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[lojban] [robin_powell@symantec.com: Fw: Copyright request.]
I've been looking for texts with lots of symbolic math in them that are
also at least marginally interesting to read, and someone suggested
Feynman's works. I'm not in contact with Carl Feynman, the famous one's
son, who along with his sister holds most (but not all!) of the
copyrights to his works.
I thought you all might like to read some of this. Looks like Carl
thinks Lojban is pretty cool. :-)
I apologize for the horrible formatting.
-Robin
----- Forwarded message from Robin Powell <robin_powell@symantec.com> -----
Carl Feynman <cfeynman@abinitio.com>
07/01/2004 11:55 AM
To
Robin Powell <robin_powell@symantec.com>
cc
mcf813@yahoo.com
Subject
Re: Copyright request.
Robin Powell <robin_powell@symantec.com> wrote on 07/01/2004 02:18:04 PM:
> Hi Carl, Michelle. Was there any more information you wanted from me?
Nope-- the answers to the questions are pretty much what I expected, and
are not alarming. If you wanted to translate one of the books we hold the
copyright to, I'd be happy to give permission, provided of course it's OK
with my sister (which it probably would be, but I can't commit on her
behalf, of course). We'll naturally need a written contract, but no doubt
one could be negotiated. The thing is that permission to translate "The
Feynman Lectures" is not ours to give. You'll have to contact either
Caltech or the publisher. Just phone either of them, and ask for the
copyright clearance office.
Given your criterea-- a reasonably popular book that also has mathematics
in it-- I agree that "The Feynman Lectures" is a fine subject for
translation.
I looked up Lojban on the web, and read some of the introductory book.
It's a cool language-- I like how you can switch from isolating to
agglutinative as a matter of style. It's also pleasant to speak-- a nice
level of chewiness to the consonant clusters. I am restraining myself
from trying to learn it because my spare time is currently occupied by
preparing a machine-readable edition of Wright's "Grammar of Gothic", and
one arcane language at a time is enough...
--CarlF
>
> -Robin
>
>
> Robin Powell/Cupertino/Cal/SYMANTEC wrote on 06/22/2004 12:33:59 PM:
>
> > Carl Feynman <cfeynman@abinitio.com> wrote on 06/22/2004 11:16:37 AM:
> > > Lojban! Cool! I've been a fan since I read about "Li narmi glida
> > > grupa" in Scientific American when I was a kid.
> >
> > Wow, you've heard of us. :-)
> >
> > > I'd be fine with
> > > translating "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" into Lojban, but
> > > permission is not mine to give. Copyright on the books is held by
> > > Caltech, since they originated as a physics course my father taught
> > > there. You'd have to talk to them about it-- it's out of my hands.
> > > It's been a few years since I saw the publishing contract they have
> > > with Addison-Wesley, but if I recall correctly, it's up to the
> > > publisher to approve translations. So you may find yourself
> > > negotiating with two parties.
>
> > Yeah, I can't say I'm surprised.
> >
> > > Almost all of the copyrights on my father's other books are held
> > > jointly by me and my sister Michelle Feynman. So we would certainly
> > > be in a position to approve such a translation.
> >
> > That's what I was hoping!
> >
> > > And I think if it
> > > was being done on a non-commercial basis, the publisher wouldn't
> > > mind. In general, I would be well-disposed toward such a project,
> > > and I can't see my sister objecting provided certain reasonable
> > > conditions were met. I have cc'ed her on this message.
>
> > Excellent, thank you.
> >
> > > May I suggest two books as perhaps being particularly suitable for
> > > such a translation? I don't know what criterea led you to choose
> > > the "Feynman Lectures", so I'm just stabbing in the dark here, but
> > > let me suggest
> > >
> > > "The Character of Physical Law"
> > > "QED: The Strange Nature of Light and Matter".
> > >
> > > These are my two favorite Feynman books on physics.
>
> > Wonderful.
> >
> > Let me tell you a bit more about what I'm looking for.
> > Unfortunately, I'm serving two masters on this project: I want
> > something that is going to be comprehensible to someone who is
> > intelligent but not a physicist (i.e. the interested lay-person),
> > which I think is pretty easy with your father's works. The catch is
> > that I'm also looking for something with a fair bit of mathematical
> > notation in it. It needn't be hard math by any stretch of the
> > imagination, it just needs to be symbolic (i.e. something one would
> > need LaTeX or similar for; "2 + 2" rather than "two plus two", and so
> on).
> >
> > This project grew out of trying to find something to properly
> > exercise the parts of Lojban used for expressing symbolic
> > mathematics, you see.
> >
> > > Here's some questions I have about your project:
>
> > My answers to all of these question are negotiable.
> >
> > > --Are you planning on translating the whole thing, as something to
> > > sit down an read, or just excerpts as a example of Lojban?
> >
> > The former.
> >
> > > --How will you publish it? Paper? Web? Both?
> >
> > Paper, primarily. We (the Lojban project) are in the habit of
> > publishing our stuff on the Web, but that is certainly something I'd
> > be willing to not do in this case. Obviously, the English text
> > (whether supplied by you or entered by us) would be treated with the
> > utmost care, and never put on the web. We'd likely need to have the
> > English text in machine format at some point, though, to help us
> > collaborate on the translation, since we're scattered about the
> > planet. That's something we can take care of ourselves, of course.
> >
> > We have recently contracted with Lightning Source, the print-on-
> > demand arm of Ingram. The first book we've published with them is
> > "What IS Lojban?"; see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
> > /0966028317 (amusingly enough, the "Buy This With..." offer for that
> > book is for Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics). My
> > intention was to use them again.
> >
> > > --Is this being done in a manner that could produce a profit?
>
> > In theory, yes. It is unlikely that we would sell more than one or
> > two hundred copies, though, so not very *much* of a profit. :-)
> >
> > I certainly expected to discuss some kind of arrangement to pay for
> > the rights, preferrably in a way that relates to how much we end up
> > actually selling (i.e. thus-and-such dollars per 100 copies, or
> whatever).
> >
> > -Robin
> ForwardSourceID:NT00022352
----- End forwarded message -----
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