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Mary Hrovat

Mary Hrovat

Mary Hrovat began working toward a history degree at Phoenix College but later switched to astronomy and earned a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics at Indiana University. She has also completed some graduate coursework in astronomy and history of science. Her work as a writer and editor reflects her interest in both science and history. Perennially intrigued by the emergence and behavior of conscious matter, she writes about the human mind, emotion, human evolution, and related topics. She also writes about the history of science. Email: mhrovat [at] gmail.com

Website: https://maryhrovat.com/

Cathedrals, Trees, And Humans

Posted on Monday, Oct 28, 2019 1:35AMMonday, October 28, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat The roof of Notre-Dame de Paris, lost in the fire of April 15, 2019, was nicknamed The Forest because it used to be one. It contained the wood of around 1300 oaks, which would have covered more than 52 acres. They were felled from 1160 to 1170, when they were likely several…

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Wildlife: Not (Too Much) In My Back Yard

Posted on Monday, Sep 2, 2019 1:35AMMonday, September 2, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat Last weekend, a bat got into my house somehow. I first heard it in the small hours of Friday night as it scratched around somewhere near the furnace flue. I didn’t know if it was an animal settling into a new home in my attic, or if perhaps it was going out…

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Apollo 11 Then And Now

Posted on Monday, Aug 5, 2019 1:40AMMonday, August 5, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat When I watched the 2019 documentary on Apollo 11, it carried me back not to the summer of 1969, when it happened, but to the mid-1980s, when I was an undergrad. I was eight when Apollo 11 launched; of course I was aware of the space program and the moon landings, but…

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Of Whistling Ducks And Spider Monkeys

Posted on Monday, Jul 8, 2019 1:35AMMonday, July 8, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat Nature has filled the world with “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful,” in the words of Charles Darwin. We humans, faced with this abundance and variety of creatures, have used our imagination to the full in giving them descriptive and often evocative names. Some animal names are fairly straightforward; the name…

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Clear And Simple Prose

Posted on Monday, Jun 10, 2019 1:10AMMonday, June 10, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat Books about how to write are so frequently described as life-changing and essential (usually by publishers, but sometimes by reviewers) that I was initially unmoved by enthusiastic reviews of Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose, by Francis-Noël Thomas and Mark Turner. However, the praise seemed to focus on the…

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Connections

Posted on Monday, May 13, 2019 1:40AMMonday, May 13, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat When I returned to school after my first marriage ended, I had to decide what to study. I’d been working toward a degree in history when I dropped out of a community college to get married, but I’d always been drawn to astronomy. One of the reasons I chose astronomy over history,…

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Blossom By Blossom The Spring Begins

Posted on Monday, Apr 15, 2019 1:25AMMonday, April 15, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat The spring ephemeral wildflowers of the Midwest are generally not large or showy. In a relatively short time during one of the less promising parts of the year, these perennial plants must put out leaves and flowers and reproduce, all before disappearing until the next spring. Still, they light up the woods…

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Loosen Your Hands And Let Go

Posted on Monday, Mar 18, 2019 1:40AMMonday, March 18, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat I was struck by a sentence in Susan Orlean’s The Library Book: “If nothing lasts, nothing matters.” This line was part of a discussion of memory, the fear of being forgotten, and the value of passing things on to future generations. I share a passion for the idea of continuity between generations…

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The Typewriter Lives

Posted on Monday, Jan 21, 2019 1:55AMMonday, January 21, 2019 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat I wrote the first draft of this post on my typewriter. Like much of my other writing, this piece began as handwritten notes and drafts typed on a nice little portable typewriter, which is a little younger than I am and which I expect to use for the rest of my life.…

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This Year On Earth

Posted on Monday, Dec 24, 2018 1:50AMMonday, December 24, 2018 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat In 2018, Earth picked up about 40,000 metric tons of interplanetary material, mostly dust, much of it from comets. Earth lost around 96,250 metric tons of hydrogen and helium, the lightest elements, which escaped to outer space. Roughly 505,000 cubic kilometers of water fell on Earth’s surface as rain, snow, or other…

