Looking back a long (long) way to my physics degree, special relativity was one of my favourite subjects. It's weird and wonderful enough to be amazing, but (unlike general relativity) the maths is relatively easy. Don't worry though, I'm not going to throw equations at you - I just wanted to share one of the remarkable paradoxes of relativity. I've seen paradoxes defined as contradictions that can't be true, but I think a much more appropriate definition for physics is situations that appear to involve a mind-boggling contradiction, that the physics tells us really is the way things are. And special relativity is full of them. This particular one below I hadn't seen before, and I picked up from Andrew Stearne's book The Wonderful World of Relativity . (This sounds like a children's book, but actually it's a relativity primer that is probably best appreciated by those about to start a physics course at university, as it's a bit too textbooky ...

I confess I asked for a review copy of this book because it's hard not to get nostalgic about toys as Christmas approaches - waves of James May style nostalgia wash over you. I realized they were onto something good here when I opened the book to flick through it and found I'd read about 25 percent of it before I could force myself to stop. It's just good fun. My suspicions are that the reason a book like this is so attractive is that when we were young (well, at least when I was young) and there were no personal electronic goods to tempt us, toys were the prime objects of our desire. We genuinely used to look into toyshop windows and lust after these things. We used to wait with eager anticipation to see if Father Christmas (none of this 'Santa' rubbish) had delivered on the day. We hadn't been bombarded by give-aways in McDonald's Happy Meals - toys were exciting. Inevitably there are one or two favourites missing. Matchbox and Corgi cars were present,...

There is no doubt that for those interested in popular science in the UK, that the premier magazine to buy is New Scientist . I can say this with firmness as they've just published their collection of 'popular science worth giving this Christmas': I draw your attention particularly to the penultimate book on the 'shelf. Of this we read: Inflight Science : Brian Clegg, Icon Books - Everything you ever wanted to know about the science of flying - from the terrible taste of tepid in-flight tea to how we manage to defy gravity in a pressurised aluminium cylinder.  What can I say? Excellent taste guys. (And some of the other choices are pretty good too.)

If I'm honest I'm not a great fan of zombie movies (I even found Sean of the Dead a little hard going). Partly it is because I find gore-based horror sickening and in no sense entertaining. (I have to look away in bits of Casuality .) For me a great horror film is one that can scare you without showing you anything gross. And then there's the usual problem with zombie movies of the slow moving predator that somehow the prey can never manage to run away from. However, I can't deny the popularity of zombies, whether they're turning up in civil defence planning, variants of Jane Austen or in the government. So I was very interested when 'Dr Austin' provided me a copy of his Zombie Science 1Z . This is rather a neat idea - Austin Low (the real name of Dr Austin) is a Scottish performer who specializes in comedy, working with children and science. He performs a spoof lecture on 'zombieology' and this is the book of the lecture. The idea is to take t...

There's a lot to love about the new TV advert for the UK's electrical/electronic retailers of last resort PC World and Curry's. The pastiche of Star Wars is rather well done. The landing craft is believable and there's some nice acting like the almost-entirely-suppressed wince when the manager's car is crushed. Darth Vader is pretty good too. However, have they really thought through the picture this ad puts across? Here are the key messages I pick up: Our shops are run by an evil empire - buy things here and you are funding evil Our training involves fear and peril Our attitude to customer service takes its lead from Darth Vader, a (fictional) mass murderer and war criminal Our staff are massed mindless automata of a controlling state We are the bad guys All in all, is this really the image that they want? Back to the drawing board, I think. The version shown is the 'Director's Cut' which is slightly longer than the advert as broadcast

A review by some bloke I know a bit about reviews. The first paid writing I ever did was a review for PC User magazine of a brand new shiny piece of software called Excel . I quite liked it. There followed a number of years writing reviews of business software, then computer games (which really is money for old rope) and finally books. These days, apart from reviewing for www.popularscience.co.uk and for my blog, I do a fair number of book reviews for print publications from Wall Street Journal to Nature . And I have noticed a worrying trend. Probably because of the increase of easy communication through websites and social networking, people rather expect to be able to get in touch with a reviewer after reading their review. And a rapidly increasing number of authors are dropping me an email. I put these emails on a scale, from 'appreciated' to 'not a good move', and sadly there are rather too many down the bottom end. Here's how they look: Appreciated - a...

I've been revisiting post-apocalyptic Britain. (Any poor camera work was an attempt at Blair Witch style immediacy. It says here.) There's something about the cold, heartless autumnal sun that makes it particularly appropriate for one man and his dog to feel like the last survivors in a post-apocalyptic world. It's all very sci fi. But Goldie doesn't care. There might be rabbits still.

