Carl Frederick


Carlton Frederick, better known as Carl Frederick, or Frithrik, is a science fiction author, theoretical physicist, and American business man living in Ithaca, New York. He has written numerous short stories that have appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Asimov's Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, Jim Baen's Universe, Space and Time, and other publications. Frederick has been nominated for the Anlab, Analog's Reader's Choice Award, award six times. He is a graduate of Odyssey Writing Workshop and a first-place winner of Writers of the Future. Frederick owns a website called Darkzoo where one can read his interactive novel "Darkzoo - Second Edition", read about his physics endeavors, his bio, The Omnivor Robot, and more.

Science fiction works

In the early 2000s, Frederick decided to write science fiction. Since then, he has written a few novels and various short stories.

Awards

Frederick is currently doing theoretical physics, in particular, Crypto-Stochastic Space-time theory.
Among other things, Frederick is a quantum as well as an astrophysicist. Before he came to Cornell, he worked as an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Institute. Frederick designed and built balloon-borne telescopes for making far-infrared astronomical observations. These were launched from sites in Arizona and Argentina, most of the launches were from Palestine, Texas.

Leaving academia

Frederick went to a graduate school with only two departments, Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Just to name a few, here are some of the most noted faculty Frederick worked with, Yakir Aharonov , P.G. Bergman , A.G.W. Cameron, P.A.M. Dirac, Freeman Dyson, David Finklestein, Arthur Komar, Joel Liebowitz, Aage Pederson , and Leonard Susskind .
“I looked upon them almost as Greek heroes: they were attempting to understand the universe at the very deepest level and because of that were likely doomed to fail. ”
Frederick chose to do an experimental thesis, however his grad school had no opportunity for an experimental thesis, so they allowed him to do it at NASA.
After his Ph.D. Frederick stayed on at NASA for a post doc. After that, Frederick was offered another post doc at a prestigious Ivy League school, not in theoretical physics but in experimental infra-red astronomy.
“Although I still considered myself a theoretician, I found myself 'type cast' as an experimentalist. And that, I think, was a large part of the problem I would have in fitting in.”
“...I definitely needed more and better guidance. I must admit though, that I wasn't the easiest person to guide. I like to think I've mellowed now. ”
In graduate school, Frederick wrote a very well received paper, 'Stochastic Space-time and Quantum Mechanics' that appeared in The Physical Review.
“I'd have thought my department chairman would have been happy for me, but instead he became enraged. On my explaining that I'd spent a day or so a week doing quantum mechanics, he said I'd have to make up the time. And he forbad me from doing any more work that was not directly related to my position as a post doc in experimental far infra-red astronomy.”
To be fair, Frederick was not as productive as he should have been in the department. Shortly after, Frederick's contract was not renewed and he left the department. Frederick moved to Ithaca, New York, where he started a computer consultancy company which later expanded to do contract engineering.

Return to physics

“In November of 2013, I was roughing out a hard SF story where the protagonist was a physicist. As I worked on the ideas in the story, I realized I was not so much working on fiction as I was actually doing physics, and theoretical physics at that. Almost as an epiphany, I realized that the time had come; I should be working on physics again. I had the time and freedom. And if I didn't resume research then, I probably never would.”
Frederick took up physics again. He allocated five months where he devoted his full energy to do nothing but physics: thinking about quantum theory every waking moment and taking it to bed with him.
Frederick's starting point was his Stochastic Space-time paper from many years back.
“After relentlessly beating my head against the brick wall of an uncompromising theory, the wall began to crumble. I realized that stochasticity had its limits; there was something else at play in the universe. That realization forced a major alteration of my Stochastic Space-time theory, a modification I call Crypto-stochastic Spacetime theory.”
Almost immediately, Crypto-stochastic Space-time theory gave results: he could explain the two-slit experiment, superposition in general, and explain photon polarization.
The joining of Frederick's stochastic and crypto-stochastic approaches resulted in a paper called 'Towards a Conceptual Model for Quantum Mechanics'.

Omnivac/Omnivor Robot

In 1983, OMNI magazine wanted a true robot. Frederick got the contract to build it. When OMNI closed, Frederick got his robot back. It currently 'lives' in his living room.
After he finished making the Omnivac, Frederick and his brought the robot in pieces to OMNI magazine's publisher, Bob Guccione's posh New York City brownstone.
Frederick and his company still needed to get the approval of OMNI to finish the robot for them. After a successful demo for the editorial staff of the influential electronics trade magazine, EDN, Frederick had to demonstrated the Omnivor to the top level officers of OMNI magazine. Ben Bova, OMNIs editor at the time, led the questioning of the Omnivor. It was he whom Frederick had to impress to get the contract to build the complete robot.
Frederick explains how the scene went down on his website:
“While my partner talked about how we could provide what OMNI wanted, I connected the robot head to the computer and fired up the system. Then I said 'hello' to the, as yet unnamed, robot. Nothing happened. I said 'hello' again, forcing my voice to the flat unemotional intonation that the voice recognition system required. Still, nothing. Then I smelled the smoke from the control-electronics circuit board. Using one of my partner's hands as a clamp, I took out a soldering iron and bypassed the rain-shorted subsystem. At that point, the robot almost worked. It 'understood' maybe one word in three, and its voice synthesis sounded more like gargling then speech.”
Frederick went back to his home in Ithaca, extremely discouraged. However, the following day, he received a call from OMNI letting them know he got the contract. As it happened, a week earlier, OMNI had a very slick demo from another robot builder. But that robot was phony: a concealed, hand-held controller, etc. Ben Bova saw through it immediately. When Frederick finished his demonstration, Ben is reported to have said. “That was real engineering.”

Wolfdata

Frederick designed the world's first digital modem. His company, Wolfdata, was moved to Chelmsford, Boston, and it became the first manufacturer of cheap, digital modems. Feeling unhappy with his role as a CEO, Frederick left Wolfdata, and returned to Ithaca, New York.

Personal

Chess
Frederick played chess professionally for a few years. He reached the title of Candidate Master. However, he regards it as a poorly misspent youth.
Fencing
Frederick was a professional epee fencer. During his career, due to a shoulder sprain, he had to switch from a right handed grip to a left handed grip.
Language
Frederick is a linguist, and can speak multiple languages, including Old English.
Opera
As a child, Frederick was in the Metropolitan Opera Boys Chorus.

Novels

Short fiction

Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Asimov's Science Fiction
Jim Baens's Universe
Writers of the Future
Space And Time
ESLI
Phobos
Phobos/Galaxy
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
Flash Fiction Online
Spectra Magazine
Topzine.cz
Into the New Millenium
Nautilus Magazine