Brian Clegg's Blog, page 19

Am I a discriminating author?

Like all popular science authors, I get my fair share of communications from people sharing with me their new theories, whether they be an alternate theory of gravity or time, or disproving quantum physics. In the old days, these used to come as letters via my publisher - I particularly treasure examples with impressive diagrams such as the one illustrated.

These days, of course, they tend to be emails, but usually my response has to be that I'm a science writer, not a working physicist (or mathematician) and I'm simply not qualified to comment on their theories. Sometimes, though the email is rather different.

The other day, I got one asking me if I was intentionally filling one of my books with 'people of many diverse backgrounds'. It is true that some publishers will request more quotes from women or scientists, with diverse ethnic backgrounds, though when writing a primarily historical book, like my Ten Days in Physics that Shook the World, there is a limited pool of individuals to include. But that wasn't the case with the book I was being asked about. I certainly make sure that I select from the the full diverse set of options when quoting or referring to scientists, but none of the people in this particular book were selected because they weren't old white men, they were chosen because they had something relevant and interesting to say.

My correspondent noted that I had included a gay writer, a trans writer and African-American scientist - as it happens I have no idea about the sexuality of the people he mentions, but it surely is a big 'so what', especially as he had picked out just three from many individuals quoted.

I responded by pointing this out, and was sent back a wider range of individuals I'd quoted, one of whom seemed to have been singled out for being a muslim. I was a bit confused by some other examples, if the problem was 'unnecessary' diversity: he  also appeared to criticise my choice of Lewis Carroll (for being the 'Jimmy Saville of the 19th century'), H. G. Wells for sleeping around and not liking Catholics, and Isaac Newton for being evil in his private life, conspiring to send Catholics to their deaths and stealing other people's ideas.

I don't think we should be selecting scientists or writers to quote (or avoiding them, for that matter) based on their private lives, my personal opinion of the character, their ethnicity or their sex - and I stand by everyone I quoted.

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New book - Biomimetics

My new book, Biomimetics, is now on sale. It looks at the ways in which technology and engineering have been inspired by nature - from the idea for Velcro that came from a burdock burr, to self-healing concrete. As I comment in the book:

This book has turned out to be very different from the one I originally intended to write. The reality of what has happened in this field is at odds with the glossy marketing that refers to it (or, for that matter, practically every book that has been written about it). This lack of following expectation is not a bad thing. Talk to any scientist, and they will tell you that science gets interesting when the world does not behave the way we expect it to. Based on this metric, biomimetics and its implications for our understanding of the use of naturally inspired science and technology in new products and design is very interesting indeed.

Rather than tell you why I think it's wonderful (perhaps with a touch of bias), here's what Publishers Weekly had to say:

In this illuminating study, science writer Clegg investigates how scientists and engineers take inspiration from nature. Highlighting inventions modelled on natural structures and processes, he tells how Swiss engineer George de Mestral got the idea for Velcro from the burrs stuck to his dog’s fur; University of Akron graduate student Arnob Banik created tire treads modelled on the toe pads of tree frogs; and Dutch microbiologist Hendrik Jonkers developed a concrete mix featuring calcium carbonate–producing bacteria capable of filling cracks. Clegg also explores less successful attempts to harness the power of nature and details how Mercedes designed a bulky concept car resembling the build of a box fish, only to realise that “most of the fish’s excellent ability to change direction and dart around came not from its shape... but from the unusual operation of its fins.” Clegg is careful not to overhype biomimetic products (he expresses skepticism toward the claim of the Japanese company Teijin that its Morphotex fabric—which, like peacock tail feathers, gets its colour from how its texture refracts light, rather than from pigmentation—somehow reduces textile waste), but he remains optimistic that the future might hold self-healing iPhone screens and greener energy production. Jam-packed with fascinating ideas, this is a treat for pop science readers.

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You can't carbon offset with trees

Sigh. For reasons I don't entirely understand, I receive emails from Travel Neutral, a company that specialises, according to its website, in 'carbon offset and planet-aware holiday deals' like the one advertised in the image. To be honest, they aren't my kind of holiday firm, because I don't consider going on holiday a good enough reason to fly, but out of interest I followed a link to the company they use for offsetting. 

The good news is that they offer a good range of sensible green schemes from tree planting to renewable energy projects. The bad news is that using these for offsetting is mostly greenwash.

