Just for Graphs (DVD/Download) - Festival of the Spoken Nerd ****

We don't usually review DVDs or video downloads here, but I'm making an exception for The Festival of the Spoken Nerd (FotSN). I'll start with a of disclaimer. I've seen FotSN both live, and on the download version of this video, and their shows do work a little better in the flesh than on the screen. I think it's partly because their exuberance is less overwhelming at a distance on a stage than it is a couple of feet away - and also because you get a lift from the rest of the audience, as you do with any live performance. But Just for Graphs still proved immensely entertaining when viewed at home.

The trio of physicist/singer Helen Arney, physicist/fire-fan Steve Mould and mathematician/more mathematician Matt Parker provide a funny and sometimes surprising canter through all sorts of things about graphs, charts, diagrams and more. If there's a possibility that you don't find this concept fills you with thrills, it's not what they do, it's the way that they do it. Alongside the graphing wizardry is stand up humour, witty songs and some cracking little demonstrations, from plotting a 'bar chart' of an audio sound wave with a series of dancing flames to the impressive Chladni patterns produced with a metal plate, a violin bow... and couscous. I've seen videos of this before (sans couscous), but seeing it in a live show made it come to life.

I was thinking part way through, 'This is effectively the next generation of the Royal Institution Christmas lectures I used to love when I was little'... only to have Matt Parker tell us that he was the warm-up man for the TV lectures. There's that same combination of interesting science and impressive demos, but FotSN bring an added layer of sophistication, humour and self-deprecation. (The latter comes across particularly strongly when Steve Mould talks about using an Excel plot to predict when his wife was going to give birth from the duration and frequency of her contractions.)

Overall, there is a good balance in the show. There was one section I felt didn't quite work as well as the rest... but then it's unusual to go and see a standup comedian without experiencing some highs and lows. And the FotSN crew don't hold back on making jokes you will only get if you have a fairly high nerd quotient; provided (like me) you're in that category, these are a delight. While I'd urge you to go and see FotSN live, this is the next best thing (and distinctly easier to slip into a Christmas stocking than a live show). You can get the DVD from Amazon, though they'd prefer you to buy it direct... and from their website you can also get the download version as I did... or even get it on VHS (no, really).

DVD:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

DVD, download or VHS: Festival of the Spoken Nerd site

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

The Premonitions Bureau - Sam Knight ****

Not everyone would class this as popular science, but it concerns an attempt to take a scientific approach to paranormal abilities - notably premonitions (aka clairvoyance) and as such, it fits the category. Writing in the typical dramatic storytelling style of a US magazine, Sam Knight brings to life the remarkable tale of the work of two British figures from the 1960s. The central one is psychiatrist John Barker, with a supporting role given to newspaper and TV science reporter Peter Fairley. Barker had a long interest in extra sensory phenomena - the story takes off when he was inspired by a number of people claiming to have foreseen the Aberfan disaster (which terrible tragedy Knight covers movingly). As a result of the Aberfan premonitions, the pair were responsible for London's Evening Standard newspaper setting up a long-running experiment in the form of 'The Premonitions Bureau.' Aware that the Aberfan predictions were only reported after the event, and hence flawe...

The War on Science - Lawrence Krauss (Ed.) ****

At first glance this might appear to be yet another book on how to deal with climate change deniers and the like, such as How to Talk to a Science Denier. It is, however, a much more significant book because it addresses the way that universities, government and pressure groups have attempted to undermine the scientific process. Conceptually I would give it five stars, but it's quite heavy going because it's a collection of around 18 essays by different academics, with many going over the same ground, so there is a lot of repetition. Even so, it's an important book. There are a few well-known names here - editor Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker - but also a range of scientists (with a few philosophers) explaining how science is being damaged in academia by unscientific ideas. Many of the issues apply to other disciplines as well, but this is specifically about the impact on science, and particularly important there because of the damage it has been doing...

Search This Blog