Einstein a go go

Recently, one of the very first clients I had as a freelancer got back in touch and asked if I would be interested in working on another book for them. Great! But my heart sank as I read further on – the book was about quantum physics…

Now, I’m a scientist by background, but a biologist. At school, I did not enjoy physics or maths. Although like everyone else I had to do maths ‘O’ level, I dropped physics like a piece of uranium: admittedly, this was partly because I hadn’t thought much about my ‘A’ level choices – with hindsight I should have done physics at least to ‘O’ level, but at the time I was still flirting with the humanities. As it happened, I managed to muddle through the ‘harder’ bits of my life sciences degree so my aversion to physics wasn’t a major issue.

Except, it did perhaps plant the seed of a bit of a complex about the subject. So I had to think a little longer than usual about whether to accept the project, despite the clients being lovely to deal with.

Anyway, I took the plunge, said yes, and in fact it turned out to be a really interesting read! I actually understood most of the science and some of the information, for example about CERN, was fascinating. Although the contributors were all active research physicists they had written about their topic in a very accessible way.

So, I didn’t just reconnect with an old client, but was allowed to play a small role in an enjoyable project, and best of all it gave me a bit of a confidence boost – if I can handle proofreading a book on quantum physics, I can handle anything… right?