Everything

This novel is the next in the series of Kingsbridge novels, following the famous Pillars of the Earth and its sequel World Without End. There does seem to be a…

Peter Mayle paints a wonderful picture of the South of France in this beautiful and humorous memoir.

Many people wonder what consciousness is, but perhaps its the wrong question to ask. Maybe we should be asking, what the point of consciousness is...

Classical music is sometimes considered better than modern music. Is this true and why?

Strolling through the woodland, Between the evergreen trees, It could be any time, Here in this place. No one here to shame the trees, That have stood since…

Reflections on reading Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. Does the degree to which our motivations are intrinsic affect the morality of our actions?

A review of one of le Carré’s most famous novels where George Smiley is on the hunt for a mole in the circus

Will we ever admit that AI has become smarter than us? Or is it a goal that will always be just out of reach...

Set in the 14th century in the town of Kingsbridge, World Without End is full of stories of conflict, romance, and revenge.

What is the meaning of life? Meaning is often discussed in a philosophical context, but in reality meaning is a feeling. Just like any other feeling, we can find reliable ways to create a sense of meaning in ourselves.

The monarchy has changed a lot in the past 1000 years or so, though some things about it have remained – incredibly – much the same. It was only recently that…

Stories have been told and retold for millennia. They have comforted those in grief; motivated those who are down; and inspired all manner of acts of kindness,…

This is a short story set in the cold, Northern stretches of the world of Pullman’s creation – one much like ours in many ways, but also different. Notably, one…

A review of John le Carré’s The Constant Gardener.

Giving AI the ability to read and write is a turning point in the course of its development, going far beyond its ability to see and imagine. Will our life…

A short story originally written in 2020. I have decided to publish it now due to the recent excitement surrounding Artificial Intelligence, and particularly…

Farenheit 451 is a very interesting dystopian novel. It reminds me of 1984 in the way it looks critically at society. Given that this novel was published in…

This is my third John le Carré novel, but perhaps it should have been the first I read. This is the most autobiographical of le Carré’s works, in which he…

Hampstead theatre is cosy; its stage slanting downwards towards the audience, grey and completely empty. The lights go out and darkness descends. Suddenly, the…

Through a sea of people you swim and wriggle, All waiting for the same vessel, To carry you far from the place that you are, So through the crowd you wrestle,…

I look at the sky and see you, staring back at me. Watery eyes and wavering mouth, Everywhere and nowhere. Why aren’t you who I wanted you to be? A lazy wind…

Really good book, yeah. That’s probably how Ed would describe it. Mirroring the structure of its plot, on the surface this book appears to be one thing (a spy…

Bias: can’t live with it, couldn’t survive without it. Photo by fnfoto on Pexels.com Bias is a word that has different connotations depending on who you are. In…

Recently, while perusing LinkedIn, I came across a post by a researcher celebrating their recent achievement. They claimed to have had a number of papers…

Sometimes things need to get worse before they get better. Sometimes things need to get messier before they become clear. Sometimes you need an initial push to…

A recent article in the Times \[1\], shows that many countries are trying to decrease the average age in their country since demographic trends show that the…

Relatively recently, I wrote a review on Goodreads of the book \\”The Secret Commonwealth\\” by Philip Pullman. I initially knocked the book a star. I thought…

The only way to learn is to learn out of curiosity, otherwise, there’s no motivation. If you learn due to an external drive, you’re not really learning. If you…

Barnard Castle: A sight for sore eyes? Credit: George Hodan If you’ve been following the UK news recently, you’ll be hard put to have missed the dominating…

\\ This review contains spoilers \\ Pullman is back with the second installment of the Book of Dust. The style of writing, and the content, seem very different…

A Sisyphean perspective sheds light on the age-old question of whether money can buy happiness. <table cellpadding=”0” cellspacing=”0”…

\\ This review contains spoilers \\ I hadn’t read any of John Le Carre’s books before. I actually listened to this as an audiobook read by the author himself.…

Good little addition to the original trilogy. It fits neatly between the last book (Amber Spyglass) and the second book of the “equel”, as Pullman has described…

Nothing is lost, but is easy to lose yourself, in this fierce production of a play that looks at the value of a language 5 stars Director Ian Rickson’s new…

A really good book that provides a reasonably understandable introduction to quantum mechanics and its history. There is a focus on providing a detailed account…

\\ This review contains spoilers \\ Great book with classic Dan Brown puzzles and probing into possibly the single most important topic that human kind faces:…

<table align=”center” cellpadding=”0” cellspacing=”0” class=”tr-caption-container” style=”margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;”<tbody<tr<td…

<table align=”center” cellpadding=”0” cellspacing=”0” class=”tr-caption-container” style=”margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;”<tbody<tr<td…

Good book. Was frequently psychologically thrilling. I especially liked the parts shrouded in mystery, since the sense of not knowing made it all the more…

I look upon this clearing as it is. Through a parting in the branches above shine Rays of hope too blinding to appreciate And down below A brook of astounding…

Philip Pullman’s first book of his new series The Book of Dust, La Belle Sauvage, continues in the world of His Dark Materials and is as good as the original.…

A good retelling of the biblical narrative. A lot of thought was obviously put into making the book plausible. My opinion is that although the entire thing is a…

\\ This review contains spoilers \\ This book was definitely not like the previous Harry Potter books, but that was expected, firstly because it is in play…

\\ This review contains s spoilers \\ I thought that this was a redemptive end to the His Dark Materials trilogy. I loved the symbolism throughout the book and…

Opportunity cost is simply the cost of producing a good with reference to what you could have instead produced in the meantime. You can understand it in terms…

