by Andy Weir 'I think my job is to solve the Petrova problem . . . . in a small lab, wearing a bedsheet toga, with no idea who I am, and no help other than a mindless computer and two mummified roommates.' In Project Hail Mary, Dr Ryland Grace is a thirty-something high school …
Category: Science
In Black and White
The Joys of the Grand Piano [Perfection of Art and Science] by Andrew G. Lockhart I have two confessions to make: I love pianos, most pianos; I hate digital keyboards. When mankind has spent three centuries designing and building a product that is, at once, delightful to look at, a joy to play and …
The Order of Time
by Carlo Rovelli A Review 'Things are transformed one into another according to necessity, and render justice to one another according to the order of time.' [Anaximander c. 570 BCE] This delightful little book makes us look again at many of the concepts we take for granted. In childhood, we learn to think of reality …
Brave New World
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan A Review 'We create a machine with intelligence and self-awareness and push it out into our imperfect world ..... such a mind soon finds itself in a hurricane of contradiction. We may be confronting a boundary condition.' I was delighted to learn in yesterday's news that a portrait of …
Conscious!
Emily Eternal by MG Wheaton 'I sweep across the world like the break of dawn.' Emily Eternal combines cutting edge technology, speculative science and scientific fantasy in a racy thriller that doubles as a crazy love story. At the same time, it digs into the human psyche searching for answers to age-old questions. Does free …
And the Lesson for Today is ….
‘The bitter truth is that the world has simply become too complicated for our hunter-gatherer brains.’ 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari Disillusionment; Work; Liberty; Equality; Community; Civilisation; Nationalism; Religion; Immigration; Terrorism; War; Humility; God; Secularism; Ignorance; Justice; Post-Truth; Science Fiction; Education; Meaning; Meditation: What meaning do the words in this …
One Planet – One Human Race
Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking ‘When we see the earth from space, we see ourselves as a whole …. with a compelling message; one planet, one human race.’ Stephen Hawking’s final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, makes a few optimistic predictions. It also hands out some chilling warnings. …
Anaesthesia
The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry Occasionally, a walk through a bookshop will throw up unexpected delights. Browsing the new and bestseller shelves in my local shop recently, I was surprised to see a book entitled The Way of All Flesh. I immediately thought of Samuel Butler, and wondered why on earth his …
Computers Are Human Too!
Origin by Dan Brown A Review Dan Brown has established a very successful formula for his thrillers, entwining religious and scientific ideas with art and conspiracy theory. His latest, Origin, published in 2017, is no exception. It addresses two questions, posed by both science and religion for hundreds of years (in the case of religion, …
Only Too Brief
A Tribute to Stephen Hawking What is time? If the Universe began with a big bang, what happened before? Was there a before? What are black holes, and why aren't they really black? These are some of the questions that Professor Stephen Hawking addressed during his lifetime, questions that are profoundly philosophical as well as …
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