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Earth Is (Still) A Clock

Posted on Monday, Nov 26, 2018 1:50AMMonday, November 26, 2018 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat Before the second was defined in terms of the characteristics of the cesium atom, before leap seconds or leap days or Julian dates or the Gregorian calendar, before clocks, even before the sundial and the hourglass, there were sunrise, sunset, and shadows. I’ve been thinking about timekeeping using shadows because a tulip…

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A Neurotic Introvert Looks At Personality

Posted on Monday, Oct 29, 2018 1:30AMMonday, October 29, 2018 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat It could almost be a question on a very meta personality quiz: Do you prefer the Myers-Briggs typology or the Big Five personality traits? The Myers-Brigg Type Inventory is a popular tool that was developed outside of the scientific establishment by two women who did not have credentials in psychology. It’s qualitative…

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A Potency Of Life

Posted on Monday, Oct 1, 2018 12:50AMMonday, October 1, 2018 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat Every October there’s a huge book fair in my town, where used books donated by the community are put up for sale in a large hall at the fairgrounds. It’s no exaggeration to say that it’s a high point of my year. When I walk in and see table after table laden…

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Learning To Live Without A Car

Posted on Monday, Sep 3, 2018 12:35AMMonday, September 3, 2018 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat It’s a Saturday in May. I’m 17, and I’ve spent the morning washing and waxing my first car, a 1974 Gremlin. I’m so delighted that I drive around the block, windows down, Chuck Mangione playing on the radio. Feels so good, indeed. I’ve successfully negotiated a crucial passage on the road to…

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An Intuitive Sense of How to Live

Posted on Monday, Aug 6, 2018 12:45AMMonday, August 6, 2018 by Mary Hrovat

by Mary Hrovat I’m tempted to describe Marion Milner’s book A Life of One’s Own as the missing manual for owners of a human mind. However, it’s not didactic or prescriptive. In fact, it’s useful mainly because it’s nothing like a manual or a self-help book. The book is more like an insightful travelogue by…

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Recent Comments on 3QD

  • SloMo2020 I wonder where you would place Plato's "sophists", today referred to as "consultants"?

    The Responsibility Of Intellectuals Who Teach ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • Ruchira Stunning!

    Monday Photo ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • S. Abbas Raza Thanks, Dave! :-)

    Monday Photo ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • Michael Liss I don't know, but it's easy to be a complete pessimist. If history teaches us anything, it's that sticking it to the other guy invariably has...

    The General and the Attorney General ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • Bill Benzon Those people with no regrets about the unraveling of the OD, what do they think will happen if they get their way? Do they think the country will...

    The General and the Attorney General ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • maelo622 this reminds me that one of the local (Seattle-area) PBS stations recently ran a doc,

    Stuck, Ch. 5. Your America: Redbone, “Come and Get Your Love” ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • Michael Liss Thanks for reading, Bill. I think your point about the "OD" unravelling is unfortunately true. What's also true is there are plenty of people who...

    The General and the Attorney General ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • Dave Maier Very nice!

    Monday Photo ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • Bill Benzon I went through it quickly, Micheal, reading some paragraphs word for word, while whizzing through others just to get, shall we say, a flavor. But of...

    The General and the Attorney General ·  Monday, December 9, 2019

  • brianwhit I read the article, which was adapted from a discussion, and found its more convoluted analysis beyond the swift brief logic chains of the internet. I...

    Is There a Crisis of Truth? ·  Sunday, December 8, 2019

  • Bill Benzon An excellent review and article.

    Without women the novel would die ·  Sunday, December 8, 2019

  • bobg There is a crisis of truth, that began with personal conversations and has snowballed into things heard and read on mass media. To combat this crisis,...

    Is There a Crisis of Truth? ·  Sunday, December 8, 2019

  • Ken_Pidcock Once again reason to be grateful that, in the lottery of life, I wasn't assigned to graduate study in the humanities.

