Category Archives: Rambling

How the rainbow illuminates the enduring mystery of physics

Posted on 03/01/2017 by

At Aeon Magazine (who commissioned it) but also in The Atlantic and Quartz. This summer I went on a family holiday to Cornwall, on the Helford River. The peninsula south of the river is, rather wonderfully, called The Lizard. Standing on its … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Physics, Rambling, Science, Travel | Tagged

After a summer of excitement, we’re left with the status quo. And maybe that’s no bad thing

Posted on 21/08/2016 by

At the Guardian.

Posted in Politics, Rambling, Writing | Tagged ,

Running to stand still: a brief political analogy

Posted on 07/06/2016 by

Yesterday morning, the clock radio was broken because we’d spilled water on it. In the evening, a bolt fell out of the bed, and we noticed that the whole bed was in danger of collapse. During the day, I dried … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Rambling | Tagged ,

Brilliant Blunders: the mistakes made by some of history’s greatest scientists

Posted on 01/06/2016 by

At the Guardian.

Posted in Astrophysics, Particle Physics, Physics, Physics Stories, Science | Tagged ,

Whether it is cricket or physics, imagined scenarios can expand the limits of our understanding

Posted on 29/05/2016 by

At the Guardian.

Posted in Astrophysics, Particle Physics, Physics, Rambling, Science | Tagged , ,

Weasels in the Large Hadron Collider, and self-throwing dead cats

Posted on 01/05/2016 by

At the Guardian.

Posted in Particle Physics, Physics, Physics Stories, Politics, Rambling, Science | Tagged , ,

My Toy Story: Die-Cast Cars (Matchbox, 1953 – Present)

Posted on 17/04/2016 by

At TallManWithGlasses.

Posted in Rambling | Tagged ,

Mathematical déjà vu, and Coffee

Posted on 02/08/2015 by

At the Guardian.

Posted in Physics, Physics Stories, Science, Travel | Tagged ,

Inside the Rad Lab

Posted on 09/07/2015 by

Review of Michael Hiltzik’s Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex in Nature.

Posted in Particle Physics, Physics, Physics Stories, Politics, Science Policy | Tagged , , ,

The genesis and renaissance of general relativity

Posted on 23/06/2015 by

At the Guardian.

Posted in Astrophysics, Physics, Physics Stories | Tagged , ,