The idea of offsetting is that at the moment we all have to do things that generate greenhouse gasses. So you pay a little money to a scheme that will reduce greenhouse emissions, and this will balance out your contribution to climate change. But unless the amount of money you contribute will reduce carbon emissions (or equivalent) by at least the amount you generated before the next time you fly it's not really offsetting it. To take the example to the extreme, if your offsetting scheme only resulted in a reduction in 100 years time, then it would be totally pointless in terms of dealing with climate change.

While these schemes aren't quite so long term, the amount you pay will go nowhere near to producing an equivalent reduction in any even vaguely equivalent timescale to the flight. It would take a tree, for example, maybe 30 years to reduce carbon levels by the amount emitted for one passenger on a roundtrip long haul flight - in the region of 2 to 3 tonnes. (That's more than a typical UK car emits in a whole year, incidentally.) And most of the benefit would come after the first 10 to 15 years - because saplings don't take in a lot of CO2.

I need to reiterate that this does not mean that tree planting and renewable energy projects are bad things. Far from it. We need far more trees and far more green energy production. By all means support them. But it's magic thinking to believe that by putting a little money into these projects you can wipe the slate clean for your carbon-chugging flights. It won't.

This has been a Green Heretic production. See all my Green Heretic articles here.

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Alchemy (Crime/Historical Fiction) - S. J. Parris *****

Two writers shine when it comes to Tudorbethan murder mysteries: C. J. Sansom for his Shardlake books and S. J. Parris (Stephanie Merritt) for her novels with the unlikely figure of Giordano Bruno as detective. For popular science writers, the historical Bruno is a bit of a problem, as he is often portrayed as a martyr for science, but in reality was a mystic whose ideas were unoriginal and whose execution was for common-or-garden heresy, rather than being ahead of his time on cosmology. But as a detective he makes a great character in the loveable rogue with a conscience tradition. Think a sixteenth century version of Lovejoy (the books, not the TV series), but with less of tendency to kill people. Parris makes great use of this in her series of novels.

This latest, Alchemy, is set in Prague in 1588. The setting, with its contrasts of the Emperor's palace and the conditions of the poor is handled excellently. There's a particular opportunity here to explore some of the oddities of the period - and its biases - both in the bizarre work of the alchemists who feature in a big way, the power of the Catholic Church, and the treatment of the Jewish ghetto, which also play a major part. 

As is often the case in Parris's books, Bruno is a reluctant detective, with a whole range of factions vying against him and providing potential suspects - including a form Catholic inquisitor and his Spanish thugs and the various hangers on hoping for the benefaction of the Holy Roman Emperor, who is generally a weak individual but is challenging the church.

What's great about both Parris and Sansom's books is that they give us all the enjoyment of the immersing in the period you get from a quality historical fiction novel, but at the same time provide us with some fun in trying to work out what's happening with the murder mystery - in this case one that is blamed by some on a golem, neatly tying in with the legend attached to the historical character Rabbi Loew. The one disadvantage Parris has in comparison with Sansom, whose detective is fictional, is that we do know Bruno's eventual fate (just as we did with Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall books), and there's always a slight frisson of 'will this be the last book?' I had to restrain myself from looking up when Bruno was executed (though Parris has confirmed he will have at least a couple more outings).

The only criticism I have is the book is perhaps a little over long - but I had a great time reading it. Parris gives us an engaging and complex mystery to unravel in a dramatically different world from modern Europe.

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The amazing appearing station - big data needs checking

One lesson anyone who has played with AI and big data should learn is that you can't trust it without having some checks in place. The technology can do the grunt work wonderfully - but then it needs verifying. This came to light when ChatGPT was caught making up references - but it can happen in a more subtle way too that is reminiscent to me of a flaw most of us never thought of when we saw Apple's 1987 Knowledge Navigator video.

For those of us not ancient enough to remember it, Knowledge Navigator was a 'view of the future' video from Apple that predated iPads, folding screens and AI. In it, a distinctly smug academic uses a combination of AI, big data and a touch interface to link information about different events in the world to get the big picture. What said smug academic never does is actually check that what he is being shown is correct.

Of course Knowledge Navigator was fantasy - and for those of us who saw it when it came out, it was a genuinely wonderful peek into the future. (Bear in mind that Windows 3, the first really useable version of Windows didn't come out until 1990.) But these days it's easy to duplicate some of what it did using data tools such as 'Google My Maps' and a collection of locations to produce an impressive looking map. This is what was done using a list of UK stations published by the Daily Mirror, where ticket offices are scheduled to close.

