Are The Dice Loaded?

I am currently reading Universes (1989) by John Leslie, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at The University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The book, praised on the back cover by Antony Flew and Quentin Smith, discusses the issues surrounding the “fine-tuning” of the constants of nature, initial conditions, and even the forms of the [...]

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Astronomy Royalty

I’m planning a series of posts on public speaking in science, which I generally find to be infuriatingly poor. There are exceptions, thankfully. The closing address of “Putting Gravity to Work”, a conference held over the last week at the IoA, Cambridge, was given by Martin Rees. It was a class above the normal “cure-your-insomnia” [...]

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Big Bad Black Holes

I was sitting with some fellow tourists on a three-day coach tour of Ireland yesterday when the topic of what I do for a living came up. After being briefly mistaken for an astrologer (I really should start charging money for my services), my mother-in-law Christine mentioned my interest in black holes.
(Aside: black holes are [...]

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