Brian Clegg's Blog, page 107

Thermodynamics 2: the statistics

Last week I started a quick look at the most mind-boggling bit of 'classical' physics, the second law of thermodynamics, one of the stars of my book Dice World .  This week I'm exploring how the second law can both be true and not true at the same time.

Thinking of the traditional approach of 'heat flows from hot to cooler', this seemed solid and unbeatable in the Victorian world of brass and iron. And once scientists began to take the idea of atoms and molecules as real entities seriously (something that happened surprisingly late), it also made a lot of sense at the level of individual particles - but there was a twist in the tail.

In the beginning was orderA favourite thought experiment for thermodynamicists is a box that is split in two. (They don't get out much, and consider the Large Hadron Collider to be showy and unnecessary.) On one side of the box is a hot gas. On the other side is a cool gas. Life doesn't get much more exciting than this. But wait, it can - because there is a door in the partition separating the two halves.

Let's imagine we could see the individual molecules of the gas, zooming around. (At least a small subset of them.) on the hot side they would be flying about a lot faster than on the cool side. That's what temperature is all about - the energy levels of the molecules. So we open the door and molecules start to swap between sides of the box. After a while, instead of all hot on the left (say) and all cool on the right we will have a mix of hot and cool on the left and a mix of hot and cool on the right. What has happened in macro terms? The hot side got cooler, the cool side got hotter. Heat moved from the hot bit to the cool bit. 'Result!' as our over-excited thermodynamicist might shout.
But soon disorder ruled
It's worth also looking at this from the point of view of entropy. Entropy, you may remember, is the measure of disorder that is a key to deep thinking about the second law. You could work the change in entropy mathematically, because there is a formula for entropy that is designed for this kind of situation. It's a very simple formula by the standard of modern physics, so I won't apologise for mentioning it. It's:

S = k log W

S is the entropy (E was already used up for energy when this equation came along), k is a constant called Boltzmann’s constant and W is the number of ways a system can be arranged to achieve the particular result. (Log is short for 'logarithm'. If you're old enough, you'll know what this is. If you aren't, look it up.) Think of the example of the letters on this web page. If you imagined there are a series of slots on the screen that you can put letters in (think of the old moveable type printing press), then it’s easy to see that there is one way to arrange the letters to get a specific page, but by trying each letter in each slot you could (very slowly) work out W for randomly distributing all the letters and would get a much higher value.

Mostly entropy isn’t about letters on a page but about stuff, and particularly the atoms or molecules that make that matter up. There again, in principle, we can imagine different values for entropy for, say, a crystal where all the atoms have to slot into specific positions and a gas where they’re bouncing all over the place. We couldn’t do the sums exactly – and would have to resort to statistics to get anywhere – but it’s entirely possible to see how entropy applies this way in theory.

As it happens, we don't need to do the maths to see what is happening in terms of entropy with our box. To start with it was relatively ordered because most of the hot (high speed) molecules were on the left and most of the cool (lower speed) molecules were on the right. After a while it is more disordered because each side is a mix of the two. There are more ways to have them in this mixed state than in a state where they are separated. W is bigger. Disorder - entropy - has increased.

Physicists were so impressed with the inevitability of this process that they were prepared to call it a law, and to say that either heat would flow from hot to cold or nothing would happen at all - but that this process would never reverse. Never ever. Not once. And this is where they got a bit of shock when they started to think of the implications of that simple divided box.

Once we are dealing with billions of molecules, flying around randomly, it isn't possible to make a practical prediction of exactly what will happen from moment to moment. Instead we have to rely on statistics, the branch of mathematics that allows us to take an overview of a lot of items simultaneously. And that tells us that, on the whole, the molecules will balance out and we will end up with a mix on both sides. On the whole, W will increase and the entropy will rise. Disorder will rule. But note that 'on the whole' - not every time. Not an unbreakable law. Just a statistical likelihood.

