Brian Clegg's Blog, page 152

Christmas slow-down

As happens every year, I'm afraid blog posting is going to get rather erratic over the next couple of weeks. Many apologies - but I will try to appear as often as time is available. The trouble is, with the dual requirements to

a) Rush around the house like mad clearing up because 'Someone* is coming round.' and

b) Indulge in far too much eating and drinking and watching TV that would be painful the rest of the year but is somehow right at the festive time

there really isn't enough time to blog as well.

So, in honour of my choir, which did an excellent job of the carol service on Sunday, I'll leave you with one of my favourite carols instead (this, incidentally isn't my choir):



* Not a euphemism for Santa Claus or Father Christmas. Just someone.

Science jokes bode well

There's been quite a lot of physics in the news lately, what with the faster than light (ish) neutrinos and the possibility of a sighting of the Higgs boson (not to mention a rumoured sighting of Brian Cox). It's rather nice - it even makes up for the BBC's nautical version of the goings on at CERN, repeatedly calling the elusive particle a Higgs bosun. (It's named after a guy called Bose, folks. Get with the plot.)

A very welcome sign of the interface between physics and the real world are the physics jokes doing the rounds, no longer confined to geeks and nerds.

You will all have seen (ad nauseam) A barman says 'We'll have no faster than light particles in here.'
A neutrino walked into a bar.

... But how about (via Calum Scott) this?: Argon walked into a bar. The barman says 'We don't serve noble gasses.' Argon doesn't react..

And thanks to Mark O'Donnell at BBC Wiltshire for this cracker: A Higgs boson goes into a church on Christmas Eve but the vicar says: 'Sorry, we don't allow Higgs bosons into our service.' The Higgs boson replies: 'But how else are you going to have Mass?'

All in all excellent stuff, though I have to say there's a lot of exclusion going on in these jokes...

Off the shelf makes sense

A shelf something could easily be got offWe hear in the news that our military has wasted around £1 billion failing to come up with an armoured vehicle so had to buy off the shelf. That piece instantly transported me back to my days at British Airways.

We got involved in an EU project to design a better check-in system. Great idea - check-in systems were incredibly fast, but had a terrible user interface. We went through months and thousands of pieces of paper in the set up process and finally got to the first real stage. And the Euro-powers-that-were told us the first thing we needed to do was design a computer terminal. From scratch. So that we had the best equipment for the job. We pulled out. If you want a way of interacting with a computer you grab a PC of the shelf. To design such hardware from scratch was ludicrous.

Firstly it would have been extremely expensive. I think the cost per unit was four or five times that of an off-the-shelf PC. Secondly all this time, effort and money could at best produce maybe a five percent enhancement in terms of matching our exact requirements. And most important of all, that 'at best' was never going to happen. The fact is that after years of deliberation by committee we would end up with a worst of all worlds device that was worse than the PC was back when we first started, let alone today's model.

Of course there are circumstances when off-the-shelf isn't the answer. But my experience with BA and other organizations (particularly public ones, or ex-public ones) is that many people have a ridiculously strong urge to build something bespoke that provides nowhere near the benefits that would be needed to outweigh the vast increase in cost over off-the-shelf. It wastes time, it wastes effort and very often you end up with something worse. My suspicion is that this is true of most MoD purchasing.

Now, time for my cup of coffee. Should I use an off-the-shelf kettle, or design something myself that will end up taking three months to build, will cost £527.47 and will start leaking after two weeks use. Hmm. Difficult one. Better get a committee together...

Get drawn into a book

Another of the books in the seriesWe all like the feeling of being immersed in a book that we're reading. You could say that you get drawn into the book. Now there's a chance to have this happen literally.

It's a rather fun idea from my UK publisher Icon. They produce the pocket-sized 'Introducing, a graphic guide' books, which combine punchy text with artist-created illustrations. You can see the kind of thing in this sneak peak of Introducing Relativity, though I have to say that the illustrations in the new book are much crisper and better drawn than these appear to be in the sample. Icon is running a competition to get a cameo role by being drawn in a new book by a well known popular science author (ahem), Introducing Infinity. So the winner will have themselves drawn as one of the figures in an image illustrating one of the pages.

To enter all you have to do is summarize a topic that the Introducing series covers in 100 characters in a tweet which contains both the hashtag #beinabook and the link http://tinyurl.com/bpal8od (that's just a link to their competition page). Simples, as all the best meerkats say. The closing date is 5pm GMT on Thursday 5th January 2012. The winner (judged most amusing and accurate by Icon Editorial Director Duncan Heath and me - sadly bribes are not allowed) appears in the book, while the 25 runners up get a free copy of an Introducing book.

That should be enough to enter, but to find out more see Icon's page on the competition, and to see the range of topics, here's a list of their books.

Turner tat

They thought if they did it in Gateshead no one would noticeLast week was Turner Prize time again (sorry for the delay in commenting on this, but another artform, Playboy , seems to have got in the way). Yes, it was that annual opportunity for those who have the suspicion that much of the arts is pretentious claptrap to have a field day.

The slightly surprising discovery was that I really liked Martin Boyce's winning exhibit Do Words Have Voices. Admittedly I haven't seen it for real, but from what I've seen in photos/ on the TV it is very impressive, and certainly no pile of bricks or dirty bed.

However the arts community can't yet emerge from its bunker grinning with relief. ('I say, Brian Clegg liked it. Can you believe it? Now we can have a happy Christmas!') Because I still heard a load of posing garbage spouted about it on the TV and radio.

What particularly got me was the way the arty types were saying of various entries (including the winner) 'Of course, only those in the know will appreciate this.' Apparently you have to be one of the cognoscenti to get anything out of these 'art works' because understanding them is all about spotting subtle references. If that is true, then what we are dealing with is not art, it's an in-joke. The whole point of art is to communicate. If the art doesn't do that unless you get the in-jokes, it's crap art. End of.

