Fuddland

A very enjoyable Faculty of Science Annual Lecture at the University this evening, given by popular-science writer Simon Singh — nice blend of information and jokes, although much of the humour was highly derivative of things I’ve already seen elsewhere, and not much credit was given to this fact. Still, I’ve been a bit of a fan of his for a few years now, enjoying both of his first two books and the television series that was spawned from the second, and I’m sure I’ll get around the reading Big Bang soon.

Even though he’s a physicist by training [first degree from Imperial College, PhD from Cambridge] I wonder if, having been out of hardcore research for a good few years now, he was nervous about giving a talk to an audience consisting of a large number of professors, lecturers and doctoral candidates from the same field. I noticed a couple of points where he seemed to gloss over things rather too rapidly, although that was almost certainly to keep things simple rather than because he didn’t understand the finer details. Worth catching if any of the upcoming venues are near you.