Author Archives: Jon Butterworth

Unknown's avatar

About Jon Butterworth

UCL Physics prof, works on LHC, writes (books, Cosmic Shambles and elsewhere). Citizen of England, UK, Europe & Nowhere, apparently.

Is poor advice betraying UK science and engineering?

Posted on 10/09/2010 by Jon Butterworth

The UK is reputedly poor at capitalising on its scientific excellence. Is this due to a lack of vision in the advice given to politicians? Crises provide opportunities, as every good manager knows. From my point of view as a … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Science Policy | Tagged , | Comments Off on Is poor advice betraying UK science and engineering?

Conducting Cable

Posted on 08/09/2010 by Jon Butterworth

It is depressing is how soon after arriving in Whitehall ministers seem to pick up the traditional line on science funding. Minister: Ok, so I’m a bit new to this stuff. Why do we fund science? Usual suspect 1: Erm … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Science Policy | 1 Comment

Peter Higgs, UCL and the Right Honorable William Waldegrave

Posted on 07/09/2010 by Jon Butterworth

We’re not just looking for his boson, we also gave him a fellowship and explained his mechanism to William Waldegrave. At The Guardian.

Posted in Particle Physics, Physics, Physics Stories, Politics, Science, Science Policy | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Peter Higgs, UCL and the Right Honorable William Waldegrave

God, Stephen Hawking and M-Theory

Posted on 03/09/2010 by Jon Butterworth

I speak my brain on Channel 4 News about the booksellers’ current favourite controversy – Stephen Hawking versus God Yesterday, when I should have been writing a paper about data from the Atlas detector at Cern’s Large Hadron Collider, I was … Continue reading →

Posted in Astrophysics, Philosophy, Physics, Science | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on God, Stephen Hawking and M-Theory