When I came across the map online, I thought, out of interest, 'I wonder if my local station (Swindon) is losing its ticket office. I admit I never use the ticket office, but it's a big station and it seemed unfortunate if it were the case. Sure enough, as I zoomed in I saw an indicator by Swindon. But as I zoomed in further (see image at top), I noticed that it was actually to the east of Swindon. When I clicked on it, I was told that it was Wanborough station was closing.

As it happens, I used to live in the village of Wanborough. It has never had a station. The railway line doesn't go particularly near it. But, like many villages, its name is not unique. There is also a village called Wanborough in Surrey between Aldershot and Guildford - and that does have a station. Whoever combined the list of places with a map didn't bother to check for names that could be ambiguous.

I have no doubt that data tools and big data and AI will play bigger and bigger parts in our lives - but like ChatGPT's dodgy references, the mystery of the amazing appearing station underlines that it's likely there will always be a need for a degree of human checking to keep the algorithms and data tools on the right track.

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The problem with science and complexity

Science is wonderful. I'm a science writer, and you'd expect me to say that, but it really is. And when the other day I read an interview with actor Mark Rylance where he spouted a stream of anti-science balderdash, I had to sigh deeply. But we do need to recognise that science also has its limitations - every now and then (for example when Stephen Hawking proclaimed that philosophy was dead because science had covered all its bases), scientists do overreach themselves, and I think the most common reason is when they forget that real world systems tend to be a lot more complex than the models that are used to understand them.

I was reminded of this listening to Tim Harford's excellent Cautionary Tales podcast about the difficulties of attempting to control the weather or the climate. While there is no doubt that we can influence both, the systems are sufficiently complex that we have to be extremely wary of unintended consequences. I was a bit surprised that caution has even been expressed about devices that simply remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (which is, after all, what plants do) - but suggested engineering solutions to climate change such as reflecting back some of the incoming solar energy, or attempting to increase algal growth in the seas are loaded with unknowns and rightly considered not worth the risk at this stage.

The fact is, the second key mantra for all scientists and engineers (the first being 'correlation is not causality') should surely be 'but it's more complicated than that'.

I'm reminded of that old joke (I've told it many times, so excuse the repetition) of a dietician, a geneticist and a physicist discussing how to produce the perfect racehorse. The dietician says 'You've got to monitor and control its diet from birth.' The geneticist says, 'No, it's a matter of studying its bloodline and the animal's genes.' 'Well,' says the physicist, 'let's assume the racehorse is a sphere.'

I do think scientists need to be a little more honest both with themselves and the public in this regard. There is something of a tendency to state as if fact, something that is either a considerable simplification of the real system, or is the current most popular theory, but is not yet supported by experiment or observation. A classic example would be the number of books and articles I read that consider dark matter particles a reality, rather than one of the theories that potentially explains the observed phenomena, even though, as yet, there is no direct evidence for the existence of the particles.

I was reminded of the risk of scientific hubris that comes from extending your field of knowledge to something beyond it, both by Harford's podcast and the recent book Is Maths Real by Eugenia Cheng. In the podcast, we meet Irving Langmuir, a Nobel Prize winner in his specialist area, but someone who, when it came to weather manipulation, ignored both the mantras above. Cheng gives us an excellent view of the nature of pure mathematics, but then makes wild assumptions in assuming her simple mathematical logic can be applied to something as complex (and chaotic) as human relations or history.

This doesn't mean that science is doomed, and we should all adopt as bonkers a view of the world as Mark Rylance. Science has enabled a huge amount of progress in both knowledge and quality of life. But whether we are thinking about the climate, the Earth's biosphere or the latest simulation of a quasi-particle travelling backwards in time (or some other New Scientist-style headline), we could do to acknowledge a little more that we are dealing with complex systems that our limited models are not capable of describing in full detail and that we should proceed with caution.

Image by Tim Johnson from Unsplash

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Review: Why is This a Question? - Paul Anthony Jones ****

There's something cosily appealing about looking into why we use the (mostly written) word in a particular way, which Paul Anthony Jones does in this entertainingly readable little book. It might not interest everyone, but if you are into books (and particularly if, like me, you're a writer), this should be on your wishlist.

The book is structured as a series of questions, and Jones kicks of with a brilliant one, in that it appears simple, but it really isn't: 'What is a word?' He sets up a number of possibilities, only to knock them down with counter-examples and puzzling exceptions. Is, for instance, "that's" one word or two?

