Author Archives: Stephen

Charles Darwin Was a star in Eighteen fifty-nine His theory Caused a fury Among lovers of design “No Adam? Far too random – That’s never a solution!” But Charlie smiled – He was not riled: “Sorry, that’s evolution.”   It’s … Continue reading →

Last week I took the train through a snowy landscape to Warwick University to give a seminar at the Department of Chemistry. I arrived a little early to catch up with a couple of virologist friends; in the coffee bar … Continue reading →

Abandoned

X.

This post is completely justified since crystals are a central topic at Reciprocal Space and I awoke this morning to a landscape covered with them: Snow has the wonderful property of making the world look fresh and new. Even the … Continue reading →

A discussion initiated by Katherine Haxton prompted me to check out ResearchBlogging.org and there I discovered the Virology Blog written by Vincent Racaniello. Vincent is a poliovirus researcher at Columbia University; I’d met him a few times while working on … Continue reading →

You choose, but both paths involve outrageous fortune. Me? I can’t figure it out. Until six months ago I had never heard of Richard Hamming, a masterful mathematician and computer scientist from Bell Labs. I’d heard of Bell Labs all … Continue reading →

I don’t know what it is about 2009, but I don’t seem to have got going. My posts so far this year have amounted to a note about what’s on telly and a photo of some over-sized dice. And it’s … Continue reading →

Sparked by a remark made by Kristi Vogel on blogging with images, here is one that’s been hovering at the back of my photo collection. Does God play dice? Apparently, despite Einstein’s objections, the deity is a bit of a … Continue reading →

This is normally Matt’s brief but I thought people (in the UK at least) might be interested to know that a three-part series on Science and Islam, fronted by Prof Jim Al-Khalili, starts at 9 pm tonight on BBC4. The … Continue reading →

It’s easy if you try. I’ve never much cared for John Lennon’s song: despite the wistful melody and admirable sentiment, the scientific precisionist in me could never quite get past the poor grammar. “And no religion too, Mr Lennon? And … Continue reading →