Category: Science
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Cosmonauts at the British Science Museum
The only mildly interesting scene in that otherwise steaming heap of found-footage nonsense Apollo 18 is when the US astronauts stumble across the Soviet LK Lunar lander sitting in a crater. The real thing was flown unmanned in orbit but never made it to its final destination. Lack of co-ordination and investment in a launch […]
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The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, and Logicomix
Comics again, this time with a couple of wonderful graphic novels that tackle similar mathematical themes but in very different ways. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou focuses on Bertrand Russell’s attempt to create a mathematical foundation for logical truth, while Sydney Padua’s The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace […]
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Interstellar (2014)
**WARNING – Major Spoiler Alerts** I’ve been face down writing AntiHelix for the last month so I’ve neglected this blog a little, but having seen Interstellar on its opening night yesterday I thought I’d jot down my thoughts. It’s a curate’s egg – some parts are very good, other parts are disappointing and I came […]
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Soviet Space Art
Last week I was working in Russia. I attended a conference in Tver, halfway between Moscow and St Petersburg where I was set on fire. I was also asked to be one of the judges for a final graduation film for one of the students at the All Russian Cinematography University (VGIK for short). As a […]
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Europa Report (2013)
Spoiler Alert News from Space last week confirmed the existence of an ocean underneath the icy surface of Enceladus. Furthermore it seems that this immense body of water is in contact with the moon’s rocky core, allowing minerals to leach into the sea. Chemicals, water and tidal heating caused by Saturn’s gravity point to the […]
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Flatland 2: Sphereland
Flatland 2: Sphereland is the sequel to the movie Flatland which I mentioned in a blog post last year. It’s a charming 36 minute animated short based on the original novel by Edwin Abbott, and one of the book’s own sequels Sphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe, written in 1965 by the […]
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Minecraft Memory Palace
I’ve been a fan of memory systems for years, especially the Memory Palace method of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Known as the ‘System of Locii’ this is based on the principle of using places to remember things. This is how it works – you think of somewhere you know (such as your house) and […]
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Life Before Man
On my last trip up to Yorkshire I found one of my favourite childhood books, Life Before Man, by Zdenek Burian (pictures) and Zdenek V. Spinar (text), published in 1972 by Thames and Hudson. I bought this when it first came out and it entranced me for years. Nowadays photorealistic dinosaurs are de rigueur, thanks […]
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Under the Moons of Mars
I’ve just got back from a trip to Moscow and was planning to write a few posts on some of the things I found there; especially the wonderful Symbolist Art of Nicholas Roerich. Then Curiosity sent back one of the most amazing space photos I’ve seen. It’s not much to look at, but for anyone […]
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Frontiers of Space – in memory of Neil Armstrong
For me the years 1968 – 1969 were a perfect storm for three reasons. Firstly I saw Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey at the age of seven. Not only was I entranced by the movie’s images but also beside myself with excitement at the thought that I would be alive at the grand old […]
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A thousand miles an hour – the Bloodhound SSC
This week I attended a one-day education conference in Lancaster House, hosted by the British Government as part of the diplomatic activities surrounding the Olympic Games. I spent a while chatting to Wing Commander Andy Green who is the current land speed record holder. In 1997 he reached 763 miles an hour in the car Thrust […]
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Bugs of the Empire
A little while ago I wrote about the Eagle Comic in the early 1960s. The Captain was a similar magazine from the beginning of the twentieth century. The upsurge in adventure books for boys in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras paved the way for the first periodicals aimed at the Empire builders of tomorrow. […]
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Storytelling and the brain
Right now I’m in the beautiful ski resort of Kransjka Gora in Slovenia. Out of my hotel window I can see the Julian Alps rising up into a clear blue sky. On a slightly worrying note, I was here last year and I could swear that something has knocked a hole right through one of […]
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Agora
Agora (2009) tells the story of the brilliant philosopher and mathematician Hypatia, who lived in Alexandria at the beginning of the 5th century. Renowned for her learning, she taught astronomy and philosophy and became involved in the politics of the city at a time of emerging tensions between the Christian bishops and the civic government. […]