How To Win an Ig Nobel Prize

How To Win an Ig Nobel Prize

A talk for the Bristol Scientific Club. a venerable institution founded 135 years ago by Lord Rayleigh. Great fun among some great scientists, one of whom (Sir Michael Berry) is a fellow Ig Nobel laureate! I’ll put a link up for the talk after I have delivered...
So You Want To Be A Writer?

So You Want To Be A Writer?

This piece that I wrote some time ago for Psychology Today bears repeating, especially given the number of questions (usually the same ones) that I get from aspiring writers. I sympathise; I was in the same position myself once. An article like this would have helped...
Virtual food

Virtual food

The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery is my favourite indulgence – old friends, good wine, great food. But this year it has to be virtual, and here I will keep a running diary of events to share. Enjoy! The header picture is from last year. That’s me...
Casimir and me

Casimir and me

This mini story is about me and my last (maybe really my last) scientific paper. It is also a story of how science really works – through people, rather than structures or organizations or committees. It started with Twitter, which is a major way that I keep in...
143. Mercury, Shakespeare and me

143. Mercury, Shakespeare and me

Very proud to have been awarded a prize in the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s competition for Stories from the Periodic Table. Here is my winning entry: Mercury, Shakespeare and me Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, and it...
142. A mad magnet tale

142. A mad magnet tale

This story of the generation of an ultra-strong magnetic field (https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/nanotechnology/magnetic-field-record-set-with-a-bang-1200-tesla) and the subsequent disaster reminds me of a story that I was told by a very prominent...
141. A world made of blueberries

141. A world made of blueberries

My good friend and cooleague (cool colleague) Anders Sandberg has calculated what would happen if the world suddenly turned into blueberries. I offer it as an example of how scientists think; one that might be used to help schoolchildren, and even beginning university...