Philosophy of teaching

A very committed lecturer and friend of mine recently sat in on one of my lectures. She is taking a course essentially designed to make her an even better lecturer than she already is, and she needed to listen to someone else give a lecture, then ask some follow-up questions. I found the experience terrifying [...]

Creativity: a scientific viewpoint

Last night I was lucky enough to be able to attend a wonderful two hour lecture and chat session with Margaret Boden OBE, Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex in my old home town of Brighton. She is here visiting the University of Canterbury as a Distinguished Erskine Fellow, and gave [...]

Illegality of military robots and questions of identity

Military robots - milbots, anyone? - play an increasing role in modern warfare. Robotic bomb disposal units have been around for some time, as have computer-assisted aircraft controls, but now the aim is to have robots autonomously plan and make kills. One example is the class of robots known as Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, or [...]

The meaning of scientific literacy

The promotion of scientific and mathematical literacy is always to be applauded. Looking at the world honestly, and drawing conclusions based on the evidence, are two important skills for making a human whole. Alone, they lead to a lifeless vision of terrifying sterility, but combined with compassion, creativity, imagination, and love, they have the power [...]

Radical shifts in perspective

A few minutes ago I posted about a wonderful Scientific American slideshow in which the brilliant science plays second fiddle to the new and jaw-dropping perspective on humankind it produces. Then there is another article also over at SciAm, asking “Do Microbes Make Snow?” It turns out that the answer could be yes, and they [...]

The long view of our night view

Scientific American have surpassed themselves again with a beautiful slideshow taking the long view of how the night sky seen from Earth has changed in the past and will change in the future. The images themselves are striking as works of art, but what really hits home is the brevity of recorded human history in [...]

Scientific Fundamentalism

The September 2007 edition of Physics World, the in-house magazine of the Institute of Physics, featured an article by Joanne Brunker entitled “Physglish: our coded speech”. This was one of a series of short essays under the heading “Lateral Thoughts”, essays supposed to be a bit fun and to provoke some thinking in the [...]

Heterodox mathematics

Like almost any organised, hierarchical system, mathematics suffers from dogma and oppressive orthodoxy. To be fair, since mathematicians are fond of saying that organising mathematicians is a bit like herding cats, this toeing of the line is less rigidly enforced than in most other systems. Some of us have our toes to the line while [...]

“Lipids at the border of madness” - Ole G Mouritsen

I knew that a link would uncover itself between the various ramblings here and the actual work I do. This will have to be brief and poorly-referenced because I’m running late late late.
I study lots of things in my daily incarnation of Applied Mathematician, but one of them is “the emerging science of lipidomics”, as [...]

Short, but disturbing - and awe inspiring

It is not uncommon to encounter resistance to the idea that if something looks and acts in a conscious way then we have no right to refuse to call it conscious. The Turing Test often evokes such criticisms. While I sympathise with this viewpoint - my consciousness seems so special and important, too much so [...]