Picture from Wikipedia

My photo is in Playboy

Don't get too excited now, but my photograph has appeared in Playboy magazine. (December issue if you're interested.) Here it is:
Okay, not necessarily what you were thinking of, but that's definitely my photo and you can take my word for it that it's a cutting from Playboy, specifically the edition shown here.

I must confess that I have never bought a copy of Playboy (no, honestly), so I was always very dubious about those people who claimed that they only bought it for the articles - but I must admit there was a lot more text in it than there were dubious photographs (and they were relatively tasteful). And, of course, all the great writers had pieces published in this august journal.

As the 'playbill' intro suggests, what is featured is a piece adapted from How to Build a Time Machine , so if you're a regular Playboy reader (for the articles, of course), you can get a bit of a preview of some of the material on offer. They've done quite a dramatic job with the opening spread, as you'll see with part of it below (though the real thing looks more impressive). I don't know if they have different versions of the magazine worldwide, but it's certainly in the US edition.

Goodbye Mr Higgs

The only Higgs definitely spottedOr not. There have been a lot of rumours flying around the physics world as to whether or not the latest batch of info from CERN, released tomorrow, would include a sighting of the infamous Higgs boson. Frankly, as rumours go they don't have the same bite as a good sex scandal, but, hey, this science.

The search for the Higgs is, of course, one of the main justifications for building the LHC. This is a hypothetical particle that may be responsible for giving some of the other particles their mass. But something that the newspapers don't seem to grasp is that the LHC would be just as much a success if it showed that the Higgs doesn't exist. Personally, I'd prefer it if it doesn't.

There are bits of physics which have a kind of neat, natural simplicity. This doesn't necessarily mean that the maths is simple. I would include the notoriously tricksy general relativity in this class. But quite a lot of the more recent physics depends very heavily on complex, intertwined sets of mathematical conjecture - and I really don't like that. My not liking it doesn't make it wrong, but I would prefer it if the whole tangled structure was brought crashing down and someone came up with a more satisfying solution.

So part of me will be happy if the Higgs gets pinned down, because at least we will be making progress - but that happiness will be accompanied by a deep sigh. Because the alternative, whatever it turns out to be, could be more exciting - and much more approachable. Is that irrational? Quite possibly. But it doesn't stop me hoping that they don't find the Higgs boson.

Image from Wikipedia

Reach for the aqua fortis

It's Royal Society of Chemistry podcast time again.

Although chemists can devise some impressively catchy names –'photon', for example was coined by the chemist Gilbert Lewis – the standard naming conventions of chemistry can be a little dull. Nitric acid seems an uninspiring name for such a powerful compound. The old name 'aqua fortis' – literally strong water – has a much more appealing ring to it. Have a listen to find out more about this hugely important industrial compound.

Back to the Future

I know I've mentioned it a bit already, but I'm delighted to say that my latest book, How to Build a Time Machine is now published in the US and available in all good book stores/online. You can read more about it/buy a copy if so inclined at its web page. It also has a Facebook page for those interested/who want to discuss it and the physics of time travel.

Until recently, travelling through time seemed little more than fantasy. But quantum theory and particularly relativity open up ways to make time travel possible - and I still find it remarkable that no physical law prevents it.
How to Build a Time Machine explores our best understanding of time but really concentrates on how to manipulate it. There's the story of a time traveller's convention where no one turned up, and a tour through the remarkable possibilities of real time travel that emerge from quantum entanglement, superluminal speeds, neutron star cylinders and wormholes in space. There's even a physics professor who believes it's possible to build a working general relativity time machine on the desktop. I think it's just a fascinating subject. If anyone in the UK fancies a copy, I'm afraid it doesn't come out here until January (as Build Your Own Time Machine) - but it can already be pre-ordered from Amazon, via the book's web page.
It's a bit soon for reviews (except those sent through a time machine), but here's a couple of early comments:

Brian Clegg conjectures on the world of time and space travel and brings it all beautifully down to earth. Brilliant. - Johnny Ball 

A solid overview of some of the quirkier corners of physics, with an entertaining connection to pop culture. - Kirkus Reviews

Spot on Monbiot

If I'm honest,George Monbiot has not always been my favourite environmental writer. Sometimes in the past he has come across as po-faced and impractical in his ideas. But I wholeheartedly support his Guardian article on Tuesday supporting nuclear energy.

He points out the vast damage the anti-nuclear lobby is doing to the environment. How, for example, the knee-jerk panic of the Germans shutting down their nuclear programme will result in an extra 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere between now and 2020 alone.

He is also brave to point out at least two significant examples of totally spurious information being used to bolster the anti-nuclear cause. One is from an individual selling 'anti-radiation' pills whose claims have been exposed as false, yet whose 'findings' are widely used by anti-nuclear protestors. Another is the ludicrous statistics from Chernobyl, again brandished by the campaigners, claiming amongst other things that deaths from cirrhosis of the liver were caused by the nuclear accident. I was a trustee of a charity working in Belarus, and I can assure you that a much more obvious cause is by far the biggest medical threat there, not radiation.

I love the way Monbiot aligns anti-nuclear protestors with supporters of homeopathy and anti-vaccine campaigners. When misused it's exactly the same kind of dangerous woo. Great stuff, George.

He finishes with details of a fantastic sounding reactor that can produce energy safely and in large quantities from nuclear waste. While I can't believe it's quite the no-brainier he suggests, it sounds amazing. My suspicion is that it will be expensive, as otherwise the government would be biting people's hands off to get it. Yet it certainly sounds the way forward.