Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, in their book, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, write: “…every part of the body, every aspect of life, is instructed by a particular DNA sequence. Every sequence is vulnerable to mutation. … Most [mutations] are harmful, a few are helpful, and even the helpful ones may–like the sickle cell mutation–represent a tradeoff, a compromise. This is a principal means by which life evolves–exploiting imperfections in copying despite the cost. It is not how we would do it. It does not seem to be how a Deity intent on special creation would do it. The mutations have no plan, no direction behind them; their randomness seems chilling; progress, if any is agonizingly slow. The process sacrifices all those beings who are now less fit to perform their life tasks because of the new mutation…” [p.84]

Comment: The authors point to the imperfection, even the cruelty perhaps, of the evolution process. They aver that this is not the way “we” (i.e., humans) would do it. However, can we be so sure that our conception of the best way to do something, our idea of beauty or excellence in design, is better? What if a presumed “Deity intent on special creation” were to have made the process the way we think it should better have been made? What if there were no imperfections in the process, every step predetermined and carried out according to a “perfect” plan? Then would not this process in time evolve upward to the complete human being, a being having no power of choice? Every thought, every action carried out according to the plan of Someone else.

Yet we hold that humans DO have the power of choice. It is the one thing we do have that enables us to take advantage of opportunity or save us from calamity, if such should strike. That is, in the event of circumstances or events that hurt us or others we have the power to choose our response: inner peace or outward retaliation. Moreover our individual maturity is aided by the lessons we learn when we make the wrong response and must deal with the consequences. Learning by mistake, by imperfections. Or make the right response and garner the benefit for ourselves or others.

The power of choice is also the power to respond to the actions of the Deity who has allowed life, all life, to come into existence and then be driven by random, seemingly mindless alterations in its mechanisms, from the chemical behavior of the precursors to our DNA all the way up to the process of human maturation. The power to choose to believe in this Deity. To believe that despite appearances things will work out in accordance with a Divine plan, inscrutable as that plan may be. At least in an ultimate sense, acknowledging that many things that happen to us are out of our control. Except how we respond. That, and perhaps that alone is what WE control, what we CAN control. Our power to love instead of hate, to trust instead striking back, to believe instead of despair.

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What do those four things have in common? Not much. Except three of the four things required the user to think about and know what they were doing. Can you guess which of the four those three are? Hint: those three no longer exist in common use, having been replaced by technologies based on the 14th element of the Periodic Table. Silicon.

So isn’t that a good thing today that if I want to write a research paper on aardvarks, I can quickly search the Internet with Firefox or Google Chrome on my laptop instead of trekking to the library to find a book or an encyclopedia article on that subject. A handheld calculator is much easier to use than a slide rule and generally much more accurate. Digital cameras, these days produce photographs arguably just as good or better than film cameras, and you don’t have to send the roll of film off to a laboratory and wait a week to get your pictures back. In fact, if you are reading this post on your smart phone you can do all three in just a matter of a few minutes.

How does AI relate to all of this? Consider this. If I want a picture of a beautiful sunset or waves crashing on a beach, I can just have an AI application create one for me. Nice. And I don’t even have to go out of the house and risk enjoying the brisk weather on the seashore or the solitude of an evening walk. Maybe an AI math app can give me the orbital speed of a planet and I don’t have to bother with understanding Kepler’s laws. After all, the answer looks logical. As far as a research paper on aardvarks all I have to do is ask ChatGPT to write it for me and I will have more time with my leisure activities.

Of course, AI can be very useful, but like improperly using the technologies that replaced encyclopedias, slide rules and film cameras you can still easily get something that looks right, but isn’t. On all of these examples, you get the idea — I hope.

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Presentation on the Everyday Spacer Show, March 22, 2024

Ever wonder what superconductivity is? Or, maybe you’ve never heard of it. But in the coming years this amazing feature of the natural world will increasingly become part of your world. Spoiler Alert: It already is a part of your world!

If you want to know more, check out my Layperson’s Tutorial on Superconductivity. Last Friday (March 23) I appeared on “EverydaySpacer” as the guest presenter. See me and my presentation on the YouTube link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4p9RGi_HgI.

See the following links for some of my professional work in the area of superconducting power:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-2048/26/11/113001

https://www.epri.com/research/products/000000000001020916

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Here are two photos of the great Andromeda Galaxy that I took with my telescope. The top photo was taken under a completely dark sky in northern Maine in 2021 and the second photo was taken from my backyard in Southern California, near LA, in 2023. The Maine photo was a single 30-sec exposure. The backyard photo took about 21 hours of exposures – about 1260 individually stacked 60-second exposures! I had to take that many photos to overcome the light-pollution in Southern California.

The bottom photo shows the telescope I used: A William Optics Zenithstar 61mm f/6 refractor (see photo below).

The Andromeda Galaxy means a lot to me, for a couple of reasons: One, it is the closest galaxy to us yet 2-1/2 million lightyears away; also it is a spiral galaxy, like our own. More recently this galaxy has taken on a new meaning for me: Without the work of a largely unrecognized woman astronomer in the early 20th Century well-known scientists such as Einstein and Hubble would not have changed their opinion that the Andromeda was simply part of our galaxy. Henrietta Leavitt’s work made possible our current knowledge of the expanding universe. She should have gotten a Nobel prize for her work but they didn’t award women the prize in her day.

You can see a photo of Ms. Leavitt and a more complete story here.

Check out my latest sci-fi novel, Remnant: Beyond Galactic Empire on my Books Page.

