples’ hesitancy to get vaccinated. These vaccines, especially the mRNA vaccines, are nothing short of a God-send (Pfizer and Moderna both 95% effective and incredibly safe). Yet here we are, still struggling with this thing. Like my father always told me: you sleep in the bed that you make.

But enough of this soapbox banter. Because of the nature of my day job, unlike many, the COVID pandemic has kept me hopping. Despite being busy with work, I’ve managed to finish the first draft of my novel “To Catch the Wind” and am in the process of editing. In addition, I’ve started on a nonfiction work on science and religion. I’ve also made some notes about some topics in quantum mechanics/quantum field theory that I’d like to talk about, as much to solidify the concepts in my own mind as anything. Of course, putting them together into a presentable form on the website is the hard part. Hopefully, I can find the time to post more frequently in the coming months.

One-year Anniversary of The Formula

Today is the first anniversary of the publication of my novel The Formula. Although sales have been modest, The Formula has been downloaded for free over 30,000 times. Reviews have been mixed. Some seem to love it but there is a significant contingent of negative reviews that criticize the excessive use of math and physics. Frankly, the physics and its philosophical implications are central to the theme of the book. Still, I believe I can take some of the more complex parts out and still convey the main idea, referring the interested reader to this website for further explanations. A second criticism that has been leveled on multiple occasions is the manner in which the characters’ Brooklyn accents are conveyed. This should be an easier fix.

I think that publishing the novel independently has been useful; it has served as the ultimate premarket test. My plan, eventually, is to edit the book and attempt to publish it traditionally. At this point, though, I’d like to move on and begin my next project, a novel entitled To Catch the Wind.

However, I made a commitment to publish 4 articles on this website that provide supplemental information regarding some of the more complicated concepts expressed in The Formula. The last of these, an introduction to Bohmian mechanics, is nearing completion (although additional background material on requisite mathematics will probably also be needed).

I suspect my OCD tendencies will not allow me to move on until this last piece is wrapped up – hopefully soon.

Until then …

The Formula is Free!

My novel, The Formula, is Free from Monday 7/29/2019 through Wednesday 7/31/2019. You can find out more about this Dan Brown-like thriller with a twist at the following link:

Progress on Bohmian Mechanics

I’ve begun work toward creating a page introducing Bohmian mechanics, a topic that plays a small but central role in my novel The Formula. I tried to come up with a way to make this introduction brief. However, after much deliberation, I feared that such brevity would make such a page like many popular science pieces-a string of generalizations and other unexplained statements that might pique a reader’s interest but leaves them with no real understanding of the topic. As stated in the introduction to this website, my goal is to move beyond such a popular understanding, but in a way that can be comprehended by an interested reader without extensive pre-existing knowledge of math and science. To do this, I believe that the details left out in popular science explanations must be filled in.

To gain such an understanding of Bohmian mechanics in particular, some background in (though not an exhaustive knowledge of) mathematics is needed. Accordingly, I’ve completed a page outlining the basics of Euclidean Geometry and have half completed a page on trigonometry. Next will be some information on calculus and differential equations. Finally, and most importantly, I’ll discuss linear algebra, a branch of math that is indispensable to comprehending quantum mechanics. For the time being, I’ll try to give just what I think is necessary to understand the subject at hand. At a later date, I’ll try to provide additional information that hopefully will create a more comprehensive presentation though, after starting work on this, I’ll probably have to do this by providing links to already established presentations 1) because I don’t think I can complete such an enormous task myself and 2) because comprehensive presentations are already available that are probably much better than I can ever produce.

After the math, I’ll need to provide an introduction to quantum mechanics. That introduction will need to proceed, at least, through a derivation of the Schrodinger equation since it is a modification of the Schrodinger equation that is central to Bohm’s theory. I’ll probably base my discussion on Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum by renowned physicist, Leonard Susskind. It provides a detailed mathematical derivation of the Schrodinger equation but explains all the math in simple terms. (I strongly recommend The Theoretical Minimum series of books and free online lectures by Dr. Susskind for any interested amateur-like myself.) My ultimate goal with the page is to review Bohm’s original derivation of his so-called guiding equation, an equation that is the heart and soul of his theory.

Planning on what to include so as to streamline the text as much as possible has been a difficult task, one that has occupied most of the time elapsed since my last post. I’d like to say that I’ll have this article complete soon but, frankly, I’m not optimistic. We’ll see how it goes.

“The Formula” now available

My first novel, “The Formula”, is now available for purchase on amazon.com as an eBook or paperback. Links are as follows:

eBook: https://www.amazon.com/Formula-Sam-Artigliere-ebook/dp/B07GZ7PC2S/

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Formula-Sam-Artigliere/dp/1718144849/

Check back frequently for promotions, including free giveaways!

Introduction

I am extremely excited about this website. I have recently learned enough HTML, CSS and Javascript to be dangerous, and as a result, I expect that the appearance of this site will evolve as I learn more. Please bear with me.

As stated in my About page, my main reason for developing this site is to introduce my forthcoming novel, The Formula. However, my dream is to develop comprehensive texts on physics, math and neuroscience geared toward the interested amateur; texts that fill in details and explanations that are not obvious, but which experts assume that you already know. Because of the demands of my day job, the chances of making significant advances on this project in the near future are slim. However, I have made outlines under the Topics menu at the upper right corner of this site and hope to fill them in, piecemeal, over a number of years.

For the present, I’d like to start with some works of fiction that incorporate my academic interests and the philosophical issues that they raise.

Accordingly, my first real post (coming soon) will be a short story entitled “The Ladies Club.”

I look forward to interacting with you.