It sometimes seems that the book trade is operating in several parallel universes - authors, agents, general publishers, educational publishers, specialist publishers, independent booksellers, supermarkets, wholesalers, second-hand booksellers etc.

What I didn't know until this morning is that the first scientific proposal for the existence of parallel universes is fifty years old today. It was part of a PhD thesis developed at Princeton by Hugh Everett III.

You can read about how this young quantum physicist came up with the concept here. This special feature of Nature also heralds the return of Futures, a weekly series of scifi short stories. This is where fact and fiction meet and where the parallel universes of Nature and Pan overlap.

Back to reality and our monthly statement from Google Adsense. June generated $43.47, the second highest month ever. Total income has reached the heights of $338. Unfortunately it seems that the value of the dollar against sterling is declining almost as much as the account is increasing. More seriously, the strength of sterling is posing significant problems for British exporting publishers. One more thing for us to worry about.