    I Told My Mentor I Was a Dominatrix ·  Saturday, December 7, 2019

  • Ken_Pidcock One wonders how many voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin understand that these are the values to which they've put themselves in service.

    Democracy doesn’t matter to the defenders of ‘economic freedom ·  Saturday, December 7, 2019

  • Ivo Wever Hear, hear. Women themselves experience the symptoms of menopause as unpleasant and something they'd rather do without. Aging is something that has...

    The Future is Menopausal ·  Saturday, December 7, 2019

  • Donald Smith I believe 'downward dog' would be about right, accompanied by patting hands on the deck and appropriate sounds, the universal symbol for play by dogs...

    3quarksdaily: medieval predilections (臥遊) ·  Saturday, December 7, 2019

  • Brian Mulligan A bit of a rant. I couldn't finish it. Perhaps the writer should become a biopharmaceutical researcher or a Buddhist. The universe is indifferent...

    The Future is Menopausal ·  Saturday, December 7, 2019

  • Leanne Ogasawara Good morning! I saw it and enjoyed it very much. I shared it on Facebook. I liked the other interview with him better that I posted previously because...

    3quarksdaily: medieval predilections (臥遊) ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Donald Smith I was trying to get you word about an article featuring Ted Liu and read this. Lee Child is a favorite author of mine, and he said he has a daughter...

    Home away from home ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Donald Smith Trying to get you word of an upcoming article in NYTimes Magazine about Ted Liu as translator of Chinese science fiction.

    3quarksdaily: medieval predilections (臥遊) ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Donald Smith I've just received an advert for the NYTimes Magazine which has an article on Ken Liu as a translator of Chinese science fiction and how he's helped...

    3quarksdaily: medieval predilections (臥遊) ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Tove K Every culture has its saints and prophets. Figures who have claimed to have had direct experiences of God are not the monopoly of any one people....

    The Moral Universe of Timothy Keller ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Kuldip Singh The coming economic collapse will be a huge boon towards religious toleration. When push comes to shove, people will forget their differences. A sage...

    Stephen Asma, an agnostic, argues powerfully that religion is natural and beneficial ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Tove K "Proper perspective" - the problem is that every religious person thinks their own religion is proper, but it's simply because that's what they've...

    Stephen Asma, an agnostic, argues powerfully that religion is natural and beneficial ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Donald Smith So, Jesus is God, or related to God, and Christians are wedded to the Old Testament, with all the 'abominations' and such. I don't know, even...

    The Moral Universe of Timothy Keller ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Tove K Japan and the Scandinavian countries are the most secular societies in the world, and also the most functional, law abiding and socially minded. While...

    Stephen Asma, an agnostic, argues powerfully that religion is natural and beneficial ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Kuldip Singh To get a proper perspective on religion, I quote from the sayings/writings of my Spiritual Master, Saint Scholar Giani Naranjan Singh Ji, 1)...

    Stephen Asma, an agnostic, argues powerfully that religion is natural and beneficial ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Donald Smith Saying I'm not logged-in. I tried IE, and it said it didn't recognise the format. Conspiracy theorists have at it. Were you "Beavis and Butthead"...

    3quarksdaily: medieval predilections (臥遊) ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • Donald Smith I began thinking about this when all the 'Trump's finger on the trigger' talk began. We don't need a 'trigger' anymore. With no nuclear response...

    No president should have the absolute authority to launch nuclear weapons ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

  • RPS2 I think that's an obvious misreading of the quoted text, especially since it comes right after a whole chapter (Heb. 11) listing "faith heroes" who...

    The Moral Universe of Timothy Keller ·  Friday, December 6, 2019

3QD Design History and Credits

The original site was designed by S. Abbas Raza in 2004 but soon completely redesigned by Mikko Hyppönen and deployed by Henrik Rydberg. It was later upgraded extensively by Dan Balis in 2006. The next major revision was designed by S. Abbas Raza, building upon the earlier look, and coded by Dumky de Wilde in 2013. And this current version 5.0 has been designed and deployed by Dumky de Wilde in collaboration with S. Abbas Raza.

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