I'm the one on the right I'm inspired to write this by a point made in a discussion about the Sepp Blatter/racism in football argument on our local radio station. The host, Mark O'Donnell, recalled a diversity meeting where he asked if it was any different to be insulting to someone because they're black and because they have red hair. He didn't say what the answer was, but I think it is a genuinely important question. I admit, I'm biassed. You might not believe it now, but when I was younger I had very red hair. (And, as you can see, curly.) And I did get regular abuse because of it. Lots of name calling and nasty little remarks and even stone throwing once. I honestly can't see why there is any difference between racial abuse and this. (In fact, technically it is racial abuse, as red hair is a Celtic racial characteristic.) In saying this, I am not in any sense suggesting that racial abuse is okay because somehow it's 'just ban...

Aww, cute. Apparently it's stuffed. You might be surprised that some of the most entertaining press releases I get come from the Institute of Physics . I love them dearly, but just hearing the name 'Institute of Physics' you might think they're a bit po-faced. The reality is quite different, as reflected in the latest release, a doozy entitled Could lemmings be involved in regulating our climate? According to a paper published in the IoP's Environmental Research Letters, the greening of the Arctic may not be down to global warming alone. Although lemmings eat grass and sedge, when they are present in an area these plants actually increase their hold. There are a number of suggestions why, but the important point is that a sudden burst of extra green cover isn't necessarily a sign of climate change if there are lemmings present. I think this is quite fun, though they could have done better. The opening paragraph of the press release says: The mention of...

Faced with the question 'When does marketing become lying?' many of those who are suspicious of capitalism and business are likely to come up with the knee jerk response 'Is there a difference?' But that's not fair. Marketing is a perfectly legitimate and sensible activity. You would have to be stupid not to want potential customers to see your product or service in the best light - and as soon as you aspire to this, you are thinking of marketing. Unfortunately sometimes marketing crosses the line into deception. I posted quite a while ago about a marketing campaign where apparently hand-written post-it notes were attached to fake newspapers describing a trainer's work. I've also complained to advertising standards a couple of times about advertising that I think crosses the line. In both cases they didn't agree. One involved paper junk mail for a charity where the envelope implied it contained important personal information and it didn't. The o...

I sometimes get sent to read a book that doesn't fit with www.popularscience.co.uk but that I want to tell the world about. Such a book is The Etymologicon . I ought to get a disclaimer out of the way - this title is published by Icon , the same people who publish my Inflight Science , but don't worry, I've slagged off their books in the past. As the name sort of suggests, this is a book about where words come from, which as a writer I'm a sucker for - but anyone should find it fun. It's light, entertaining and fascinating. Did you know for instance that 'pool' as in pooling resources and playing pool has nothing to do with water and everything to do with chickens (poulets en France).This is really one of those books where you have to fight hard to resist telling anyone in earshot little snippets every five minutes. Any moans? Just occasionally I lost interest a tad, but it quickly picked up again and the flowing structure of little chapters meant tha...

Working an audience at Blackwell's, Oxford Something that's regular asked over on the Litopia website is why authors are expected to work at marketing their books (surely that's what publishers get such a large chunk of the income for?) and what authors should realistically be expected to do. The simple answer to the first part is because your book is more important to you than it is to them. I'm not saying that the publisher doesn't love it, but they've got to share that love across however many books they are publishing this season. You just have the one. It's not that the publisher won't do stuff. They will put a lot of effort into trying to get the book reviewed and mentioned in the media (including sending out typically 100-200 review copies). They will look for opportunities for you to appear at festivals and similar gatherings. They may, if it's a big book, set up a website. But don't expect too much. Specifically they are very u...

    I've always been interested in nanotechnology. In part it's because it winds up the Soil Association, who really don't like it. But mostly because there's something fascinating about technology that uses components that are verging on the quantum scale. And there's the 'Fascinating Voyage/Incredible Shrinking Man' aspect of seeng the world differently when looking from a very small perspective. As Richard Feynman said in a piece on the subject, there's plenty of room at the bottom. Although the pinups of nanotechnology are nanobots, which for the moment remain more comfortable in science fiction than in a manufacturing plant, the everyday uses are both more mundane and more realistic. Probably the most widely used at the moment is in sunblock, which makes use of nanoparticles to block the nasty UV, but I rather like the look of a nanotechology being used to make trainers and other flexible materials water repellant. Let's face it, there's n...

An award that does not get anyone sued This is a very sad story from the world of writing. A couple of years ago a company set up an awards scheme for British writers called the Brit Writers Awards. Their company's business was making money from helping starting writers, but the awards appear to have been genuinely to support new writers, and the first ones went well. I really have no problem with their aiming to make money from the services they offer to authors if they're upfront about it. Unfortunately, after a couple of years, things started going a little wrong. I have no information on what happened, but my suspicion is that they weren't making enough money out of the business to keep things going properly. At this point, when people were starting to get disappointed and suspicious, a well respected authors' site published some comments about this situation - only to be threatened with legal action. This really isn't good enough. The people running the ...

