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In the Beginning
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Last week, I participated in the Dana Centre‘s Big Ideas series, an evening called “In the Beginning“. Former Imperial postgrad Kate Land and I gave the standard cosmology spiel, philosopher of science Roman Frigg took his remit to discuss science and religion very seriously, and Chris Lintott acted as master of ceremonies (and took charge…
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Blogrolling
Thanks to The Telegraph‘s digital chief, Ian Douglas, for his pointer to me as one of “Five Great Physics Blogs“. Despite its usually, erm, detestable politics, The Telegraph has usually had excellent science and technology coverage, and I’m happy to be picked in such good company: the four other blogs are Peter Coles’ In the…
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Ada Lovelace Day — Henrietta Leavitt
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Today is Ada Lovelace Day, “an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.” I — along with more than a thousand other people — have pledged to write about a female role model in technology. Ada Lovelace was Byron’s daughter and worked with computer pioneer Charles Babbage on his “Computing…
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The Measurement Problem
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OK, this is going to be a very long post. About something I don’t pretend to be expert in. But it is science, at least. A couple of weeks ago, Radio 4’s highbrow “In Our Time” tackled the so-called “Measurement Problem”. That is: quantum mechanics predicts probabilities, not definite outcomes. And yet we see a…
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Infinite Jest
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It took me a few months, but I finally finished (the late) David Foster Wallace‘s Infinite Jest. I enjoyed the writing, and found the stories of the main characters — Gately and Hal — affecting and moving, studies of sinking into and struggling out of various addictions. This was a writer, it seemed, who saw…
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Doctor Atomic
I went to see and hear John Adams’ recent opera Doctor Atomic at the ENO last night. One of my physicist-companions was my friend, fellow blogger and cosmologist Peter Coles, and he has already applied his greater musical knowledge to the task, so I won’t attempt an overall review. In short, Doctor Atomic is the…
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Loading Planck
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The Planck Surveyor Satellite has finished its assembly and testing in Liège, Belgium, and this week was loaded onto a Volga-Dnepr Antonov AN-124 plane, and sent to Kourou, French Guiana, location of the Centre Spatial Guyanais (one of the few places near the Equator politically connected to Europe). It’s due to be launched in tandem…
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Teaching time
Just a quick apology for the lack of words appearing on the page here lately. In addition to planning for the upcoming launch of the Planck Satellite, I’ve been swamped with teaching my first-ever full-length undergraduate cosmology course. It’s lots of fun, but the biggest challenge is just systematizing this whole body of knowledge that…
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Inauguration Day
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“President Barack Obama.” What a wonderful thing to be able to write. (Left: The Official Portrait; right: Courtesy Shepard Fairey and Obey Giant) Not to mention the sound of “Former President Bush”, which we’ve been waiting most of a decade for. Now we just have to learn or remember how to shake off the constant…
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Hitsville USA!
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Happy 50th Birthday to Motown! I visited the original Motown studios in Detroit once, now a museum, but preserved more or less as it was in the 60s before the company moved to LA. As soon as you walked in, it was obvious this had been just about the coolest place on the planet for…
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