It is entirely possible - though extremely unlikely - that all the hot molecules will happen to head for the left side at the same time, and all the cooler ones to the right. So the system could go from being all nicely mixed up to being separated again. This would mean heat flowing from a cooler region to a hotter one. Entropy would have spontaneously decreased. Remarkably, the second law, despite being so fundamental to the universe working the way we expect it to, is only statistical. It works most of the time. Almost all the time. But just occasionally, over a long enough timescale, it is bound to fail.

The last episode, coming soon, will wrap up the second law with some demonic action.

The Young Dictator

There's a certain kind of novel that is technically aimed at 'young adults' (bookseller speak for teenagers), but that is also enjoyed by adults. It is, of course, a publisher's dream if it comes off, as you end up with a much bigger potential audience than usual. The best known example is, of course, the Harry Potter series, though I think my favourite crossover YA books are The Owl Service,   The Night Circus and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, - in fact, demonstrating the power of this approach, they remain among my favourite books ever. I was, therefore, rather interested when I came across a new such book called The Young Dictator by Rhys Hughes.

The premise is intriguing. Jenny Kahn, a twelve-year-old girl, by strange means, wins a by-election and becomes a member of parliament. With some magical assistance, she ends up as dictator of the UK, which is just the starting point on a career of dictatorship that will involve aliens, giant spiders, a visit to Hell and more. Promising indeed.

The reality is mixed. On the good side, the imagination is unparalleled and often unrestrained, creating some bizarre and wonderful imagery. Although the main character is a touch two dimensional, there is a marvellous character in the form of Gran, an alchemist who claims to have been around in the time of the dinosaurs and is both totally evil and often hilarious. I love a scene early on when Gran is trying to conceal that she is knitting Jenny a rosette so she can stand as an MP. Asked what she is knitting, Gran replies 'An idol.' When questioned further she claims it is a false god to worship upstairs at a shrine she has constructed dedicated to old pagan beliefs. When it is pointed out that she lives in a bungalow, she responds 'Exactly!'

On the downside, the ideas are rather let down by a writing style that is virtually non-existent. We are just told what happens, plonkingly, without any feel for atmosphere or characterisation (apart from Gran). It was rather like reading a book written by a teenager. I was also uncomfortable about the casual lack of morality of practically all the main characters, especially Jenny. She has occasional slight twinges of conscience, but is quite happy for pretty well all the main supporting characters to be massacred in unpleasant fashions, often at her orders. Someone she goes out of her way to rescue, for example, is then crucified. There's also a rather tasteless idea that as a dictator she can join an online service called Fascbook, where she chat to various online friends including Adolf, Benito, Pol Pot and Idi Amin. While I am against any form of censorship, I do wonder if using people who caused such suffering as a comic turn is ideal in a book for teenagers.

I am left, then, in a bit of a quandary. There was certainly much to enjoy in the book, and I happily read on to see what the next exotic idea and weird happening would be, as you may well do too - and Rhys Hughes did not disappoint - but it would have been so much better with a lot of polishing and a big dollop of writing style.

Find out more at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

The unbearable appropriateness of being Carmina Burana

Anyone who is an aficionado of The X-Factor (or even hears the start of it as they rush out of the room screaming) will be aware of its producers' tendency to use a striking bit of classical music as a background, typically at the beginning and as the judges come on stage. The older members of the audience may recognise it as 'that music they used to have on the Old Spice ad' - not to mention in numerous movies. What it really is, of course, is 'O Fortuna', the opening and closing chorus of Carl Orff's choral masterpiece, Carmina Burana.

What I wonder, though, is whether those involved in the X-Factor know just how appropriate this particular number is, for two reasons, to their peculiar form of entertainment/torture. I suspect not.

The first appropriate aspect is that the chorus is about the wheel of fortune in the sense of the random hand of fate meaning that at one moment we might be on top and the next on the way down. Spookily accurate. But even more interesting is the second aspect, which used to really depress me as a student.

