In my last post, I shared information about the play Copenhagen from my Physics World Magazine and from the Hampstead Theatre website. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_(play) I have been lucky enough to see the play twice. The first time when it was performed for the first time at the National Theatre in 1998 and the second time when […]
Read more "Copenhagen"14 Apr 2026 Chris Sinclair talks to Michael Frayn about a revival of his classic science play Copenhagen, directed by Michael Longhurst Stage success Damien Molony (as Werner Heisenberg), Richard Schiff (Niels Bohr – with cardigan) and Alex Kingston (Margrethe Bohr) in the revival of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen at the Hampstead Theatre in London. (Courtesy: Marc Brenner) When Werner Heisenberg […]
Read more "Michael Frayn on Copenhagen: ‘When I wrote it, I didn’t think it would even be staged’"100 years ago this year, Edwin Hubble published the first conclusive evidence that there were galaxies beyond the Milky Way. This lecture, using new results from our latest space telescopes and ground-based instruments, surveyed the diversity of systems that we’ve found since, from giant and beautiful spirals to mysterious Little Red Dots. Extra reading Hubble’s […]
Read more "The Universe’s 100th Birthday: Galactic Fireworks and Little Red Dots"Since Pythagoras, we have imagined the universe as a vast, resonant instrument—a cosmic harmony waiting to be heard. From Holst’s orchestral visions of the planets to Tuvan throat singing echoing the murmur of rivers, composers have long sought to capture the music of nature and the heavens. Villa-Lobos shaped melodies from landscapes and architecture, just […]
Read more "Music of Earth and Space"It is impossible not to marvel at the beauty and regularity of seashells. These intricate forms are crafted by a humble architect—the living mollusc—building them layer by layer. Despite their remarkable diversity, the fundamental geometry of most seashells is governed by simple mathematical rules, resulting in elegant three-dimensional self-similar structures. Beyond this basic framework, molluscs […]
Read more "The Shape of Shells: She Sells Self-Similar Spiral Seashells on the Seashore"Sometime in 2026, we will discover our 10000th exoplanet, a world around a distant star. This population of worlds has proved remarkably diverse, but hasn’t produced any world like our own. We ask whether this is a coincidence, or whether it could be that our own world is special – and how we might investigate […]
Read more "Alien Earths: What Makes Us Special?"“Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings.” — Kandinsky How do we ‘see’ music, or ‘hear’ images? From Newton’s colour scales assigning tones to the rainbow, artists and composers have long explored the deep connections between sound and vision. Kandinsky’s Compositions and Improvisations; Klee’s polyphonic […]
Read more "Music of Light and Colour"During the fifty years since the launch of the Viking spacecraft to Mars, our view of the red planet has changed from hostile desert to a world which was once covered in water, and which may just possibly sustain life. Lavishly illustrated with the latest images from the fleet of spacecraft that have explored our […]
Read more "From Mars with Love: Postcards from 50 Years of Exploring The Red Planet"Prof Kirsty Duffy discussed the recent publication from the MicroBooNE project. You can find their latest paper published in Nature here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158… Thumbnail photo credits: Photo by Reidar Hahn, Fermilab https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/duffy
Read more "Hunting for neutrinos (with MicroBooNE!)"How is mathematical knowledge recorded and preserved across generations? Contrary to the idea that mathematics itself is somehow ‘permanent’, this talk explored heritage-making in mathematics, that is, the people, institutions, and material objects that can give mathematical ideas longevity. It explored the heritage-making found in two very different types of French nineteenth-century libraries: those of […]
Read more "How Does Mathematics Last? Heritage and Heritage-making in Mathematics"
helen the hare 