My Blog

This is a space where I share my thoughts on numerous topics, press articles and interviews, and delve into some of the more complicated and frequently asked scientific questions.

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Exclusives

How Much of Mathematics is Really Just Physics?

I’d like to dedicate this short piece to my late friend Prof. Peter T. Landsberg, who was a “thermodynamicist” (this is how he liked to call himself). I used to meet him at the Athenaeum, in the good old days when smoking cigars was still allowed indoors.

Media

Absolute zero is the lowest temperature but is there an upper limit?

There are a number of arguments as to why there should be an upper bound on the value of temperature. The simplest is that temperature is related to energy (via Boltzmann’s constant). So if we believe that the energy in the universe is finite (a reasonable supposition), then that gives us the highest temperature.

Exclusives

The World Exists Only When No One is Looking

One particular misconception that is ever-present is captured by the statement that quantum physics suggests that “the moon is not there when nobody looks”. This is a riff on the old musings of Bishop Berkeley who asked whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if there is no one there to hear it.

Exclusives

A Nightmare of an Eminent Person: A Supporter of the Copenhagen Interpretation Goes to Hell

This is a story about a dear friend of mine, Professor Gustav Klimtovich, who is a world-leading researcher in theoretical quantum physics. Gustav has nightmares and he told me about his recent one involving Hell and the Devil…