I first came across Carmina Burana when we performed it in a concert at my college music society, and it rapidly became one of my favourite pieces. But this didn't stop me finding the ending, in my idealistic student fashion, rather unpleasant. The second half of the piece is largely the story of a seduction, with the antepenultimate section being an electrically soaring climax from the soprano soloist. We then have the penultimate section, Ave Formosissima, celebrating love to a rising, uplifting ending... which crashes into the final, grinding repeat of O Fortuna. The message is clear. You go through this apparently life-changing experience and afterwards the world goes on and everything is just the same.

I have to say I find it less depressing now (perhaps because as an older person I am more accepting that this is a realistic rather than a cynical view). But oh how it should resound for those X-Factor entrants who tell us that they don't want to be a cleaner or a van driver or whatever it is anymore. And the judges, putting them through, tell them 'You can say goodbye to all that.' But actually the Carmina Burana music is much more honest. They might be going through an apparently life-changing experience, but afterwards, for most of them, the world will be exactly the same.

I really would encourage you to listen to this clip to hear that transition from affirmation to inevitability. It is quite spine tingling:

A new brand of revolution

Like many, I watched online the interview between the UK's leading political interviewer, Jeremy Paxman and comedian Russell Brand with interest. It brought out, as has quite frequently been the case over the last few years, the way that Brand is not just an idiot who can offend people on radio programmes and/or a sex addict - he is very verbally able, and has thought about things in what is, admittedly, a rather shallow, but nonetheless interesting fashion.

I can certainly see why Brand could get many rallying to his cry that politicians don't do anything for us and that democracy is flawed. But there is a real problem with Brand's approach to politics - and it is reflected all too often in the over-the-top, knee jerk political comments I frequently see on Twitter and Facebook. It's a problem that is often reflected in protest movements - they're against something, or everything (think capitalism, conservatives, politicians, America, big business, corporations whatever) - but they don't actually offer a better alternative.

We know from practical experience that Marxism does not of itself offer a great alternative to capitalism. I'd go further - for the vast majority, Marxism proved far worse than capitalism. It's all very well to slag off democracy and capitalism, but be very wary what you wish for. Because the alternatives have so far always been a disaster.

So I'm sorry, until the likes of Mr Brand can come up with a constructive alternative that will deliver a better life for everyone, I'm sticking with democracy and capitalism. Of course it's flawed. Of course some people do better from it than others - and some of them deserve to have the smug smiles wiped off their faces. But simply posturing on TV and using big words, attacking the status quo without offering any suggestion of how to improve things, does nothing for politics and nothing for the human condition. I'm afraid Russell Brand's revolution would simply make things worse.

In case you didn't catch it, here it is:

Coming over all thermodynamic

My book Dice World about randomness and probability and their impact on our lives inevitably includes quantum theory, but some have expressed surprise that it also covers the second law of thermodynamics. After all, popular science books are supposed to be about modern, trendy, weird science, aren't they? And that sounds so old and Victorian. I mean, 'thermodynamics'. It just reeks of steam engines. And that's certainly why it was first of interest - but the second law is just as fascinating as anything that the twentieth or twenty-first centuries have thrown at us, and this is the first of a short series of posts pondering it.

The second law is a classic of physics, so much so that it inspired the physicist Arthur Eddington's famous lines:

If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in the deepest humiliation.

The more common way of looking at the second law in modern times is in terms of entropy, a measure of the disorder in a system, but I want to start with the original, steam engine driven approach. This says approximately that in a closed system, heat will move from a hotter part of the system to a cooler part. If it didn't, we could have lots  of fun. We could build a perpetual motion machine. All you would need is to get that heat flowing the wrong way, make use of it to power the machine, then send it back to be used again. Simples. We can also think of it as saying that in a closed system disorder stays the same or increases; it does not decrease.

