Every year, as part of a final year statistical physics course, I have a lecture on correlation vs. causation. This is a very important distinction in science. For example, the average temperature over the Earth’s surface, and the number of pirates in the world’s seas, are correlated
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Sir Martin Rees, distinguished scientist, Astronomer Royal and a churchgoing atheist, has just accepted the Templeton Prize. This is awarded by the Templeton Foundation, a charity set up by the late John Templeton, a wealthy merchant banker, enthusiastic Christian and fan of the big questions in life. It is £1 million – chosen I think […]
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Last night CaSE (the Campaign for Science & Engineering in the UK) ran a ‘Science Question Time’ on education. These Science Question times are designed to encourage discussions between those in the scientific community, the outcomes of which can then feed into the campaign work CaSE does. The panel for the education session was Alom Shaha (Physics Teacher), […]
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The highlight of my day was solving a simple partial differential equation problem, that I had set myself. It was a good day. I am not sure that I should admit this in public, but there you go, I have now. A lot of science and math is problem solving and scientists and mathematicians often […]
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I am currently reading a book on the elements called The Periodic Tale by Hugh Aldersley-Williams. It’s pretty good. One thing that I have learnt is that gold has an E number – as in the number that all food additives permitted by the EU are assigned. It is E175. It strikes me that if […]
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Today was the last UCAS day of this admissions round. UCAS days are where we invite along prospective students who have applied to do physics at Surrey. They come along, often with a parent or two, and we show them the Department, they talk to our students, and to academics like me.
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