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Browse through my articles on Weird Science.
 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...
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...
A Scientific Picnic
New Scientist, August 2001
Summer is the season for open-air concerts, where the ticket reads "bring a picnic and chairs". The picnics in our part of rural Somerset are competitive affairs, with elaborate candelabra and equally elaborate dishes on display. At one recent concert my wife Wendy, tired of being upstaged, turned to me and said "You are a food scientist. Why can't you use science to liven up our picnics?"...
Cooking Christmas Dinner with an Astronomical Telescope (with Peter Barham)
Daily Telegraph, December 2000
Christmas dinner for most of us is a traditional affair, a Dickensian vision of roast turkey, chestnut stuffing, flaming pudding and all trappings. When Roger Highfield, the author of a book on seasonal science, challenged us to come up with an anything but traditional way to prepare the meal, we jumped at the opportunity to push back the frontiers of culinary art...
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