But the universe seems to have a downer on perpetual motion machines, and doesn't allow the second law to be broken. Except when it does. Because one of the reasons that the second law is so fascinating is that, though it is such a fundamental aspect of the workings of reality there are ways that it can be broken - or bent. The true flaw in the law I'll come back to another time, but let's explore the classic bending beloved of creationists. Because it's easy to read the law as 'heat flows from hot places to cold' or that 'disorder stays the same or increases.' Yet this is patently not always true.

Take a refrigerator. That starts with something that is cold and makes it colder still. It takes heat from a relatively cold place (inside the fridge) and sends it somewhere warmer (outside). Surely Eddington should be turning in his grave. Or there's the argument of our creationist friends. They say that the second law proves the existence of God. Why? Because disorder has clearly decreased on the Earth. You might not think this is the case when you listen to the news, but here we are talking about the order and disorder in stuff. In the early years of the Earth's formation everything was pretty random. But over time molecules have been organised into all kinds of complex systems. There is much more order in the world than there used to be. And that, say the creationists, is evidence of God's hand at work.

The reason for this apparent discrepancy is that we aren't allowed to cherry pick with science. We can't just take a bit of a scientific theory that we like and ignore the rest. And that's exactly what is being done here. In both the fridge and the disorder on Earth examples we are ignoring the words 'in a closed system.'

Scientists like closed systems. They are imaginary boxes in which something takes place that are isolated from everything outside. They make things simple for the scientists - but they are often not very realistic. Think of my specific examples. The second law only works in a closed system because otherwise energy can come in from outside and drive things the opposite way. And that's exactly what happens here. The refrigerator isn't a closed system - we have to pump power into it to get the cooling to happen. Similarly, the Earth gets vast amounts of energy from the Sun - plenty to deal with its ability to create order from disorder.

So the second law is bent - but only if you read it wrong.

I want to leave you with one disconcerting thought, though. There are no closed systems, with the possible exception of the universe (and we don't know that for sure). None whatsoever. For example, you can't stop gravity. There is no box to prevent it influencing a system. Of course you can counter it various ways, notably through acceleration, but that isn't the same thing as saying that you are isolated from it. Closed systems are useful approximations to the real world, a tool that physicists rely on to make understanding ridiculously complex things amenable. But they aren't real. It's easy to think of scientists as being very precise people - and they are. They love their error bars. But that precision comes at a price, and it's one that sometimes catches everyone out.

More on the second law another time, where we will see how it can be broken entirely - and the role of a demon in exploring it.

Braindead at the Beeb

I'm delighted that my latest guest post is from the inestimable Henry Gee: Henry is a Senior Editor of Nature. His latest book ‘The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution’, is now available from the proverbial All Good Bookshops. His blog The End Of The Pier Show continues to delight its three regular readers. DISCLAIMER: for readers for whom rhetorical devices are as giraffes to unicycles, no kittens were harmed in the making of this post.

GUEST POST

Brian, for it is he, has invited me to write a guest post for his blog, so here I am, not too late I hope, with a bottle of wine and a smile, though I decided against buying the flowers on the garage forecourt as they looked rather tired. Goldie looks up from her cosy spot in the corner, raises an eyebrow and sensibly goes back to sleep.

I’ve known Brian for six years or so, ever since we both had blogs on Nature Network (now SciLogs). We’ve even met two or three times in real life. Just to show you that we take this science business seriously, we did, on one occasion, share a podium at the Royal Institution. Here we are, with author Clare Dudman:



We share interests in all sorts of things from writing and music to dogs and the zany antics of Boris Johnson. Another thing we share is a general despondency at the scientific illiteracy of people in general – especially among people who should know better.

Like those at Casa Clegg, we watch chez Gee a televisual emission called ‘Waterloo Road’, a soap opera of the doings at a comprehensive school in the north of England. Brian noticed, as did I, that on one occasion the science teacher wrote the formula for hydrogen peroxide on the board as H2O2, with the ‘2’s as superscripts rather than subscripts. Who let that howler through?