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As has been true in other branches of scientific endeavor, it has taken a long time for women astronomers to be given their place alongside men. Notwithstanding this injustice, women have been making tremendous contributions to the field of astronomy for more than 100 years. Yet, their contributions have not been adequately acknowledged. Oh! We do have a Women Astronomer Day — August 1. (!)

One of these important woman astronomy pioneers, perhaps the most important, is Henrietta Swan Leavitt. She was a “computer” at the turn of the 20th century working for “important” men astronomers at the Harvard observatory. [A “computer” was a woman who examined photographic plates taken by cameras on telescopes and cataloging the stars on them.] Her analysis of photographic plates led her to make observations that would later lead famed astronomer Edwin Hubble to the conclusion that the stars at night are not just from our own galaxy — they are billions of other, very distant galaxies. Then later, and perhaps more stunning, Leavitt’s work helped Hubble to understand that the universe was not static (as Einstein and others in the early 20th century believed). Rather it was expanding!

“Leavitt’s discovery would forever change humanity’s picture of the universe, as it prompted Harlow Shapley to move the Sun from the center of the galaxy in the “Great Debate” and Edwin Hubble to move the Milky Way galaxy from the center of the universe.” [see: Henrietta Swan Leavitt]

Because of her discoveries and her work to establish a scientific basis for determining the stellar distances Henrietta should have received the Nobel Prize. But the Nobel Committee at the turn of the century did not recognize women as scientists. Finally, in 1924 someone recognized the oversight (aka “insult”). Gösta Mittag-Leker of the Swedish Academy of Sciences tried to nominate her for the Nobel but by then Henrietta had died of cancer and the prize is not awarded posthumously. However (hold your applause) she has received some posthumous honors. There is an asteroid and a crater on the Moon named after her. Nice to know.

When Leavitt died in 1921 she was a generally unknown astronomer. Fortunately, but far to late IMO, there are a number of biographies underway.

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April 13, 2024. The Oxnard, California, Public Library holds a large book fair every year in celebration of National Library Week. This year the observation was April 7-13, 2024, and the Book Fair was on the last day of that week. A percentage of the proceeds from the sale of books by participating authors goes to help the Library. Photos of the event can be seen on the Oxnard Public Library Facebook page, at https://bit.ly/4aw8uH7. Here I show a shot of myself at my table, showing the setup I use at fairs and the four books I have written and published so far (I am working on the fifth). As you can see, it is a large library but not visible are the many programs the library sponsors in a largely Hispanic community. Learn more about the library at: oxnard.org/library.

For more information on the sci-fi novels I have published, page over to my Books tab (click here). There you can select links that will permit you to read the first two chapters of any of my books. Also on my web site, on the Posts page, you can find a brief post and pictures of my observing the recent solar eclipse with my home-made pinhole camera. Click here.

Telpher Series books Now Available in Bookstores

In addition to Amazon my books are currently stocked in some bookstores.** If your bookstore does not stock my books ask the attendant to look them up in Books in Print Catalog. The Catalog gets mailed weekly to all bookstores. The Catalog permits the bookstore to look them up in the catalog and order them for you.

**The Bookworm in Camarillo. If you are in So. California, check out this well-stocked and “good feeling” bookstore. Eclectic collection. Nice people to help you find the book you want.

See them on Facebook at: Facebook.com/CamarilloBookworm/.

You can also see my Facebook Post on this at: https://tinyurl.com/EckroadPost

–October 26, 2023

Fourth Book in Telpher Series Published

Remnant: Beyond Galactic Empire

September 2023

See Books

Buy on Amazon (Click Here)

Book Fair in Thousand Oaks, CA – October 8, 2023

My wife, Barbara, and I had a table at the Thousand Oaks Library Book Fair. We had lots of interest and several purchases of my books.

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September 2022

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Alien Quest novels now available – Learn more

Books – Posts – News and Events – Subscribe

Enter the world of distinctive science fiction with relatable characters who face ordinary human trials, cherish hopes and struggle with fears common to us all. Protagonists who fail, learn, and achieve victories. You will find galactic adventure and exploration, space opera romance, social and political commentary, and future hopes for humanity. There are both heroes and villains. The heroes sometimes miss the mark and the villains occasionally get something right, but with tragic consequences.

You will enjoy sagas that are move in the realm of authentic science theory and/or reasonable extrapolations of known science. Stories in which the unbelievable receives credibility through firmer scientific backing using everyday analogies. Imaginative plots flow from the author’s academic background in physics and practical development of advanced power delivery systems and new energy technologies (see here and here).

Readers’ praise for the author:

“Eckroad dares to see beyond the limits of physics, using the language of science fiction to ask moral and metaphysical questions about purpose, consciousness, and the unseen dimensions of reality. [His] writing carries the ambition of world-building worthy of [Frank] Herbert and the inward depth of [C. S.] Lewis’s metaphysical imagination.” *

“Eckroad tells about a conceptual future [that is] different from other science fiction projections. He introduces [a number of] novel concepts. Most importantly is the one that telepathy is related to teleportation.” **

“[Eckroad’s] characters have a richness and depth and the challenges they face are so gripping it is difficult to put the book down. [His] engineering and scientific background enhances and brings credibility to the space and time aspects underlying the narrative and to the unexpected conclusion.” *** 

Dreams for Humanity ~ Hopeful Science Fiction

* Paulo Ribiero, PhD, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Itajubá, Brazil [Review of “Alien Quest: Awakening”]

**William Hassenzahl, PhD, President Advanced Energy Analysis [Review of “Copernicium-296”]

***Alan Lauder, PhD, BMA, Executive Director, Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors [Review of “Telpher”]

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