Some of the questions work better for me than others. I think Jones is at his best when he's following the main thread of the book, which is on written English and its antecedents. Part of the enjoyment of the book is his frequent deviations along the way, and this will often include detours into one of the languages that has influenced English, such as French, or distinctively different languages - for example those that don't use alphabets to explore the contrasts, but sometimes when he brings other languages in, there can be rather too many examples - there is more coherence when he links other languages to the main theme.

The same reduction in enthusiasm comes from a three variant questions - 'How do we read?', 'How do we speak?' and 'How do we understand?'. Here, Jones deviates from linguistics to biology and the mechanics of these concepts. They are all certainly linked to written language, but felt rather worthy and heavy going in approach when compared with the lighter and more entertaining approach taken to the rest of the questions.

It's the kind of book where it's almost impossible to avoid commenting to someone nearby a fascinating factoid that you have picked up, whether it's concerning a book only containing poems that attempt to provide a rhyme for 'orange', or how stress in spoken English enables us to distinguish between the otherwise audibly identical phrases of which only one is true: 'A crow is a black bird' and 'A crow is a blackbird'. I learned a lot about the way English developed, going all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European language.

Works both as a gift book to someone interested in writing or language and as an enjoyable read in its own right.

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Review: Lavondyss - Robert Holdstock ****

This book is, in effect, a sequel to Holdstock's astonishing fantasy novel Mythago Wood (though the author considered it not a sequel, but rather a story using the same setting with some overlapping characters). It's hard to rate it, as the first half of the book is even better than its predecessor, but then there is a change of gear into part two, which for me doesn't work as well.

Once again, the action centres on Ryhope Wood, a place where ancient woodland has mysterious ties to the past and where interaction between humans and the woodland allows echoes of myth from the far past to become solid and dangerous. The exact setting is unclear - the introduction by Lisa Tuttle says the real world setting is Holdstock's childhood home in Kent - but Mythago Wood puts the location as Herefordshire, while in Lavondyss a local is described as having a Gloucestershire accent. This is even more confusing when Holdstock rather beautifully brings in Ralph Vaughan Williams as a secondary character, but has RVW saying he doesn't know the area, perhaps because Holdstock didn't realise he was born in Gloucestershire (though admittedly he moved away as a young child).

The first part introduces a girl called Tallis in the years up to her being 13: she is deeply fascinated by myth and magic. The way that Holdstock handles her interaction with the local landscape and the importance of names is beautiful. We absolute relate to Tallis's character - but also to the concerns of her parents, who are indulgent of her imaginings but worried by what seem to be growing into an obsession. (It would have been interesting to have seen her story taken in a direction undertaken in one of the episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Buffy's parents have her sectioned because of what appear to be her dangerous fantasies). We can both empathise with Tallis and sympathise with what the parents would be going through.

At the end of part one, Tallis enters Ryhope Wood, and here we get the disconnect. For the rest of the book she is an adult - we only learn of the intervening years in a few references - and becomes much more of a cipher. She is joined by a character from Mythago Wood who never directly appeared in that book, but part two is very much the same kind of quest story within the wood as the first novel, and fails to link us to the characters. They all become somewhat two-dimensional. It doesn't help that there is a really weird section where Holdstock seems to totally forget the distinction between humans and mythagos, putting Tallis through an experience that could only happen to a mythago if Holdstock had been consistent in his world building.

Tuttle says Tallis's story can be hard going at times - I'd say, I'm afraid that part two simply isn't well written. But part one is so good that it's worth having the book for that alone. Not only does it delve into the nature of myth and the sense of place that is so central to good fantasy, it also explores the twin natures of stories and storytelling - Holdstock gives one of the best reflections I've seen of the way that authors can experience story effectively emerging from the ether, almost out of their control.

So, do read it (after Mythago Wood). And you may have a totally different view of part two - but either way, the first half of the book is near-perfection.

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Fantasy vs Science Fiction

On my other blog, Popular Science, I review both popular science books (duh) and science fiction. I squeezed SF into that blog because I reckoned that many people who are interested in science also read science fiction (as, indeed, I am). And if you were to ask me until recently whether I preferred SF or fantasy I would have proudly stated 'science fiction'... but I'm starting to wonder if it's true.

