Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am an engineering professor at a university in Bristol. I have written academic texts before, but this is the first ‘popular science’ type of book that I have written. I have done about 27 years of engineering research in areas relating to computer simulation and machine vision. Here is some more information about me:
Lyndon N. Smith has a strong interest in science and technology, and a particular fascination with developments in physics and engineering that can have potentially revolutionary effects on the way we live. He feels that scientific and technological developments of recent decades have been less dramatic than was expected, say, seventy years ago and that an investigation into why this is the case and what we can do about it is well overdue. His background includes degrees in physics, robotics and engineering, as well as 26 years of research experience in the UK (and USA), which has resulted in 180 technical papers, two books and the supervision of 20 PhDs. As well as being a professor at a major UK university, he is also something of a bibliophile; but has had a long-standing concern about the lack of accessibility of many science and technology related publications, in terms of the associated difficulties with public engagement with science, as well as reducing the likelihood of science having a strong and beneficial impact on society. He believes that one way to increase the accessibility of science is to employ an informal style, and to make liberal use of quotations and allusions to well-known figures from popular culture. This is what he has aimed to do with his new book. His intention is to make you wonder why we don’t hear more about how modern technologies can revolutionise our lives. He believes we need to spend more time and effort on looking to the future rather than agonising over the past. And he uses discussion of people and events from the past, as well as various predictions of the possible future, to throw light on the situation for science and technology, and what developments we might expect going forward. Lyndon lives in Central Somerset, with his wife and son.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is entitled: “Why You Can’t Catch a Rocket to Mars: Some Personal Reflections on Science and Society”. This was initially inspired by discussions with some of my MSc students, who, in 2015, told me that it was the day that Marty McFly was meant to have travelled forward from the year 1985 in the movie Back to the Future II. Apparently, in 2015 we were all supposed to have been flying around on ‘hoverboards’ – I started wondering why we were not.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write in various different places around the house and garden – it helps to have a laptop to do this!
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Authors that have infludenced me: Chekhov, Arthur C. Clarke, Sir Artur Conan Doyle, Gene Roddenberry, Gerald Durrell, Hunter S. Thompson, Isaac Asimov, and many more…
Books: Chekhov’s short stories, Sherlock Holmes e.g. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Star Trek, Durrell’s travel writing, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I, Robot, and again, many more…
What are you working on now?
An audiobook version of “Why You Can’t Catch a Rocket to Mars: Some Personal Reflections on Science and Society”.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Amazon ads seems quite good, if rather expensive and complicated.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Read Chekhov (or other good writing if you can’t read Chekhov). Write every day.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Disipline is the most important thing.
What are you reading now?
P. G. Wodehouse.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Another book – possibly on science and/or Sherlock Holmes.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Turgenev fathers and sons, Travels with Charlie by Steinbeck, The Complete Sherlock Holmes Short Stories and Novels, The Bible.
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