I follow the excellent historian and philosopher of chemistry Eric Scerri on Facebook and a recent post of his intrigued me. In it, Eric uses the verb 'discovered' for what Mendeleev did with periodic table. When I queried this, he suggested that the use of the term depended on whether or not you are a realist. But I'm not sure if that's true. Let's take a simpler example, then come back to the periodic table. Specifically, we'll use the star Betelgeuse, the distinctly red one of the four main stars of Orion. If I'm a realist*, then I think there is something real out there that I am labelling Betelgeuse. In good Kantian fashion, I can't know the reality - the 'Ding and sich' - but I can report on the sensory data from Betelgeuse and believe that I am talking about something that really exists. As it exists independent of humanity, we can discover it. However, Betelgeuse is also a class M star on the endearingly random looking stellar cl...

I finish my murderous Christmas roundup with a solid but unimaginative performer. I was wary of reading this as it's part of a long series featuring the 'Sanford Third Age Club', in this case on their Christmas jaunt to a hotel in Leeds, which all sounds a bit twee and forced. But in some ways it was better than my expectations. Let's get the negatives out of the way first. The characters tend to have one or two simple characteristics that drive their behaviour. So, for example, our amateur detective and chairman of the Club, Joe Murray is obsessed with not spending money (he is a Yorkshireman after all) and is very observant. The writing style is workmanlike, but in some places the author forgets 'show, don't tell.' The police are pretty hopeless, apart from anything else in not arresting our amateur at the end after he withholds evidence for a day that he knows has been handled by the killer, loses part of it and handles all the rest repeatedly (admitt...

I'm still on my hunt for the ideal Christmas read for the murder mystery lover... Intriguingly, the presentation of this novel is both accurate and misleading at the same time - it's a quantum superposition of crime. On the one hand, the murder takes place in a vicarage (tick) at Christmas (tick) with lots of snow (tick). And there's no doubt that the title is a homage to Agatha Christie - in fact, the last line of the book is ' Murder at the Vicarage , he thought as he got into the car. He must read it again some time.' However, the setting apart, this is a modern murder mystery with mostly modern characters (I'll mention a couple of exceptions) and a thoroughly up-to-date Britain. Jill McGown skilfully pulls together a plot in which every one of the possible suspects really could have done it - I've not read her books before, but I'll certainly be back for more. Her detectives, as is common these days, have domestic issues, not helped by them havin...

Still on my search for the perfect Christmas murder mystery, my next port of call is with one of the top names in the business, P. D. James. You know when you get a book with just four short stories in at (admittedly relatively meaty ones) that it was intended as a gift book - but in the case of this collection of four Christmas-set P. D. James stories it is certainly a worthy addition to any list of seasonal favourites. There is no doubt that James very deliberately sets out to push the boundaries, and though some of the stories have very traditional, Agatha Christie style country house and snow settings, there is a darker feel here. In two of the stories, she adopts the same approach that Jane Austen used in Northanger Abbey of stepping outside the fictional viewpoint to make knowing remarks on the format to the reader. So, for example, in The Twelve Clues of Christmas , she remarks that Adam Dalgleish felt he was 'involved in one of those Christmas short stories to provide ...

After my disastrous adventure of reading Murder in the Snow , I'm glad to report that I had a much better time with Murder on Christmas Eve . This is a collection of Christmas murder mystery short stories. Generally speaking, murder mysteries don't do so well in short story form as, say, science fiction. It usually takes rather more page count to be a success in this genre, but this collection, from big names in the field, manages to do the job well. It's notable that the Father Brown story is probably the one that works as a pure murder mystery and is significantly longer than most of the others. However, just because many of the others are quite short doesn't mean that they fail as stories, just that they tend to focus on a relatively small element of the 'how could that have happened?' nature and make it work very well indeed. The styles range from the modern touches of Ian Rankin and Val McDermid to a classic little Campion tale from Margery Allingham ...