But wait, there was more. In another episode of ‘Waterloo Road’, Brian noticed that the chlorine molecule, Cl2, was described as C12 (C twelve) – someone had misread the ‘L
’ as a 1’. (I confess I didn’t see that episode. I was in my shed at the time, listening to my tapes of kittens being impaled on red-hot skewers.) Once again, didn’t anyone notice?

Such programmes are watched by quite a lot of people, notwithstanding inasmuch as which those of school age, and their teachers. They are indeed avidly lapped up by the younger Gees (13 and 15) and Mrs Gee (a learning support assistant.) So you’d hope that the people making the programme would take some care with its content. First, the people who write this stuff. Then there are the script editors, the producers, the editors, the directors. Did anyone notice? If not, why not? To anyone with more than a gnat’s crotchet of scientific literacy, these errors would stick out like a sore thumb.

I can think of three reasons why such errors were left until broadcast. First, the people responsible didn’t even have as much science as that. Second, they might have had that much science, but were plain incompetent. Third, they just didn’t care, because such things are, to them, small and unimportant details. Quite apart from the necessity in dramas, even those as ridiculous and over-the-top as ‘Waterloo Road’ (an establishment where fires, poisoning and brutal murder are not unknown), that details are important to maintain the suspension of disbelief, this betrays an insouciant ignorance that should not be tolerated.

Now, I’m not talking about the televisual ghetto in which science is usually confined, which, if its offerings are designed for a general audience, speak to us as if we are small children, in what Rabbi Lionel Blue once called the ‘let’s-all-be-bunnies’ voice. ‘Horizon’, the flagship science TV show on the BBC, is the worst offender. Its offerings are almost uniformly dreadful. Whenever reason fails me and I switch on, imagining’ hope against hope, that things couldn’t get any worse than the time before – they do.

The few episodes of ‘Horizon’ that treat us like adults are proofs in the breach. One thinks of Simon Singh’s wonderful film  for ‘Horizon’ on Andrew Wiles and the solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem. How could any TV program succeed that was about maths? When he suggested the subject to the BBC commissioners, Singh recalled at a lecture I attended, “you could see they’d have preferred a program called ‘Fermat’s Last Dinosaur’ or ‘Fermat’s Last Volcano’.” The fault, then, lies in a broadcasting culture in which science is seen as something for small children. If it is for older children, or – gasp – adults, it’s aimed at a self-selected audience of geeks, with a presenter who looks like the cool older brother you never had (Brian Cox) or an indulgent grandparent who might be persuaded to dispense a Werther’s Original (David Attenborough).

But I digress.

Science literacy is poor, and this is especially true of TV, in which the arts, politics and current affairs are usually presented to a high level.  What I contend here is that it’s so poor that it reflects an almost deliberate carelessness on the part of the people who churn it out. And that’s shocking.  If the commissioners of the BBC would (or so one would hope) never let through a humanities programme that treats its audience as if they were watching ‘Playschool’, why is science presented in such a jejune fashion?

Do broadcasters, seeing that many toddlers can pronounce words such as ‘Triceratops’ while still in diapers, assume that science is a form of children’s programming, something that might not be of interest to intelligent adults?

Is this why broadcasters, remembering that they once in childhood saw ‘Captain Pugwash’, pronounce ‘boson’ as ‘bosun’? If anyone does that to me, especially if it’s live TV, I shall mention Higgs the Bosun’s shipmates – Master Bates, Seamen Stains and Roger the Cabin Boy.

Stephen Fry caught mooning on QI

Call that a moon? THIS is a moon!
(Apologies to Crocodile Dundee)I am very fond of QI, but as I have mentioned previously, there are times when the QI elves' attempts to be perverse just to be able to catch the contestants out result in a warping of reality as we know it.

