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 Browse through my articles on Making Science Accessible.
I’m an IgNobel Prize Winner: Get Me Out Of Here!
BBC Focus Magazine, December 2009
How would you use science to help you escape from a desert island? My solution, which began with using loose change to make a battery, was illustrator James Reekie’s personal favourite.
Four Way Interview
An interview for the website popularscience.co.uk, May 2007
Equations for Everyday Living
New Scientist, July 2005
I recently received an e-mail which began "Dear Dr Len: I do PR for a breakfast cereal company, and we would like an authoritative figure, such as yourself, to come up with an equation as to when to include the milk"...
Weird Experiments – Or Were They?
Independent, November 2004
Every so often a scientist performs an experiment that seems ridiculous to his or her contemporaries, but which ultimately revolutionizes our view of the world. For each such experiment, there are hundreds of other attempts to overturn the status quo that really are ridiculous and misconceived. Government science funding policy relies on the ability of experts to distinguish between the two, but how easy is it in practice to distinguish the brilliant from the bizarre? Here are some weird-sounding experiments from the past and the present which show just how difficult the task can be...
Scientific Pioneers
Times Higher Education Supplement, October 2004
For scientific pioneers, ridicule is an occupational hazard. The early aviation pioneers were ridiculed by the then President of the Royal Society, Lord Kelvin, who declared in 1895 that ‘Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.' British proponents of space travel suffered similarly at the hands of the Astronomer Royal, Sir Harold Spencer Jones, who famously announced that ‘space travel is bunk' – two weeks before the launch of Sputnik...
Counter-Intuitive Science 
Times Higher Education Supplement, January 2003
Scientists and non-scientists alike are intrigued by experiments that seem to show the world operating in a counter-intuitive way. The presenters of the "Today" programme are no exception, which is why I found myself shivering in my driveway on the coldest morning in January several weeks ago, demonstrating to an invisible radio audience that hot water can freeze faster than cold water...
The Image of Science
New Statesman, November 2002
I recently walked into my village post office carrying a copy of "New Scientist". Our village postmaster took one look at the magazine and burst out " ‘New Scientist!' Making atom bombs in your bathroom, har, har!"...
A Life in Science
Interview for Venue Magazine, December 2000
Questions asked include: When you won the Ig Nobel, did you receive any kind of
trophy/trinket? If so, where is it kept? Have you ever been accused of trivialising science rather than
popularising it? How do you respond? What's the single most important thing government could do to improve
regular folks' understanding of science? and more...
A Scientist in the Media
Chemistry in Australia, October 2000
Wise travellers carry an emergency kit for those times when they find themselves in unknown and potentially dangerous situations. No situation is more dangerous for scientists than to be in the hands of the media. It happens to many of us at some stage in our careers. Some of us even seek it. The key to a successful outcome is to be prepared. This article lists an emergency kit of items of useful knowledge to carry in preparation for your next media encounter...
Proud to be Silly
New Scientist, October 1999
Feedback (9 October) is delighted with my Ig Nobel prize for the physics of biscuit dunking. So am I. As I pointed out in my acceptance speech at Harvard, this was the first British win at a Boston Tea Party for over two hundred years...
Physics Takes the Biscuit
Nature, February 1999
Why did a light-hearted experiment attract so much attention from the media? The episode is an interesting lesson for those wanting to explain science to the wider public – equations do not always scare people away. View image of article.
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