MUYBRIDGE - The Man who stopped time
"Muybridge travelled from the Victorian suburban gentility of Kingston-upon-Thames to the wild California of the 1870s. And he murdered his wife's lover." Brian's new book, published in Spring 2007, is the startling biography of one of the famous unknowns in science and technology - Eadweard Muybridge. Read more...
On the trail of Fox Talbot"Here, in the entranceway to the home of the man who all but invented photography, squarely in the middle of the route to the room where the first known photographic negative was produced, stood a notice, embellished with an explicit pictogram for the hard of reading. NO PHOTOGRAPHY." When researching Light Years, Brian visited the picturesque Wiltshire village of Lacock - here is his light-hearted tour of the village. Read more...
The God Effect, Updated"In my book The God Effect I describe quantum entanglement, the remarkable physical phenomenon that seems to allow to particles to be separated to opposite sides of the universe, yet a change to one is instantly reflected in the other. The strange capabilities of entanglement make it ideal for generating unbreakable encryption, making quantum computers work, even powering quantum teleportation. As it is a field where new breakthroughs are happening all the time there's an need for regular updates." The latest news from the weird world of quantum entanglement. Read more...
Moment of discovery - the Muybridge incident
"I had asked the Royal Society if there was any record of their reaction to his paper that had cast shame on his name in the UK. It was with a tingle of excitement that I received an e-mail saying that in a sort out of old records they had just discovered something remarkable." The original review by the now infamous Francis Galton, damning Muybridge's work, had come to light. Read more...
Inside the imagination of Aristotle
"Aristotle was to do a fix on infinity that, with the exception of Galileo, would last pretty well unchallenged all the way up to the nineteenth century. Aristotle tends to get a lot of bad press these days. I have lost count of the popular science books I have read that lay into him for being an armchair natural philosopher." Infinity has been fascinating people since the ancient Greeks - take a look at Aristotle's ingenious way of thinking about it. Read more...
Stalking Muybridge"Now I have to confess I’m very nervous at this point. It’s one thing to go into a shop or even knock on the door of a business and ask if you can take a look, but it’s another to walk up to the front door of a private house and ask them, as I hope to, if there’s anything left of Muybridge’s time there. " Looking into the life of Eadweard Muybridge involved frequent visits to the London suburb of Kingston-upon-Thames, where the houses Muybridge was born in and died in both still stand. Read more...
Galileo's peek at Infinity"Galileo had considerable trouble getting this published - the Inquisition made it clear that no work by this heretic would be published in any country where it held sway. When the book was eventually taken up by the great Dutch publisher Elsevier, Galileo expressed his great surprise that it had been published at all." Read Brian's article on Galileo and infinity (covered in greater depth in A Brief History of Infinity) on the FirstScience website. Read more...
Twisted Light"It could even be the answer to why we've never spotted alien transmissions out there in the universe, as they could send a signal by radio or other light wave not by modulating the frequency or amplitude as we do, but by modulating the twist." There's always something new to learn about light. Since Light Years was published I have come across a strange phenomenon. Read more...
Ferraris and Goats"The same probability game that a few years ago baffled readers of the London Times so much that indignant letters were written by professors, denying the truth of the outcome.." Probability is one of the most useful and everyday applicable aspects of maths, yet the human mind is particularly bad at assessing probabilities. In this short article we look at a little game with a surprising outcome. Read more...
Keeping the number line dry - a paradox of infinity
"Imagine we wanted to protect the whole number line from getting wet. What we are going to do is issue each rational fraction along the line an umbrella. The umbrella will be a simple T shape. The first umbrella we give out is 1/2 a unit of the number line across the T. The second umbrella is 1/4 of a unit of the number line across and so on." One of the great delights of infinity is its ability to throw up mind-bending paradoxes. This is about the best I've ever come across. Read more...
Feynman got it wrong!"Richard Feynman was one of the greatest scientists of all time, but even his genius had its weak points. Particularly in his view of early scientist, Roger Bacon." Being a scientific genius doesn't mean you can interpret history. Read more...
Clegg Hall"His brother crept through a secret passage from a nearby hall, ready to do away with the distraught father, when one of the children's voice was heard calling out "Father beware!" The father awoke, sending his evil brother running terrified to plunge to his death.." It might have no link to science, but the story of Clegg Hall is one that has always fascinated me, and more than any other has acted as the spur that started me writing. Read more...
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