We have a tendency to oversimplify complicated issues. Sometimes this gives useful clarity, but more frequently it gives a distorted impression of what I am stubborn enough to call the truth. Clarity can be seductive, but is disastrously misleading if it neglects important facts. This is true in politics, in history, and in science.
Continue reading at the Guardian.
A long-ish read about a plot with lots of physics. Not the plot of a film or a novel but, you know, a plot!
I began writing this somewhere between Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore, on the way home after week lecturing at the 22nd Vietnam School of Physics. The school was in the seaside town of Quy Nohn, and attracts students not just from Vietnam but from India, Thailand, Malaysia and more. Sample questions over dinner: Where are the best places to study particle physics? Have you met Stephen Hawking? Why did Britain vote to leave the EU? Do you support Manchester City or United?*
Talking to new audiences, I find that I see things partly through their eyes, and the new perspective nearly always throws up delights which had become blunted by familiarity. Watching a favourite film with family or friends who are seeing it for the first time has a similar effect. As long I avoid spoilers. (Mum, why did dad go weird when Leia kissed Luke like that? Hush, kids, he’s just weird. Watch the wookie.)
More at the Guardian.
At the Guardian.
Recently I was involved in discussions that led to a meeting of climate-change skeptics moving from UCL premises. As a result, a couple of articles appeared about me on a climate website and on the right-wing “Breitbart” site.
In the more measured article by Christopher Monckton (who has more reason to be ticked off, since he was one of the meeting organisers) I’m called a “useless bureaucrat” and “forgettable”. The other article uses “cockwomble” (a favourite insult of mine), “bullying” and “climate prat”. Obviously it is difficult to respond to such disarming eloquence, but I do want to set the record straight on one thing.
Life and Physics 