MY LATEST POSTS
Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks: Sex, scandals and science
My home village of Blackheath in Australia's beautiful Blue Mountains boasts many beautiful gardens, none more beautiful than the fifty year-old rhododendron gardens, maintained by an enthusiastic group of volunteers who are mostly older than the gardens themselves....
Catastrophes Small and Large: From Biscuit Dunking to our Global Future
I appeared on the front page of Wikipedia today (April 7th 2021). “Did you know?” asked the editors “that Len Fisher won the 1999 Ig Nobel Prize for physics for his research on the optimal way to dunk a biscuit?” You may or may not have known this. Certainly the story...
Working Towards a More Humanistic Society
Very excited to have been invited to speak at the Eighth International Conference on Humanistic Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist per se, but I have great sympathy with many of its aims, and especially with the all-permeating idea of interconnectedness. I will be talking...
How to make a perfect cheese sandwich
Way back in 2003 the British Cheese Board asked me if I could work out scientifically the optimum amount of cheese to put in a cheese sandwich. Well, I did, by measuring the concentration of aroma released when I ate sandwiches made with different thicknesses of...
MY LATEST POSTS
MINI STORIES FROM SCIENCE
Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks: Sex, scandals and science
My home village of Blackheath in Australia's beautiful Blue Mountains boasts many beautiful gardens, none more beautiful than the fifty year-old rhododendron gardens, maintained by an enthusiastic group of volunteers who are mostly older than the gardens themselves....
STRAY THOUGHTS
Catastrophes Small and Large: From Biscuit Dunking to our Global Future
I appeared on the front page of Wikipedia today (April 7th 2021). “Did you know?” asked the editors “that Len Fisher won the 1999 Ig Nobel Prize for physics for his research on the optimal way to dunk a biscuit?” You may or may not have known this. Certainly the story...
PLANNING FOR LIFE’S CRISES
Working Towards a More Humanistic Society
Very excited to have been invited to speak at the Eighth International Conference on Humanistic Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist per se, but I have great sympathy with many of its aims, and especially with the all-permeating idea of interconnectedness. I will be talking...
FOOD & GASTRONOMY
How to make a perfect cheese sandwich
Way back in 2003 the British Cheese Board asked me if I could work out scientifically the optimum amount of cheese to put in a cheese sandwich. Well, I did, by measuring the concentration of aroma released when I ate sandwiches made with different thicknesses of...
MY BOOKS
My books are aimed to help people see and understand the world through a scientist’s eyes, with a good leavening of humour, anecdote and the personal stories.
