Science Oxford Webcast

keithmansfield — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:38:02 +0000

On Tuesday I gave my Starstuff & Supergiants talk at Science Oxford, as part of the Oxfordshire Science Festival. In a way it was a bit of the science behind the Johnny Mackintosh stories. I spoke about how the speed of light is a universal speed limit and time travel is (perhaps) a one-way street, and how the large hadron collider is a time machine (as well as everything else). I explained how stars are the atom factories of the universe and talked about the way stars die, sometimes in a supernova (what readers will realize the alien races of the galaxy call Star Blaze). Thanks to everyone at Science Oxford for giving me the opportunity, and to all those who came out on a Tuesday night to listen. If anyone missed it, there is no escape. The whole thing is available as a webcast from the Science Oxford site.

The talk was very much a tribute to Carl Sagan and I was pleased to give Chandra a namecheck as well. I enjoyed it – hope you all do too.

The Sun Kings

keithmansfield — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:10:34 +0000

Eighteen months ago I went to the Royal Society’s awards evening to acknowledge the best popular science books. On the shortlist was The Sun Kings by Stuart Clark. He didn’t win, but Stuart was definitely the most fashionably dressed finalist present. We chatted for a while and he made his book sound absolutely fascinating. I left resolving to read it straightaway, but one thing led to another and, only recently, did it reach the top of my (very long) reading list.

Sadly, nowadays I have very liittle time for casual reading – everything has a purpose. Happily, DAMTP (the famous Department of Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge where Stephen Hawking is based and where I occasionally went as an undergraduate) hosts a brilliant online popular maths magazine called +Plus. It’s full of zillions (to use a very mathematical number) of interesting articles, one of which is now written by me. When they wanted me to write a book review for them, I remembered my conversation with Stuart and asked if I could stretch the definition of mathematics just a little to include The Sun Kings.

The story is set around a giant solar flare observed in 1859, telling how the science of astrophysics grew out of observational astronomy. In today’s world where everything seems to be so short-term or temporary, it’s incredible to read of people making observations for decades and then their data being passed on to those who came after them to add to and make sense of.

It’s important because our island Earth isn’t as isolated as we might think – the Sun has a major influence on what happens here. Our home star goes through an eleven year cycle of magnetic activity that is currently building towards a maximum (between 2011 and 2013). On the downside, satellites are likely to be damaged and our mobile phones might stop working some of the time. On the plus front, there should be more beautiful auroras, like in the banner at the top of this blog.

With Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze not coming out until January, it’s well worth putting The Sun Kings on your Christmas list and taking a look at +Plus, to give you a picture of just how interesting maths can really be.

Keith Mansfield » Sun

Science Oxford Webcast

The Sun Kings