I thought this was a great second instalment to the series of His Dark Materials. Reading it again recently having read La Belle Sauvage, I felt as though…

Brilliant book. Really liked the new characters Malcolm and Alice, as is characteristic of Pullman a strong female character. Pullman has a habit of putting…

Lyndsey Turner drags the legend of St. George and the Dragon into the modern era There is more death in that kind of life and more life in that kind of death.…

Twelfth Night is on at the National Theatre until 13th May Going into the National Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, I was expecting a…

Macbeth was on at the National Theatre from the 6th – 20th February Shakespeare for schools is an attempt by director Justin Audibert to bring Shakespeare…

Joseph Quinn and Erin Doherty as Dean and Tamsin will enchant you If someone were to wander into the snug stage-room on the top floor of the Royal Court Theatre…

What I am about to tell you about is magic – REAL magic – that can be performed using mere mathematics. This is not a trick. It is reality. I will tell you how…

\\ This review contains spoilers \\ I thought this book was very funny at times, despite the sentiments of other reviewers. It must be because I haven’t read…

I thought this was a great initial introduction to the strange world of stocks. All I really knew about stocks before I read this book was that they were sold…

Helen McCrory thrives in this passionate revival of Rattigan’s masterpiece This is the frustrating, and tragic tale of a woman called Hester Collyer. She is, as…

McBurney’s performance recounts the story of Loren McIntyre– an American photographer who travels into the Amazon rainforest to attempt to capture on film an…

Great book. Obviously some of the plot lines, as many others have said, seem massively coincidental at best, but what are books for? It’s possible I suppose.…

Wow. This book is pretty amazing when you consider the strange psychological ideas Orwell plays with throughout. It is fairly depressing and makes you think. If…

“Do not simply tell people what happens in a story – show them”. This is a major pseudo-rule in story telling. Its what turns a series of random events into a…

When somebody knows everything, they might be right in their own eyes, but certainly not from a less biased perspective. Knowing everything means that there is…

A great insider account of life at the BBC, as well of the politics of the 70s through the 90s. The book is full of funny little stories and anecdotes and can…

Great man, great advice. As with most quotes, just pop any old one out and it will be relevant in some way.

This graph is analogical to movement in the universe. It is in fact the graph of the reciprocal of the hyperbolic tan function. What I wanted to demonstrate was…

What this little conundrum suggests is that in infinitely switching between two states, the final result is halfway in between. This is the reasoning behind the…

Very good book – intriguing style of writing since each chapter is written from a different point of view (and seems to always end on a cliffhanger).

A brilliant book which provides an insight into not only the specific slice of history which it talks about – namely the lead up to the Soviet Invasion of…

A very life-changing book. It touches on a lot of metaphysical themes: I think that it has some important lessons in it about following your dreams.

Probability and an elementary, almost axiomatically governing rule of the universe (thoughts given through the analogy of a complex puzzle) I will attempt in…

The whispering voices, The soft-sounding chimes, The hissing of serpents that slither and slide, Under and over – around the divide, Upon which the sighted…

This article is not about the magic of the Harry Potter Universe – that which fuels the dynamics of wizarding society, but rather the magic that seems to fuel…

Imaginary numbers are one of the mysterious parts of mathematics, which most people have heard about – but not many people truly understand. The first thing…

You may have learnt the formula in school: $\\\\sum\\\\limits\{r=1}^n r = \\\\frac{(n+1)(n)}{2}$ $n$ here is the last value in the series to be added up. $a$ is…

Physics, Life and Everything Else was created 3 years ago today! Long may this blog continue to prosper!

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/evQsOFQju08&source=uds Watching this video by VSauce recently, reminded me of a question that I had once asked myself: do we…

What is the value of 0/0? At first glance you might think that this actually has the value of 0, considering that if zero is divided by anything it is still…

While reading about the amazing NASA New Horizons Space Probe (which is due to arrive at Pluto in less than a year!) I came across a webpage tracking the…

We oftentimes hear about the suggestion that there is such a thing as \\”fate\\”, \\”destiny\\”, a \\”plan\\” for humankind. These words are tossed around in…

Only programmers will understand. If you would like to learn how to program in C++, thenewboston has a YouTube channel with lots of beginners tutorials. You’ll…

The written word – oh how it tumbles and its myriad characters rise As if Black, Letters Like Flies rise up and Follow The lines written on the page of sorrow…

Thinking about computers, we know that one of these days they\\’re going to stop obeying Moore\\’s law, at least for silicon microprocessors. Moore\\’s law was…

One question we may ask ourselves often is, \\’is what I\\’m doing really worth doing?\\’. Think about the last time you might\\’ve thought this way, perhaps it…

Originally published at: https://lifephysics.blogspot.com/2014/02/about-time-what-we-about-master-of.html We all encounter it everyday. We think about it…

Once again a great book – these are very addictive and I recommend reading any from the series. The first Alex Rider book I read.

Second Alex Rider book I’ve read – addictive as hell, but Skeleton Key still has the most intriguing plot by far.

The best of the Alex Rider books by far – a simple, yet unpredictable plot. Sure to read the rest of these.

Originally published at: https://lifephysics.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-improve-your-life-with-p.html I’ve thought up a little system composed of ten words.…

Originally published at: https://lifephysics.blogspot.com/2011/10/arrogance-about-knowledge.html Of course, many of us in the world have often said: ‘Oh, I know…

Originally published at: https://lifephysics.blogspot.com/2011/10/world-upside-down.html We all know about the laws of physics and gravity and the like. We know…