Articles
Brother's Water
Published articles
- Fixed and Rotating Wings- The first of three articles on the Physics of Flight (Physics Education 42 351-357)
- Flapping Wings (Physics Education 42 358-364)
- Hovering (Physics Education 42 496-501)
- The Twins Paradox- An article explaining the Twins Paradox of Special Relativity (Physics Education 32)
- Cosmological Expansion- An article explaining the mathematical basis of various models of an expanding universe (Pysics Education 47 96-105)
Articles of general interest
- Armchair Astrophotography- What you need to do your astronomy in comfort
- War Requiem- A listener's guide to Benjamin Britten's War Requiem
- The Kalka-Shimla Toy Train- A description of the route of the Kalka to Shimla railway
- The Art of Guesstimation- How many barbers are there in Chicago? This article will tell you how to estimate anything.
- 20 Big Questions in Philosophy- A personal response to Simon Blackburn's book of the same title
- Building a model of a Thames barge- Hints and tips for a first-time modeller
- Fitting Radio Control to a small O gauge tank loco- Hints and tips for a first-time modeller
- Refitting a Toyota Hiace Campervan- A set of designs for refitting a Toyota Hiace van as a two-berth camper
- Instructions for fitting a reversing camera to a Ford Transit van- Hints and tips
- The 10 greatest classical composers- Compare my assessment with yours
- Elgar's Apostles and Kingdom- A proposal for a performance edition
- The Forseeable-Future- What will life be like in 2106?
- The Blackbird Land Yacht- An article explaining how the yacht can travel faster than the wind that powers it
- Colour Systems- RGB, HSV and other systems for organising colours
- Emergence- Emergenge is a popular notion these days but what is the status of emergent phenomena?
- Bayes Theorem and the Prosecutor's Fallacy- An explanation of how DNA evidence should be used in court
- Paradoxes in Probability- Mrs Smith's children, the Monty Hall problem, the three card trick and other paradoxes
- Tatami Tilings and Patio Pavings- Advice on how to design a perfect patio paving.
- Particularly Pretty Perfect Patio Pavings- Advice on how to design a particularly pretty patio paving.
- Sun Dogs and Halos- The physics behind rainbows and ice halos.
Articles on Physics
- Dynamic Soaring- An article explaining how albatrosses and other sea birds fly without flapping their wings
- The Stability of Early Aircraft- Why did the Wright brothers put the elevator at the front? This article explains their reasons
- Black Body Radiation- An article explaining how Planck's 'quanta' predicts the correct expression for the intensity of black body radiation
- The Entropy Game- Why does entropy always increase?
- The Infinite Clones Paradox- Are there an infinite number of copies of you reading this web page?
- Newton's Principia- A commentary on Newton's famous book and the propositions it contains
- The Forces of Nature- A discussion on the four fundamental forces - the strong force, the weak force the electromagnetic force and gravity
- Lagrangian Points- An article explaining how satellites can be put in orbits which are stationary with respect to the Earth
- The Garbage Problem- A follow-up to the previous article explaining the stability or otherwise of such orbits
- Simulating the Time Dependent Shchrödinger Equation- A brief explanation of how the TDSE can be simulated numerically.
Articles on Relativity
- The Twins Paradox (revisited)- Another look at the Twins Paradox
- The Pole in the Barn Paradox- A look at another famous paradox of Special Relativity
- The Geometry of Spacetime- A simple explanation of how the the 'warping of spacetime' can result in what looks like gravity
- Five common fallacies concerning Length Contraction and Time Dilation
- The Reality of Length Contraction and Time Dilation
Articles on Quantum Theory
- Quantum Reality - A short fantasy- A light-hearted article introducing my interpretation of Quantum Theory
- A Simple Experiment in Entanglement- A description of an experiment using entangled photons and the reasons why the experimental results cannot be explained using a local hidden variable theory.
- Beyond weird- A commentary on Philip Ball's book of the same title
- Mr Tomkins Curious Gloves- A shortened version of 'Quantum Reality - a short fantasy', as published in Physics world (February 2015)
- Einstein's Light Box Experiment- An article explaining the true significance of the wave/particle duality and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
- A Tale of Two Theories- An tongue-in-cheek look at the currtent status of Quantum Theor, as published in Physics world (April 2019)
Articles on Consciousness
- The Mystery of Consciousness- An article looking in more detail at my attempts at a theory of Concsiousness
- The Computational Theory of Mind- A shorter article explaining my objections to the standard computational theory of mind
- Linton v Solms- A short ctitique of the main points in Solm's book 'The Hidden Spring'.
- Comments on 'Sentience' by Nicholas Humphrey
- A critical look at Carlo Rovelli's arguments for Free Will