Philosopher Looks at Science

I read this book when I was seventeen years old, battling the demons of art and science, wondering if there was a connection between both those seemingly incompatible worlds. The book confirmed my decision to go to Dartmouth, where, as it happened, I spent four years studying in the math building, even though I was a liberal arts major. I simply liked the vibe and John Kemeny's presence. He was there, hovering about, checking on everybody and making the math department at the college the best in the country, building the first computer center, and with Thomas Kurtz, inventing for all of us the BASIC programming language. One time when he encountered me he asked what I was doing reading "Lolita," one of the books required in my American literature course, in *his* math building. I said, "Well, I want to be a writer and a computer scientist, to master the language of Nabokov and the thinking of Kemeny. I want to stand on the shoulders of giants." Kemeny smiled and shook his head, as if to say, "You've got your work cut out for you, young man." Which was true: it took me about one hundred years to do what I'm doing now: writing software code and technical documentation at Apple Inc and, nights and weekends, writing one novel after another, always experimenting with language, voice and imagery. -Tom Maremaa, Author of the Forthcoming novel "Metal Heads" from Kunati Books in Spring 2009