I saw this on TED talks and wanted to share it with you; it’s very moving, but also thought provoking. We’re all getting older, and thanks to advances in medical science, we are tending to live longer. This means that diseases that in the past would have cut our lives short can now be treated,…
Window on the Universe
As a young astronomer growing up in Manchester, there wasn’t much to see. The omnipresent cumulus clouds and the glow of the sodium lamps reduced the night sky to a puce blanket of damp. If I was lucky, I saw the Moon, and on such rare occasions I looked up and stood still, transfixed by…
Hiatus
Oooh, it’s been a long time; Years, in fact. So much has happened since my last post it’s hard to know where to begin. I finished the PhD after a long, hard journey which stretched my heart, mind and soul almost to breaking point, and I’ve had a couple of jobs, one of which made…
Schrödinger’s Chat
One of the strangest things about the Universe is that it cares about what you think. It’s a concept that brings to mind all manner of questions best answered by Zen Buddhist priests, but according to quantum theory, a photon travelling between two points takes all possible paths simultaneously. Think about that for a second.…
Einstein @ the IOP
I’m currently showing the “Einstein: Man of the Century” exhibition at the Institute of Physics in London. Drawing extensively from the Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the display provides a unique and fascinating insight into the life and times of one of the world’s most iconic scientists. If you can’t get to…
Bridging the Gap
Behold the wonderful Ivory Tower: the metaphysical, secluded space to which all scholars have a key. For generations, scientists have huddled within its glittering walls, pursuing their esoteric academic research in splendid isolation from the real world. Inside the Tower, cloistered academics divorced themselves from the general public. They gathered into like-minded groups, and established…
Einstein, the Big Bang, and Beyond
So much stuff is happening. Too much really, but hey, it’s all good. The Einstein project is in stasis at the moment, while we wait for the funding to be confirmed, but once that happens, hang onto your hats, because it’s going on tour. In the mean time, I will be guiding school groups around the Big Bang exhibition…
Einstein on tour!
It’s been a while since I wrote anything, but then, I’ve been busy in the background sorting things out… We’ve finally got confirmation: I’ll be touring the country this year with the Einstein: Man of the Century exhibition, and presenting the Einstein’s Legacy lecture. It’s still early days, but so far, the programme stands as…
The Goose is Cooked
It seems the Earth is safe – at least for now! The much feted Large Hadron Collider is going to be out of action until next summer. Back in September, during the final stage of testing, a faulty electrical connection within the collider short-circuited. This, in turn, resulted in the release of a tonne of liquid helium – a hugely…
Hallelujah
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift. Leonard Cohen is wonderful; he speaks directly to your soul and lifts it up. Listen to his music. It got me through my thesis – Chapter 4 is Hallelujah, Chapter 5 is Chelsea Hotel, and Chapter 6 is Who By Fire.…