If I had to list my favourite fiction authors, I would certainly mention some SF writers, from Fred Pohl to Adam Roberts, but there would be a strong showing from fantasy novelists. Throughout my teens, my 'go to' author was Alan Garner, and since then the likes of Gene Wolfe, Neil Gaiman and Ben Aaronovitch have featured regularly amongst my best-rated fiction. Recently I’ve rediscovered Robert Holdstock’s remarkable Mythago Wood and picked up on outstanding fantasy titles from current writers, such as The Night Circus. For that matter, some authors more frequently associated with SF, such as Ray Bradbury and Roger Zelazny, probably wrote better fantasy.

There is one big proviso here. Apart from The Lord of the Rings, which I loved from about age 12, I’m never been a fan of swords and sorcery. You know - the humans, wizards, elves and dwarves in a magic world stuff. For me, a really good fantasy has to be anchored in the everyday world. It's the way that normal life and normal people are exposed to something strange and unexpected that makes it great. It’s one of the reasons that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was such good TV. 

I appreciate fantasy isn't everyone's cup of tea, and because it's another step removed from popular science, the reviews will stay here on Now Appearing. But given the proviso that I only really mean a subset of fantasy, I suspect I will have to admit in future that while I'll always love SF, it's possible that I get more enjoyment out of fantasy.

Incidentally, a subscriber to my free weekly email recently complained about what they considered rather a lightweight set of articles, I suspect because there wasn't much on popular science. I make no apology for this post being published in a slightly fantasy-heavy week, as it also features my review of Holdstock's Lavondyss - but please be reassured, I have no intention of abandoning the popular science and SF. The reason fantasy and crime have appeared rather more often recently is that it was my birthday not long ago and I tend to read more non-science titles as a result of what I'm given. This will happen occasionally - but it's not a drift away from my core topics.

Image by Robert Lukeman from Unsplash

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Time travel and manipulating history

Whenever time travel is discussed, the idea of going back and manipulating history comes up. I've written a couple of books about the real science of time travel - How to Build a Time Machine ( Build Your Own Time Machine in the UK) and 10 Short Lessons in Time Travel . One of the main takeaways from these is that while time travel to the future is relatively easy thanks to the special theory of relativity, even without the paradoxes that inevitably arise, getting into the past is practically impossible, even though it is not strictly prohibited by the laws of physics. Yet I have discovered an interesting time travel related development involving manipulating the past.

Of course, changing our view of the past by re-writing history is nothing new. Arguably, everyone who writes a successful history book does this to some degree. And now that the internet is the major source of information for much of the world, comprehensively removing something from the net has become something of an industry for those who feel the need to manipulate history.

The other day, I was looking for a picture of a small monument, erected in Perth, Australia in 2005. It has always been of interest to me because it was specifically related to time travel. I've pulled up a picture of this structure several times in the past: my aim was to make sure that I had the exact wording on the metal plaque fixed to the monument. But when I searched online yesterday, I could find no reference to it. Its Wikipedia page has been deleted. Searching on Google for every possible combination of wording I could think of came up with nothing. Some might suspect men in  black were responsible, but I can only assume that the good people of Perth have decided that the existence of this monument made them a target of humour and so have expunged it from online history.

The reason the plaque is of interest to those writing about the science of time travel is that the it locates in time and space one of a few examples where attempts have been made to provide a destination point for travellers from the future. Other were a Baltimore, Maryland event held in 1982, hosted by a group called the Krononauts (they were taking it seriously, then), a time travellers' convention at MIT in 2005 and a time travellers' party thrown by Stephen Hawking that never had much hope of getting attendees given that it is both recorded as being in 2009 and 2012, may or may not have been at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge, and Hawking was supposed to have provided 'precise GPS coordinates', but they are very difficult to find.

The Perth plaque was an altogether more solid concept. The monument described the location and time for 'Destination Day' where it as hoped time travellers would turn up. As I feel, for art's sake, that this time travel memento ought to be better preserved, here is the full text from the plaque:

In the event that the transportation of life from the future to the past is made possible this site has officially been designated as a landmark for the return of inhabitants of the future to the present day.

Destination Day

12 Noon (UTC/GMT + 8 hours)

31st March 2005

Forrest Place, Perth 6000, Western Australia

Latitude – Longitude

31.9522 – 115.8591

We welcome and await you

The question is, if they have expunged the Destination Day plaque from history because no one came (surely they would have left it there if time machines had turned up)... is its removal from easily accessible record why no one came?

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