You have a nice voice.

Climate change in kid’s book

Arthur Smid — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:05:47 +0000

Here are two more pages from my new book. Click to view bigger picture.

Children’s book about a boy and his cow

Arthur Smid — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:14:05 +0000

Click to read the pages. I’m writing and illustrating a picture book to bring to a conference in New York City next January. The Red Cow is a children’s book about Adam’s quest to rescue his family cow. When Mamo gets swept away in a flood, Adam must rely on his new friend, a schoolboy who comes from a different culture. The two boys and a helpful parent work together to save Mamo. This story combines realism and fantasy to show a child’s seamless grasp of the natural world and technology.

To measure information we reduce it to its smallest part.

Arthur Smid — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:11:00 +0000

The binary state. It’s on or off. The need to quantize information arose through electronic communication, accurately recreating a signal from one location in a distant place.

Everything is connected.

Arthur Smid — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:08:50 +0000

Being connected, it doesn’t follow that things aren’t differentiated. Discernment is the operating factor of awareness, intelligence, information.

Human beings become conscious of consciousness.

Arthur Smid — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:45:16 +0000

Reason assumes form. It can be expressed in words. Awareness is soft by comparison with reason. It can be a feeling, an intuition. Humans are unique in being aware of awareness, but what is aware? Who are you, really?

The human design allows us to share a common culture.

Arthur Smid — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:08:05 +0000

Each individual is unique and at the same time modular. We can sit in a chair and walk through a door. Our hands grip the tool as well as another. Different people can drink from the same cup.

We recognize our connection to a meaningful existence through storytelling.

Arthur Smid — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:36:01 +0000

Earth is the center of the universe until humanity creates a telescope.

Arthur Smid — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:21:35 +0000

People tell themselves stories about nature. Stories can transfer information from place to place and from generation to generation. We have the ability to develop our knowledge through culture. New instruments, new data, and new means of communication result in new interpretations of reality. Data visualization is a medium for exploration and storytelling. We use computers to map the genetic code. As billions of people interact online, we use statistics and probability to understand human behavior. Our ability to measure change in population, weather, natural resources leads us to a new understanding of civilization.

When we recognize the natural course of energy, there is only process and transformation.

Arthur Smid — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:47:57 +0000

The foundation of matter is energetic. Though a wooden table appears static, one hundred years from now, exposed to the elements the table will be different. I don’t know how it will change but it can be predicted. A wooden table can release its stored energy in fire.

A scientific statement is subject to peer review and can be proven wrong.

Arthur Smid — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:18:46 +0000

It’s a challenge to talk about the atomic structure of matter because our language evolved from a sensual experience of the physical world. Looking at atomic models and saying they’re spherical, there is a tendency to think of a solid. But rather, it’s an energetic polarity that bounds the shape of things. When we talk about the quantum world we use mathematics, statistics, and probability to describe how the particles of the atom behave. For physicists, “particle” refers to elements with behavior much different than we expect from particles in the physical world.