The links in bold blue are to other pages in this web-site. Other blue links are to external sites.
There are other pages on scientific topics, for example on each of the planets,
and you can reach them by going to the Solar System page, or whatever applies.

Astronomy: This has been an armchair hobby since I was a child.

Astronomy: a general guide to the detailed astronomy pages, exoplanets, observing the sky, some earth-based telescopes and some books and web sites on Astronomy and Cosmology.
General Concepts in Astronomy (including what a Planet is, a Dwarf Planet, moons and planetary rings; types of Minor Planets; Quasi-Satellites, Resonances between astronomical bodies, Sling-Shots (or “gravity-assist”) to give spacecraft extra speed, Lagrangian points, Trojans and Greeks, and Hildas; the Hill Sphere of an object; some commonly-used Abbrevations, the International Astronomical Union, and the Naming of satellites and other bodies), Theories about the Solar System and Hypothetical Solar System Objects.
The Solar System (our local part of the Universe) – Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, all the other Planets – Ceres, Pluto and the other Dwarf Planets – Asteroids and Comets – objects beyond Neptune, like the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt – see more details and links in the Outer Solar System page.
The Stars (especially our nearest neighbours), Nebulae and Galaxies, and a complete set of Constellation Charts.
Cosmology fascinates me, and I’ve written a not-too-technical explanation of what we believe took place at and after the start of the Universe: the The Big Bang, and its afterglow, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. There’s also a series of articles from The Observer about Gravitational Waves.

Modern astronomy, cosmology and, for that matter, particle physics would have not advanced as it has without the use of satellites and other space probes. Nor would telecommunications.

Spacecraft

Space Science: There’s a whole set of web pages devoted to this.
And wouldn’t you just love to Pilot a Spaceship? – here’s how! Move over Dan Dare ⇒

Science

This, too, has been a life-long interest for me, and I enjoy reading reports of new scientific discoveries, or seeing them on television.

There’s a section on Scientists, including people with exceptional talents for popularizing science.
What is the Higgs boson?
I’ve added to this web-site a not-too-technical explanation of Atoms and their Basic Structure.
What are Dark Matter and Dark Energy?
You may have seen on BBC TV a clip from the world’s smallest stop-motion animation movie made by researchers at IBM who manipulated single molecules of carbon monoxide on a copper surface, using the tiny tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope; it would take about 1,000 of the frames of the film laid side by side to span a single human hair. Here is the movie, A Boy And His Atom: The World’s Smallest Movie, and here’s how they made it: Moving Atoms: Making The World’s Smallest Movie.

Mathematics

Even more boring?

So tell me what five gold rings and a partridge in a pear tree are all about.
Or what’s the meaning of 666?
See my Mathematics page.
To me, formulae like E = mc² and e^iπ = −1 have a beauty of their own, mostly because they are simple but unexpected, and mathematically true. Read about them... give ’em a chance!
In the Maths page there are some strange numbers and shapes, and an account of some influential and very clever people.
Enjoy Conway’s Game of Life.
And take a look at some beautiful Polyhedra and Fractals.

Computing: If it wasn’t for the efforts and brilliance of an early computer buff, World War II might have ended two years later than it did, and with a different outcome. Alan Turing’s Centenary: In 2012 we celebrated the centenary of the birth of one of the world’s most brilliant mathematicians, who became a real martyr to his own homosexuality. Long may he be remembered! So computing isn’t worth a toss? What are you using right now? What controls your washing machine or your mobile phone?

A propos of nothing [Attention! Cliché alert!], I found this little gem on the Guardian’s web, which I’d like to share:

Michael Faraday’s lectures at London’s Royal Institution in the early 19^th century were so popular
that the carriages dropping people off to see him used to choke Albemarle Street in Mayfair
– as a result, the street was designated the first one-way road in London.

Dan Dare as I remember him in
The Eagle.
And where’s Digby?
The last I saw of him, he was
swimming in the liquid air
oceans of Saturn’s moon
Phoebe which, of course he
could breathe despite its
incredibly low temperature
(below −150°C)

Science fiction can be fun, but I think it’s more interesting when it has a modicum of real science about it; in other words there’s no room for “little green men” or reptilian aliens that Doctor Who, for example, seems to enjoy mastering. As for the Independence Day aliens, I’m sorry, but they don’t pass muster!

Impression of an Enormous Black Hole Blast

This artist’s impression shows a giant jet of particles extending 300,000 light-years, blasting from a black hole at the centre of a distant galaxy. More here

One of the Space Shuttles

Printed Circuit Board

An ancient relic of the 20^th century, recently unearthed at an archaeological dig in Silicon Valley, California

Think of Science this way...

...The universe is 13.7 billion years old; we may imagine that going back two million years, to the time when the light we are currently seeing from the Andromeda Galaxy was emitted, the universe was 13,698,000,000 years old. (Such travels in time are called ‘thought experiments’.)

XMMXCS 2215-1738 – A very distant cluster of galaxies

Going back even further, we may find a cluster of galaxies named XMMXCS 2215-1738 [the blue fuzziness in the photograph]. Sorry about the awful name; I acknowledge that it’s the sort of thing likely to put people off science. [Mind you, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Offertory in C, “Benedictus sit Deus”, Köchel 66a is a pretty intimidating mouthful to a non-musician.] Those galaxies lie about 10 billion light-years away. The cluster was discovered by the XMM Cluster Survey in 2006. Its light that we now see was emitted when the universe was some 3.7 billion years old.

But if we go back another 3.7 billion light-years, we should arrive to see the universe when it began. Well, we should but the universe isn’t quite that simple. Many other questions present themselves. Can we go back further in time? Can we go back twenty billion years from now? The simple answer is that we don’t know. Quantum mechanics doesn’t tell us; in fact it seems to suggest that such questions have no meaning. Or have they? Perhaps time just started 13.7 billion years ago.

Out of this world: why the most important art today is made in space. Forget the Turner prize. This is art that reflects the true grandeur of the universe – it is the Sistine Chapel of the scientific age [by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian]

20 years later and all of these things fit in your pocket

Science and Mathematics

What’s on this page

What? “Science and Mathematics? – BORING!!!” I heard someone say...

Well, they aren’t! — (at least not ALL parts of them)

Just give Science and Mathematics a chance, and you may be surprised

The links in bold blue are to other pages in this web-site. Other blue links are to external sites.
There are other pages on scientific topics, for example on each of the planets,
and you can reach them by going to the Solar System page, or whatever applies.

Think of Science this way...

Science and Mathematics

What’s on this page

What? “Science and Mathematics? – BORING!!!” I heard someone say...

Well, they aren’t! — (at least not ALL parts of them)

Just give Science and Mathematics a chance, and you may be surprised

The links in bold blue are to other pages in this web-site. Other blue links are to external sites.There are other pages on scientific topics, for example on each of the planets,and you can reach them by going to the Solar System page, or whatever applies.

Think of Science this way...

The links in bold blue are to other pages in this web-site. Other blue links are to external sites.
There are other pages on scientific topics, for example on each of the planets,
and you can reach them by going to the Solar System page, or whatever applies.