One of the most dramatic examples of this over the years has been their varying answers to the question 'how many moons does the Earth have?' While the show has been running the accepted QI answer has been various numbers between 2 and 20,000, but never one, the obvious and actual answer. But I have to say, if I were ever on the programme I would protest loud and long if hit by this question, because that answer of 'one' is correct.

They excuse their latest, 20,000 (that's from memory - it was some large number) value by saying there are lots of little lumps of rock that get captured by Earth's gravitational field for a few days and while captured they are natural satellites, which makes them moons. But this is the excrement of the male cow. You might as well say the Sun has many thousands of planets, because of all the asteroids, as a planet is a satellite of the Sun. However, we all know there are just eight planets.

Now to be fair, with planets there are clearer rules. To be a planet the body has to (in my wording):
Orbit the SunBe roughly sphericalHave swept its orbit clean of minor debris... this last one being what did for Pluto. But I would suggest, whether or not there is an IAU definition of 'moon' as there is for 'planet' there are still clear intended consequences of using the word 'moon' as opposed to just 'satellite'. These are that the body in question should be:

Long lasting - I suggest staying in orbit for at least 1,000 yearsSizeable - say at least 5 kilometres acrossThis would still allow moon status for the pretty dubious companions of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, which are about 20 kilometres and 10 kilometres across.
Clearly such rules are there implicitly when we talk about moons. If the time rule didn't exist, then every lump of rock that spent 5 minutes in our company would be a moon, while without the size rule, we would have to count every tiny piece of debris in Saturn's rings as a moon - every one of them is, after all, a natural satellite.
No, I'm sorry QI, but everyone who is not a teenager or drunk realises that mooning is not funny, and it's not clever, and it's time you gave it up.
Image from Wikipedia

Down the line

We really don't appreciate enough the wonders that information and communication technology enables. The smartphone in our pockets gives us abilities that only James Bond had when I was young. And earlier this week I had a brilliant example of the way ICT can transform the way we work when I spent the day in a school in Amman, Jordan without leaving my office.

I've done quick Q and A on occasions via Skype with a school before, but nothing on this scale.

Overall it was remarkably effective. Now I can hear the technophobes in the background (what are you doing reading a blog, you old fogies?) saying 'Ah, but it's not like really being there!' And for once they are right. That is perfectly true. But there are plenty of occasions when being there is just not practical, and this is certainly the next best thing. What's more, it even saves the school money (something most schools are not averse to),  because they don't have to pay for my travel. And I can do it in my slippers.

We had two-way video set up and the outcome was better than I could have imagined. I ran interactive sessions - I could see them with their hands up, as long as they spoke nice and loud I could hear what they were saying and this two way visual communication gave some real benefit. (I've had lovely emails from the school emphasising this.) Just how important the video link was was brought home in the first session of the day (not helped, I admit by starting at 5am because of the time difference), when technical problems meant I had to do a chunk of the session 'blind.' Not seeing the audience made a huge difference - and not a good one.

I know lots of people use Skype to keep in touch with distant loved ones. I've always found it a bit clumsy for this, as you have to schedule a chat and it feels far less spontaneous than phoning or texting. But for this particular application the technology came up trumps and made it possible to spend a day in a school that was, in reality, over two thousand miles away.

Islands of birth and rebirth

Thanks to Nik Morton for a guest post suitable for Halloween. Nik spent 23 years in the Royal Navy as a writer, and after retiring from the Navy went into IT. He moved to writing for and editing magazines and now lives in Spain where he is concentrating on writing.

GUEST POST

Malta is rich in history and scenic attraction. I first visited the island in 1967 when our ship HMS Zulu docked in Valletta harbour. I hadn’t been in the Royal Navy long – joined two years earlier. In those days, approaching foreign ports was always exciting. I’d been fascinated by Amsterdam, and Gibraltar was breath-taking. But Malta was something else again. The grandeur of the Grand Harbour has not diminished over the years – it’s still one of the most photogenic scenes I’ve come across.

