G. Blake Pierpoint
Essays, stories, inquiries
Selected writing
Determination of Death
The first time I watched someone be declared dead, his heart was still beating.
Appeared in Hektoen International
Before the Word Mother
My mother had stopped using names for relations.
The Universe Was Already Becoming
At NASA, I rarely saw the cosmic microwave background in the oval projection printed in textbooks.
More writing
The Day Between
Clara was washing a cup when the memory fell out of time.
Closed Captions for Things That Make No Sound
The first caption appeared beneath the line of light under my daughter's bedroom door.
A Ruler Left by Sound
Pressure waves traveled through the young plasma before stars existed.
Waiting for the Proton to Break
A quarter-liter glass of water contains about 8 × 10²⁵ protons.
The Horizon of Prediction
Consider a satellite in low Earth orbit.
Inside the Horizon
There is no sample of a black hole.
Published elsewhere
- Sublet (opens in a new tab)Eunoia Review · Poetry ·
- Instructions for Leaving a Human Being Outdoors (opens in a new tab)New Flash Fiction Review · Flash fiction · Issue 42 ·
- Determination of Death (opens in a new tab)Hektoen International · Fiction · Summer 2026 ·
Film
View videosWhy the Most Distant Galaxies Look Bigger (watch on YouTube, opens in a new tab)
An animated explanation of why the most distant galaxies can appear larger, tracing light through the expanding universe.
The quantum harmonic oscillator (watch on YouTube, opens in a new tab)
An animated derivation, from power series and ladder operators to coherent states.
The infinite square well (watch on YouTube, opens in a new tab)
Solving Schrödinger’s equation for a particle confined between two walls.
Separation of variables (watch on YouTube, opens in a new tab)
Separating the spatial and temporal parts of Schrödinger’s equation.