“In a windless environment making a structure that tall would almost be trivial. But when you build something that is going to poke up through and get hit by the jet stream from time to time, then it becomes shockingly much more difficult.” Stephenson studied physics before becoming a writer, and his fascination with the way science and technologies develop is a central theme in much of his work. His fiction has explored cryptology, computer hacking, virtual reality, video game economics and consciousness, while his essays include an epic investigation into how the internet works and a study of the rocket industry. Former Microsoft executive J Allard used to insist everyone in the Xbox development team read Stephenson’s cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos employed him for a time as an adviser to his Blue Origin spaceflight company. The New York Times once described him as a “seer”. Stephenson may be highly regarded, but his Tall Tower project only came about as a consequence of being criticised. At an event in 2011, a university chief accused the author and other science-fiction writers of failing to pull their weight because they had not come up with big ideas to inspire researchers in the way Arthur C Clarke and Jules Verne had done earlier. (via BBC News – Neal Stephenson on tall towers and NSA cyber-spies)