One of my fun emails this morning I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets deluged with a daily dose of spam, though I probably get more than most as a reward for having one of my email addresses on my website. On the whole I just delete it without a moment's thought. It's part of the background that I don't really notice, like breathing. I have to admit I was caught out once. I had just done something on eBay (can't remember what) and at just the right timing a spam email arrived asking me to log into eBay to check a query from my buyer. I fell for it for about 30 seconds, then hurriedly got into the proper eBay and changed my password. As far as I know nothing resulted. However, when I'm in a less easy-going mood I want to get my own back. Take just a few of today's batch. When I get told that I have 'irregular activity on my Internet banking account' at Barclays or HSBC (or some American bank I've never heard of) I want to take the ...

I've finally realized who is responsible for the current financial mess in Europe - it's J. K. Rowling. I think that the malevolent influence of her Gringotts Bank has leaked out of novel-space and is corrupting the real world. Let's look at the evidence. The way Rowling's wizarding world works is to take some aspect of the real world and twist it in such a way that it becomes odd, strange and lacking real-world logic. Just look at what has been happening with Italy lately. The financial community has concerns that Italy may not be able to pay its debts. What's the logical thing to do in such circumstances? Obviously lighten the load a bit. Perhaps temporarily reduce the interest rates they have to pay. So what do the financial wonks do? Put their interest rates up. Oh, yes, that will help them stay solvent. Logical? Only if you think quidditch makes any sense. If this kind of mad, fairytale behaviour isn't enough to convince you, just look at the rating a...

On the way to the corner shop (picture not same day) I was toddling down to our corner shop, aka the Asda Walmart superstore on Sunday on a beautiful (if chilly) blue skies morning, wondering why anyone ever drives to the supermarket if they live as close as I do. It was so much nicer to walk. At least, that's what I thought on the way. Coming back, carrying everything for a Sunday roast plus milk, cans of Coke etc. I felt like a decidedly overloaded beast of burden. Usually, though, I manage fine, using the supermarket as a corner shop and just buying what I can easily carry. It means I go more often, but I can walk and feel smugly green. The only thing is, I'm not really encouraged to do this. Asda has a deal that if you spend £40 you get £5 off your next shop - but unless you are buying high value items, it's hard to spend more than about £20 and carry it home. This isn't just an Asda problem. All the main supermarkets have deals where you have to spend £40, 5...

A simulation of a Higgs discovery. Allegedly. The recent kerfuffle about faster-than-light neutrinos has stirred an old concern in my mind. One of the essentials of good science is being able to replicate the results. Any particular experimental setup can always mislead those using it because they get something wrong that they don't realize. This is why the neutrino guys have asked other experimenters to try to confirm what they have found. A classic lesson in the dangers of relying on a single experimental setup is the one that emerges from the work of Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons. They were the people behind the cold fusion debacle in 1989. This was, as far as I can tell, a serious experiment by good scientists. They got some amazing results from their single experimental setup then did something stupid. Instead of attempting to publish in a journal and get peer review, they went straight to the press. There are two reasons this was stupid. It was partly because it...

As many a comedian-turned-writer has found to his or her cost, writing good humorous fiction is a whole different level of difficulty to simply being funny on stage. I can count on the fingers of one hand the authors who have consistently managed to combine genuinely funny writing with style and readability. Wodehouse, of course, has to be one of those digits. (But don't get me started on so called humorous Booker Prize nominees - they wouldn't know funny if it bit them.) And one chubby finger surely must be allocated to John Mortimer and Rumpole of the Bailey. Mortimer wasn't the first to combine the law and humour. There was a lot of gentle amusement to be had from Henry Cecil's series of law-based novels like Brothers in Law . Cecil's was observational humour. His stories were based on experiences real barristers might go through, just exaggerated to bring out the funny side. Rumpole , on the other hand, is full scale legal pantomime, bringing on full scale lau...

Please don't ask why they're watching an HD microwave I was privileged to be one of the first people in the UK to see broadcast HD TV in action at Sky's launch of their HD box many years ago. At the time very few TVs were HD ready - now it's the majority. Yet there was a question I was bursting to ask at Sky's event that still applies when you see HD and Blu-Ray being pushed today. What I couldn't understand was why Sky didn't show HD alongside normal TV, so you can see how much better it was. They kept going on about the extra detail and clarity and brilliant picture, so I asked this at their launch why we didn't see that side-by-side comparison. They came out with some technie-wechnie excuse for why they couldn't show both images simultaneously. But there was a much better reason for their decision. Just go into a TV showroom and look at all the TVs showing HD and Blu-ray. Again, why isn't there a clear comparison so we know it's wor...

For many years my definitive address book and diary have resided on my computer. I really can't remember when I last used one of those paper things. The problem with this was that when I was out at a meeting, I couldn't check my diary, so had to cross my fingers and hope, if necessary ringing up to modify an appointment later. Since having the iPhone (and more recently the iPad) things had improved significantly, because every time I synchronized my mobile devices they got up-to-date copies of diary and address book, so when I was out and about I had access to these crucial resources. They might be a touch out of date, but essentially it was all there. What's more I now had extra backups of this essential data - and unlike users of a mobile phone with a conventional, unsynchronized address book I would never lose my phone numbers. In the last week, Apple has launched iCloud, and with it my situation has changed again - and more fundamentally than I first thought. The mi...