Going ashore in civilian clothes, I toured the island by local buses. They’re economical and cover virtually the entire island. On one journey, I got to the fish-tail of the island and caught the ferry across to Gozo, only in time to come back again. The islands comprise, Malta, Gozo, Comino, Cominotto and Filfla, comprising about 313 square km.

Some years later, in 1974, I was drafted to the RN Hospital, Mtarfa and lived with my new bride Jennifer in the city of Rabat, overlooking the verdant valley, the hospital in plain sight. Here, I conjured up the first ideas for a modern-day vampire novel set in Malta. Life, work and other commitments meant I didn’t progress with it.

Malta has museums of old bones, rocks, and pottery that tell of early times. In about 3,800 BC stone-age man lived in the rocky countryside in caves. His life was dominated by the sun which he saw rise early from the sea and soar overhead until it finally settled again into the sea at night. Birth and rebirth. The climate combined with the daily sun provided a bountiful gift. So to perpetuate this cycle they erected temples to the Goddess of Fertility. Using simple stone tools they built complex edifices of massive stone blocks at Hagar Qim, Mnajdra and Ggantija. At Hal-Saflieni they cut into soft rock, creating the underground temple of the Hypogeum.

As the centuries progressed, sailors, travellers and tradesmen emerged, and the island was on their route of exploration and trade. The first documented history of the islands was about 1400 BC, when Phoenician galleys carrying 200 men each sailed into harbour. They brought with them their language and customs. The galley designs still can be seen in the luzzu fishing boats that work at sea, as well as the dhajsa (diso in naval parlance) that served as water taxis in the harbour.

Malta was invaded time and again – Greeks, Etruscans and Carthaginians, amongst others. Then around 200 BC the Romans arrived. Under the Romans the islands flourished and it was during this period that the apostle Paul was on his way for trial in Rome when he became shipwrecked, cast ashore on Malta’s northern coast. He stayed for three months and began the long tradition of Christianity that is still evident wherever you look on the islands; apparently, they have a church for every day of the year.

By 800 AD the Arab empire was expanding and the islands came under their rule; it was a peaceful transition. The Arabs brought new farming techniques, shrubs and trees that would transform the land. Barren fields were altered, becoming fertile, with abundant vegetation. This rich period lasted almost 200 years until Roger the Norman took Malta to make it the southernmost outpost of the Norman conquest of Europe. Many fortifications still found on the island hark back to this time.
By 1530 the islands had passed into the fiefdom of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. He granted the islands to the Order of St John, who’d recently been driven out of Rhodes by the armada of Suliman the Magnificent. He asked the Knights for rent, one falcon a year.

The knights strengthened the fortifications, especially around Grand Harbour.

In May 1565 the Turkish fleet arrived; 200 ships carrying 40,000 troops and a battery of artillery. Facing them mustered 700 knights and 7,000 Maltese volunteers and mercenaries. Defeat seemed inevitable. Brave defenders held on for four months until a relief force arrived from Sicily. The Turks fled for home, an utterly broken force, having sustained a loss of more than 30,000 men.

In case the islands were again invaded, fortifications continued, and the city was renamed Valletta in honour of the great Grand Master, La Vallette, who had repulsed the Turks.

By the end of the 18th century, the knights had mostly forgotten their religious calling and taken to a life of luxury and decadence. In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte sailed into the harbour on his way to conquer Egypt. The knights surrendered without a fight, and the order was dissipated. The Maltese soon found that their new French overseers were merely intent on pillaging the islands, so the Maltese sought the aid of the English. In 1800, Nelson blockaded the harbour and the French garrison surrendered. This ushered in 160 years of British rule.

That’s a very brief history of the islands. It’s rich in prehistoric temples, neolithic sculptures and grand old cities like the silent city of Mdina, which was begun in Roman times. Many historical or fantasy TV and movie films have used these places as backdrop, not least Gladiator and Game of Thrones.