Image from Wikipedia Over the years many scientists and technologists have admitted that they were inspired to work in their field by Star Trek, but few, if any, would say the same about Star Wars. And yet the same individuals have an almost universal affection for the first trilogy of Star Wars movies. This is because, where Star Trek was solid science fiction, primarily influencing the head, Star Wars won the heart as an epic fantasy that comfortably wore the robe of 1930s pulp sci-fi. And nowhere is that more obvious than with the light saber. Take a look at the technology of Star Trek and you’ll find a whole gallimaufry of items that have already made it to reality, or that are setting future directions. Our smartphones and tablets have left the TV show’s equivalents far behind. Even Siri is a better conversationalist than the Enterprise computer. And while we might not have warp drives or transporters, NASA is giving serious thought to ways of getting around the light speed ...

At Christmas I like to read a good murder mystery, particularly if it has a Christmas theme - I'd not come across Gladys Mitchell before, but I was encouraged by a quote from a Guardian review, likening it to Miss Marple. And the Cotswold setting was attractive, as it's just up the road from where I live. I think I can sum up this book in one word: dire. I can't find a single redeeming feature. Christmas hardly comes into it. The sole Cotswold aspect is mentions of Cirencester and Cheltenham plus a few Mummersetshire accents for the common folk (who are, of course, mostly half-witted). The writing is abysmal. I lost count of the number of times we were told the main character Mrs Bradley 'cackled' or 'leered' - I'm not sure the author knew what these words meant. Certainly they don't make her seem appealing. None of the characters ever becomes more than a cardboard cutout. The plot is poorly thought through, and for page after page everyone is ...

One of the best bits about being an author is the chance to turn up at book festivals (and as a science author, I get a double bite of the cake with science festivals). Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to two very different festivals, each with a very special feel. I've done a couple of the big numbers (Cheltenham and Edinburgh), but for me, small and mid-size festivals like these are far more charming. The first was  Taunton Literary Festival , run in a very friendly, relaxed fashion from Brendon Books, an impressive indie bookshop that mixes new and used books on the shelves with refreshing abandon. As the event was actually in the bookshop, I was expecting a tiny audience, but somehow organiser Lionel Ward managed to cram in a good 60 seats, all of which were filled by an appreciative audience. I've done my  Reality Frame  talk a few times, but never quite so intimately with my audience. I particularly enjoyed a moment when I was waiting to start, sitti...

I had my attention drawn on Facebook to a sad story on the i newspaper's website of a couple who are facing deportation because they misunderstood the over-complex rules for their visa. It is surely essential that a good immigration system has simple and easy to follow rules - this needs sorting. I feel sorry for anyone at the mercy of byzantine immigration rules. However, what also struck me was how carefully phrased the wording of the article was to support a particular viewpoint. Here's the bit in question: With the article's wording, what they did was the apparently harmless 'let the jobs lapse.' But let me rephrase that. The bosses kept on staff for the shortest period necessary to get the visa, then the staff were fired. Two people lost their jobs.  Does that sound as nice and fluffy as 'let the jobs lapse'? It's amazing how the phrasing of the two versions - both arguably factually accurate - can make a lot of differen...

I see a lot about Brexit from friends on social media, of whom the great majority are pro-EU. But much of what's written (on both sides) simply reflects the rhetoric of the debate, rather than proper reasoning. I thought it might be useful to put two, grown-up opposing viewpoints together. I think that Brexit could be beneficial for the UK in the long run, and I’m going to present two arguments for that. I’ve also asked an old friend, Paul Birch, to present the opposite view. In both cases, I want to focus primarily on business and politics. From a business viewpoint, I would suggest that the UK has a better chance to succeed than the EU because the UK is medium-sized. (Don’t believe the ‘Little England’ propaganda – we are still the fifth largest economy in the world.) From my experience in business, I’d say that mid-sized is the best place to be. Too small and you aren’t taken seriously. Too large and you become slow, bureaucratic and unwieldy. Doing deals where 27 dif...