I've just had published a fun little book of 50 misunderstandings and misconceptions in science. Lightning Often Strikes Twice  looks beyond this tip of the iceberg when it comes to what may of us wrongly believe about the world around us. Whether it's word of mouth, myths you've read about online, or misremembered facts from school, we're bombarded by misconceptions about science all the time. In a light way, the book explains the real science and theory that debunks these popular myths. From fears about the exponential growth of the human population to the misapprehension that we are all descended from chimpanzees or gorillas, the book separates science fact from fiction. For your delectation here's one of the 50 articles in the book: A coin dropped from the top of the Empire State Building can kill you The Empire State Building doesn’t even make it into the fifty tallest buildings in the world any more. At the time of writing, it’s only the seventh tallest in New...

Usually, 'magical thinking' is a reference to fooling yourself into believing something that isn't possible,  but Mark Mason suggests that solving the mystery of how magic tricks work can help you think more effectively.  He's running team building sessions where he performs tricks, then helps those present work together to uncover how the trick was performed. Mark says that he reveals mental techniques that will let you solve pretty well any trick you’ll see in the future - and that these techniques can be applied to problems you’ll encounter at work and in life more generally. As I know there are a lot of blog posts out there that are really paid adverts, I ought to stress I'm not being paid to publicise this, and I only know Mark as a reader who contacted me previously about my book Inflight Science .  What interested me here was that in the period between working in Operational Research and computing in British Airways and becoming a full time writer, I ran crea...

Image by Thomas T from Unsplash I recently reviewed a book called Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them by Antonio Padilla. In my review, I was dubious about the way that Dr Padillia referred to the highly speculative holographic principle as 'the holographic truth'. Something many publishers drum into their authors is that it is not a good idea to respond to reviews. If anything, it can reinforce any negative comments in the review. But Dr Padilla replied on Twitter 'thanks for your thoughts. You may be interested to see this perspective on importance of the holographic principle, which obviously I share.’ He then quotes Caltech physicist John Preskill, who had tweeted: ‘Someone asked: What are the most important ideas in physics over the past 30 years? Three immediately came to mind: The holographic principle, topological order, quantum error correction.’ Now, this seemed to me to be a depressing statement if true. What we've got with those three is firstly a pri...

There seem to be three obvious markets for this book - people who are interested in what writers do, people who would like to be professional writers but aren't, and writers themselves. That last category may seem an unlikely one - if you are already a writer, why would you need a book called 'How to be a writer'? But the reality is I spent some of my cash, hard-earned from writing, on this book. The reason the book appealed, I think, is the familiar concept of readers liking to identify with a book. This has led to much more diversity, for example, in fictional characters - but it is also engaging to read about someone who does a similar job and their experiences, especially when the narrative is handled in such a light and entertaining way as Marcus Berkmann does here. I can certainly identify with much of Berkmann's working life - both the highs and lows of being a freelance writer. What's particularly fun is that Berkmann has written a whole range of columns an...

One of my favourite activities is giving science talks in junior schools. I don't write children's books, though some of my titles are fine for an intelligent eleven-year-old, but what comes across in a wonderful way is the sheer enthusiasm for science felt by the children. This isn't limited to a few enthusiasts - everyone gets excited about science presented the right way. When, for example, I mention that they have atoms in their bodies that were previously in dinosaurs, there's always a collective 'Whoa!' - while a set of simple refracting glasses that produce rainbows from sunlight genuinely give a thrill. When I was at junior school, I'm delighted to say our teachers took science seriously, while making it fun. Unhampered by a restrictive curriculum, they allowed us to do experiments - and to fail. Admittedly it helped that my junior school building was inherited from a re-housed secondary school and had cupboards full of interesting scientific equipme...