Other Activities
Cohen has worked as a consultant for science fiction television shows and science fiction novels regarding the creation of plausible aliens. The writers who have acknowledged his assistance include Anne McCaffrey for the Dragonriders of Pern; Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes for their Legacy of Heorot; James White of Sector General fame;David Gerrold for the Chtorr ecology; and Terry Pratchett for several works.
Cohen and fellow University of Warwick researcher Ian Stewart, a mathematician, collaborated with Terry Pratchett to write three Science of Discworld books, which accompany his Discworld series. Pratchett made them both "Honorary Wizards of the Unseen University" at the same 1999 ceremony where the University of Warwick gave Pratchett an honorary degree. Anne McCaffrey dedicated All the Weyrs of Pern (1991) to Jack and Judy Cohen and credited Jack with making fact of her fiction.
Cohen and Stewart have also co-authored books on epistemology.
Jack Cohen is a member of the high IQ society Mensa. He was one of the small group of British Mensans who persuaded science fiction author Isaac Asimov to visit the United Kingdom in June 1974.
He has a long standing interest in the design and natural balance of (particularly manmade) lake ecosystems, having designed new filtration systems but also led in reinstating Victorian designed systems at various locations around the UK.
In 2009, he became a patron of the anti-circumcision charity NORM-UK.
His hobbies, according to the author profiles in his books, include boomerang-throwing and keeping strange animals.
Read more about this topic: Jack Cohen (scientist)
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)
“Love and work are viewed and experienced as totally separate activities motivated by separate needs. Yet, when we think about it, our common sense tells us that our most inspired, creative acts are deeply tied to our need to love and that, when we lack love, we find it difficult to work creatively; that work without love is dead, mechanical, sheer competence without vitality, that love without work grows boring, monotonous, lacks depth and passion.”
—Marta Zahaykevich, Ucranian born-U.S. psychitrist. “Critical Perspectives on Adult Women’s Development,” (1980)