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Frank has completed six manuscripts, most recently a memoir titled "The Little Copter That Could"

In early November,2020, Frank signed a book contract with the American Association of Physics Teachers Book Program. He has been working on a manuscript of a re-issue of "Cliff's Nodes." This book was published in 2006 and is a compilation of editorials written by Cliff Swartz while he was the editor of "The Physics Teacher. The draft title of the manuscript is "Cliff's Nodes with Appreciations."

Frank has also completed numerous book reviews which have been published in various publications, including The Physics Teacher and Astronomy magazine. His review of Life 3.0 was published in the winter 2021 issue of Teachers Clearinghouse for Science and Society Education.

Frank is a regular Letter-to-the Editor contributor to his local paper. A recent Letter to the editor follows.

Letter to the editor

Published: March 16, 2024

On the morning of March 11, 2024, in a clip of the presumed Republican Presidential candidate, I heard him mock President Joe Biden's stuttering disability. I have heard him do that in the past and it offended me then as much it offends me today. And it also disturbs me.

My mother had a stuttering disability. When I was very young, she made the decision to work to overcome it, because she feared that her children would stutter. Her effort paid off and probably after I was eight years old or so, she very rarely stuttered.

Growing up, one of my best friends, a next-door neighbor about two years older than me, had a stutter. I remember other kids in the neighborhood mocking him when he would stutter, and I felt sorry for him. As he got older, he worked hard to overcome the disability, achieved that goal, and became very successful.

Looking back, I believe that the kids in the neighborhood who mocked my friend were immature, did not have an understanding of empathy, and were just plain nasty. A leadership role, such as the President of our United States, at a minimum requires wisdom (a result of maturity) empathy and many other positive characteristics. The presumed Republican Presidential candidate does not have any of the characteristics of a well-qualified leader. He has demonstrated that repeatedly in many ways.

When you vote, consider; do you want a leader who would publicly mock a member of your family who has a disability? Vote to put people in leadership positions who will lead in a positive direction!

Published November, 2022

We all have two strategies we can use in dealing with the dramatic effects of the climate crisis. We can employ adaptation strategies, and/or mitigation strategies. Adaptation strategies involve hardening/reinforcing our homes, businesses and service, agricultural and government facilities against severe fires, floods, storms and droughts. Adaptation is expensive and there is no net financial gain.

Mitigation strategies involve reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we add to our atmosphere, and geoengineering. This involves replacing the infrastructure that produces those gases to generate the energy that all of us demand for lighting, heating, cooling and transportation.

Employing mitigation strategies involves investing in our future, much like construction of the interstate highway system in the second half of the 20th century. We all continue to reap the benefits of that national construction project.

Some of us will plant our heads in the sand and say that those monster storms are just unusual, that we can't do anything about the weather. Those short-sighted folks will always express such opinions. With the recent release of the United Nations report "The Closing Window," all of us must begin to mitigate or adapt. Some mitigation can be small scale."

Since March 2020 we have had a solar photovoltaic system on our house. The system has generated electricity for us and we have kept a large amount of carbon dioxide from being added to our atmosphere. Our monthly electric bill has been reduced by as much as 40 percent.

Quoting from the U.N. report, released on Oct. 27, "Current policies and [Nationally Determined Contributions] NDCs are woefully insufficient to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement." The IPCC report insisted that global greenhouse gas emissions would have to peak "before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030.

We are about to select folks to fill leadership positions for the next two to six years. We must select folks who will choose to invest in our future and mitigate against changes in climate.

Frank Lock

Gainesville