Once retired to Spain, I found time at last to concentrate on the novel I’d always wanted to write. The intervening years meant that I could do the story justice. This became Death is Another Life. I have also written the screenplay of the book.

A lengthy flashback to 1573 in my novel features two knights who succumb to the wiles of a female vampire and become undead as well. They survive to the present day. A small excerpt:

“Indeed,” he said, pressing her hand on his chest, where she felt his heart beating. “I’m one of the undead. But we’re in unknown territory, my dear. Though I have lived long, I still crave to live longer.”
Maria shook her head. “I’m finding it hard to get my head round this. I mean, you’re over 400 years old –”
“Yes, and the sunlight plays havoc with my skin. I have to use barrier creams.”
She started. “Your reflection–”
“Yes, what about it?”
“You have one!”
He laughed, the sound echoing. “A myth. Some laws of physics can’t be broken by the supernatural.”
“Garlic – does it repel you?”
“Only if I hadn’t eaten it at the same meal as you.”
“Your skin – you mentioned barrier creams. Does that mean–?”
“No, sunlight won’t turn me into a pile of dust. It will age my skin, though.” He stroked his chin and grinned. “And as this skin has to last me quite a few centuries, I’d rather it didn’t suffer too much. I’m more fortunate than those sufferers of porphyria, who are confined to a life of darkness; anything stronger than a 40-watt lamp and the skin will shrink under scalding blisters. Necrosis of the skin is not uncommon. Acute varieties of the ailment can be very painful.”
“That rings a bell. I think it’s treated with blood. In fact, wasn’t porphyria used as a scientific explanation to support the existence of vampires?”
He nodded. “A pint or two of heme can ease the symptoms. Yes, heme as in hemoglobin.” He smiled. “Of course, there’s no basis in fact that porphyria is in any way related to vampirism.”
She couldn’t resist an exasperated, “Are any of the stories true about vampires?”
“Some.” 

I’ve used real places in the islands for the dramatic scenes, whether that’s the impressive church in Mosta, with its unsupported dome, the silent city of Mdina, the prehistoric sites of Mnajdra, Hagar Qim, and  Ghar Dalam. The fascinating streets of Valletta, the delightful karozzin carriages that pose a lethal threat, the salt pans on Gozo, all figure in the book, as do Gozo’s church of miracles at Ta Pinu and the eerie Calypso’s Cave. Combined with the vampirism is black magic, of the Dennis Wheatley variety, dark and ugly, even touching upon the ‘the Buxen’ of 1778 in Venice.
Jennifer and I have been back to Malta a number of times. It’s a fascinating destination and I can highly recommend it – without the black magic and vampires, of course!

Find out more about Nik and his book at his website


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Hip pip USA

It's quite popular to knock the USA. And there is no doubting that politics there has got into an awful mess, and from Europe it's very difficult to understand why there is such an aversion to universal health care, or such a love for the gun. But I feel in our relationship with America we are in danger of falling into that dangerous trap of relationships where you always spend time niggling and pointing out fault and never find time to say how great the other person is. 
I say this because we shouldn't forget there's a lot to like about America. Pretty well every American I've met has been a warm, friendly, helpful person, and I'm delighted to count a lot of Americans among my online friends and/or readers of my books. 
There's a lot to be said too for American culture. We might moan about Hollywood's attitude to the rest of the world and occasional schlockiness, but the fact is the US makes some great films, music, TV shows and more. You won't hear me moaning about Halloween or school proms being imported over here - I think they work well and are fun. And no one could doubt the huge contribution the US has made to science and technology.
Then there's American food. I love a proper hamburger, good Tex Mex is probably amongst favourite cuisine... And I could go on at length. (Of course there are aberrations like US chocolate and spray cheez (sic), but I'm talking about the good US food).
So don't just point out the problems, inevitable with any foreign affair. Remember the good side of the United States as well.

Image from Wikipedia