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Category: Science

Who would you put on the £50 Note?

Who would you put on the £50 Note?

The Bank of England is undertaking an exercise to ask people to nominate a scientist to go on the https://app.keysurvey.co.uk/f/1348443/10fc/ Anyone can vote and there is no shortlist (though the vote is advisory, not binding – no Science McScienceface here!). The main criteria are that they must be a scientist, must be dead and must have contributed to science in the UK. I’ve nominated Stephen Hawking. He was a brilliant scientist, a gifted communicator and an inspiration to many, including…

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A University Challenge Ranking

A University Challenge Ranking

Many football fans have a complex system of which team to support in any given match, based on a wide variety of factors that may appear arbitrary and inpenetrable to the outsider, but internally to them makes complete sense. I have a similar system for determining which team to support in University Challenge. This entirely serious in every way and not at at all arbitrary ranking is as follows: – Christ’s College, Cambridge – Emmanuel College, Cambridge – Bath Spa…

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Five Things We’ve Learned From Science

Five Things We’ve Learned From Science

Because there’s not been much progress in the fundamentals of physics – the Standard Model is still essentially the same as it was 30 years ago – it can sometimes feel that we’ve not learned that much new recently. Sure, we have a lot of exciting technology, particular computers and smart phones, but these are all operationalistions of existing basic science rather than based on anything new. I think this is a classic example of the current time paradox, where…

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