I am Senior Writer for American Scientist, the bimonthly magazine of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. I write the magazine’s Computing Science column, which is supposed to focus on the use of computation and mathematics as tools for understanding how the world works. (But it’s really not as serious as all that.) In years past I have written on similar themes for Scientific American, for Computer Language, for The Sciences and occasionally for other publications. Most of my American Scientist columns are freely available online, with versions provided in HTML, PDF, and Postscript. My page at American Scientist has links to all the available articles, as well as another absurdly outdated image of the author on a bad-hair day.

Here is a partial listing of my publications.

Still more about me

In my first full-time job after high school, I was hired as an angle trisecter—but that’s a story for another place and time. My real professional life began in 1973 when Dennis Flanagan gave me a job as an editor on the staff of Scientific American, and then taught me how to do it. I stayed with Scientific American until 1984. Since then I have made my living as a writer, except for two years in the early 1990s when I was the editor of American Scientist.

In October 2005 my book Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape was published by W. W. Norton and Company. The book has its own web site, with excerpts, a gallery of photographs, and even an up-to-date picture of the author.

How to reach me

email: bhayes@amsci.org
email: brian@bit-player.org
postal: 211 Dacian Ave., Durham, NC, 27701, USA