Main Page

Fiction is a work of fiction and nonfiction.

If it says "Nonfiction", it is nonfiction. I am scrupulous about this: no fiction in the nonfiction.

Page titles that end in "(nonfiction)" have nonfictional content in the first part of the page. Likewise, categories whose titles end in "(nonfiction)" list only "(nonfiction)" pages.

Sections labelled "Nonfiction cross-reference" contain only links to "(nonfiction)" pages.

Everything else is subject to the fictions of my imagination.

On This Day in History: June 26

1274: Polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi dies. Tusi was a mathematician, architect, philosopher, physician, scientist, and theologian; he established trigonometry as a mathematical discipline in its own right.
1730: Astronomer Charles Messier born. He will publish an astronomical catalogue consisting of nebulae and star clusters that will come to be known as the 110 "Messier objects".
1796: Inventor, astronomer, mathematician, clockmaker, and surveyor David Rittenhouse dies. He was the first Director of the United States Mint, hand-striking the new nation's first coins.
1824: Lord Kelvin born. He will do much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form.
1913: Computer scientist and physicist Maurice Wilkes born. He will pioneer several important developments in computing, including microcode, symbolic labels, macros, subroutine libraries, and timesharing.