I went to a preview screening of the new sci-fi film, Sunshine, last night. It’s a pretty good example of the standard ‘crew far from home must do something important to save humanity’ genre, and an enjoyable couple of hours. I should say right now that the science is mostly complete rubbish built on speculation, [...]
Read More...Posts made in February, 2007
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Off filming again for the 50th anniversary programme today. In the meantime, here’s a very interesting photograph for you – more to follow.
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I spent some of yesterday evening listening to an excellent talk by UCL professor Arthur Miller about his latest book, Empire of the stars. It focuses on the often tortured relationship between Eddington, the Grand Old Man of British Astrophysics, and Chandrasekhar. They first clashed while Chandra was a graduate student, over his claim that [...]
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One of my regrets about this month’s program was that we didn’t get more time to feature HiRISE, the amazing camera on board MRO. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet (or those who weren’t paying attention!) this is the camera which takes higher resolution pictures of Mars than any we’re allowed access [...]
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…but almost everything else you’ve read about Pythagoras (he of the theorem) is wrong. This excellent essay in the London Review of Books is well worth a read.
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I’ve had a couple of requests for the text Brian used as part of his speech on Saturday. It’s taken from the first in the series of Sky at Night books, and was written not by Patrick but by the first producer, Paul Johnstone. He writes
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Apologies for being a day or two late with this, but I now feel the run-up to the 50th anniversary has begun; the royal mail stamp issue is out. Have a look here – I think they’re rather good, even if they did miss the chance to have the Queen’s head wearing a monocle!
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My friend and -more importantly – amateur astronomer -Harriet has stupidly decided that running the London marathon is a good idea. If you could sponsor her in support of Macmillian cancer relief, at least we’ll know she didn’t die in vain.
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Thanks for all of those who came to see Brian, Patrick and I at Astrofest yesterday…it was great to see so many people cluching copies of Bang! and I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to more of you properly along the way.
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Walking into Astrofest always makes me feel like I’m back at school. It used to [...] -
Don’t forget tonight’s extended, hour long, Mars Sky at Night on BBC4, but in the meantime one of my favourite sites, Londonist, have chosen today to feature the official time signal.
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The whole thing reminds me of my stint on the newspaper for the 2000 General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union; the main [...]