Patchen Barss

Space Justice - Western Alumni Magazine Prof Valerie Oosterveld explores the complexities of outer space law.

Here’s a Q&A from last October with Valerie Oosterveld, a Western law prof who specializes in outer space law. She is fascinating and at the forefront of these issues.

This is great. I’ve always felt though that “paradox” is a misnomer. Conundrum, maybe?

Even if the problem isn't port lint (as was the case with a phone in my house) you might be able to work around using a wireless charger. We have a dead port on an 11 — accepts neither data nor charge — but get by fine charging wirelessly.

A poster promoting a reading by Patchen Barss at LaHave River Books in LaHave Nova Scotia on August 16. The poster includes a colour picture of the bookstore, which has many books, comfy couches, and large doors opening out onto a pier, which extends into the scenic LaHave River. The poster also includes a headshot of author Patchen Barss, and an image of the cover of his book, The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius. The text of the poster reads: LaHave River Books presents Patchen Barss Patchen Barss is a Toronto-based science journalist and author who grew up on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. He has contributed to Nautilus Magazine, Scientific American, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, and The Walrus, as well as the Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, and Montreal Gazette. Empathetic and honest, The Impossible Man is a gripping, intimate examination of the life of physicist Roger Penrose and the larger question of who gets to be a genius. With a deft, poetic grasp of science, Patchen Barss draws on years of research, interviews, and previously unpublished letters, journals, and other papers, to present a deeply moving, eye-opening portrait of Penrose the Nobel Prize-winning scientist and Roger the human being. ----- Named a top 2024 science and technology book by The Financial Times, the Globe and Mail, Kirkus Reviews, and The Daily Telegraph. “This biography depicts Sir Roger in multiple dimensions; only a writer as psychologically astute as Barss could show us an impossible man in full.” -New York Times “In this elegant biography, Barss vividly evokes Penrose’s geometric sensibility and his quest to prove that a geometrically perfect world lies hidden behind everyday reality.” -The New Yorker August 16, 2025 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. 3421 Hwy 331 902-688-1855 lahaveriverbooks@gmail.com

I'm excited to be reading at LaHave River Books in Nova Scotia on Aug. 16. This is a beautiful bookstore, a few kms from where I grew up. Since everyone seems to be traveling east this summer, maybe you'll be in the neighbourhood and drop by!

All of this to say: I knew Ray just well enough to appreciate his curiosity, his humour, his joy, and his extraordinary kindness and love of life. He was a rare scientist and a rare human being.

Of course they returned safely, and I learned a lesson about trusting Ray’s wilderness acumen. Years later, though, discovered that Ray told a version of that story with a different conclusion: He said he never had to worry about outrunning a bear — he just had to be able to outrun Tony.

Having tried to escape the world of crisis communications, I became convinced my first CIFAR media release would read, “Nobel prizewinning physicist eaten by bear.” I also noted, not for the first time, how a scientist could be absolutely brilliant in one subject area, and foolhardy in another.

On our first full day there, I was looking for Ray. Another researcher told me he had taken (superfluidity expert and Nobel laureate) Tony Leggett for a hike in Kluane National Park with a backpack full of smoked salmon and other goodies for a picnic.

I joined about 30 quantum physicists and computer scientists for a QIP meeting in Haines Junction, Yukon. It was June, which meant it never got really dark (which was a bit crazymaking) and also that hibernation was over, and the local grizzlies were still groggy, grumpy, and hungry.

Ray ran CIFAR’s Quantum Information Processing research group. He liked to organize meetings in places far from large cities where he and other researchers could bond with nature and with each other without the distractions of an urban setting.

Related story: I met Ray in the mid-aughts. I had left the Toronto Mayor's Office to join the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, keen to leave a world of continual crisis communications to focus on telling stories about curiosity-driven research and emerging ideas.

Physicist Raymond Laflamme helped put Canada at the forefront of quantum computing A pioneer in his field, he influenced cosmologist Stephen Hawking and was a founding member of the Perimeter Institute and IQC in Waterloo, Ont.

This was a little delayed, but here is an obituary of quantum computing researcher Raymond Laflamme I wrote for @theglobeandmail.com. Thank you to all those who shared memories and stories with me. I am sorry for your loss.

Grocery shopping is an essential skill for cooks - like knife skills, seasoning skills, creating a course progression, plating, etc. I’m 55, been food shopping all my life, and I’m still getting better at it as I go.

The two books in the Space Cadets series by Jennifer L. Gadd are featured against a bright blue background with lens flares. Text reads: "I feel like I'm right there in the story!" and "A great Hi-Lo book for reading groups and literature circles!"

Likes are nice, but reskeets are even better! #YA #scifi #sciencefiction #hilobooks #kidlit #booksky
www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8MD9GR...

Since I'm blathering about (my own) scientific writing this morning, I'm reminded to remind you that I made a starter pack of folks who post about the history, practice, and craft of scientific writing: go.bsky.app/TwZVnjU

You can get some good advice from folks on this list!

We're way more heterogenous that than! For instance, I did IB English, not AP.

Wait, one is the GOAT and the other the GNEW? Totally different beasts. Imagine some platform, though, where everyone really did all agree on the Best All-Time novel — if there really were consensus on which book is the BAT, it might indeed be an indicator of an echo location.

Feels like you’ve got to find a tree that was hit and make a baseball bat or go kart or something out of it.

I work with a team here in Canada who are fast and elegant with Wordpress, and who leave clients with an intuitive back end that makes it super easy for clients to maintain and update the site themselves if they so wish. Drop me a line if you want me to connect you to discuss a project.

This is really great, succinct advice for experts thinking about writing a book. If I can humbly add one other question I think is worth considering: Are you prepared to talk publicly about the subject matter of your book for years after publication?

A client once accidentally asked me to do “wordsmiting” rather than “wordsmithing” and ever since, that’s how I view the role.

I’m interested if it holds up. Thinking of starting my kids 12 and 14) on the show soon. I hope it’s still as good as I remember.

Can confirm this crowd make a lot of great puzzles and also present as a group of more than decent human beings.

A photograph of a page in Saltscapes magazine featuring an oval portrait of Nova Scotia privateer Captain Joseph Barss overlaid on a painting of his sailing ship, The Liverpool Packet. Headline: Treasure hunters and patriots. Subhead: When war raged and American raiders menaced coastal communities, privateers defended the East Coast.

This is a picture of my great great great great grandfather. See any family resemblance?

I’d be caught by cold-case investigators reexamining who trapped a group of dinosaurs in floating bubbles, popped those bubbles with their own spiny carapace, and crashed the victims down onto an elaborate platform structure where they turned into fruit, which the perp (me) then ate. Gruesome.

Punching the “agree” button. It’s a dangerous mistake to conflate the current tech-hype bubble with the actual potential for the technology.

Not to mention, potatoes can be pies, fries, soup and buns-for-the-soup, pancakes, chips and dip-for-the-chips, and vodka to wash them all down.

This makes sense. And analog works for spatial quasiperiodicity. I’ve been thinking that maybe quasi is also a subset of a. Like, if something is quasiperiodic is that a special case of aperiodicity?

Is there a definite differentiation between aperiodicity and quasiperiodicity? Like, one doesn't repeat, and one kinda sorta repeats but not exactly. But how do you know when you've crossed from one to the other? 🧪

@jonasenander.bsky.social Hi Jonas. I just finished reading a preprint of the English version of Facing Infinity. I wanted to send a quick note of congratulations — it's a lovely book, and I very much enjoyed it.