It’s not every day that a well-known author writes a physics paper. But George R R Martin, who is best known for his Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, has co-authored a paper in the American Journal of Physics with the title “Ergodic Lagrangian dynamics in a superhero universe”.

Martin and “Wild Cards” author Ian Tregellis turn a scenario from the science fiction book series into the foundation for an exercise in open-ended problem solving.

In independent research in the American Journal of Physics, Ian Tregillis and George R.R. Martin derive a formula for viral behavior in the Wild Cards, a science fiction series written by a collection of authors about an alien virus called the Wild Card that mutates human DNA.

Martin is a co-author of a recent paper on the matter – add it to the list of things that came out before Winds Of Winter.