It's a thousand pages, give or take a few, I'll be writing more in a week or two

I went to the university library to return a couple of books. And, of course, I wandered around a little to see what might be there. Over in the shelves that turn out to be about planetary atmospheres I saw one of my own books. That is, one of the two mathematics texts that I co-authored, spun mostly out of my thesis and then some post-thesis work. This is the first time I've ever seen one of my books in the wild, as opposed to my shelves or the shelves of someone I gave a copy to. I'm amazed.

I was thinking that it's a testament to how reluctant the library is to cull books. I say without false modesty, it's not like it's that important a book. Mostly it was meant as proof that I could churn out books, in case a mathematics department wanted to hire me, and since nobody does there's not much point to the book being around. But it took me by surprise, even though bunny_hugger reminds me she had said they had physical copies of one of my books. Still, a very welcome positive surprise.

I checked it out of the library, of course, so that the school is stuck with it for another thirteen years unless they change their culling policy. I have not looked at the page of due dates in the book (the university library does not yet have self-checkout so you can see the last several dozen times a book was checked out) for fear of confirming that I'm the first. But this also makes me think: this is the book that I got a welcome yet unexpected royalty check for a couple months ago. Is it possible the book's gotten a second printing? Or even found an appreciative audience? We had thought while writing it that the target reader was ``grad student course in numerical simulations of fluid flows'' and maybe someone actually started one? No way to know. (Also from checking the publisher's web site I learn the hardcover sells at US$124 and the paperback at US$74, which you should know, ain't going to me. The eBook is a more resonable US$59.)

Speaking of fluid flows, here's a lot of fluid trading gravitational potential energy for kinetic energy:

Canadian tour boat getting about as close as they get to the spray (and rocks) of the Falls.

Sign explaining Louis Hennepin, the earliest known White guy to record the existence of the Falls. There's a French version of the text on the other side of the plaque. I can't explain why the seal up top is Michigan's.

Looking down at Canadian and United States tour boats with a rainbow separating them.

Looking down at the lower-level power station(?) Or whatever it is? that I shared in photographs a couple days ago. It's got not just dirt but grass and shrubs on top, which is probably a good thing for the temperature control of the building but still weird to look at.

The edges of these blocks make it look like a Roller Coaster Tycoon landscape or something.

Getting closer to the actual fall, but it's still farther away than you'd think.

Trivia: Aristarchus, the ancient astronomer, developed a modified sundial called a skaphe, a spherical bowl with needle standing upright in the center, with which he measured that when the moon is half-full the sun is 87 degrees away in the sky, allowing him to conclude the sun must be considerably farther away than the moon is, and must be quite larger than the Earth. Source: The Calendar: The 5000-Year Struggle to Align the Clock with the Heavens --- And What Happened to the Missing Ten Days, David Ewing Duncan. (Though Aristarchus's reasoning was right, the measurement was understandably inexact; the actual angle is closer to 89 degrees 50 minutes.)

Currently Reading: Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, Lori Garver.