The sub-genre of alternate history has always felt an uncomfortable fit with science fiction - but where else are you going to put it? Two of my favourite classics of the genre both posit a modern England where the Reformation didn't happen and the Catholic Church is still a powerful force. I've already reviewed The Alteration by Kingsley Amis, but I've now re-read Keith Roberts' 1968 classic Pavane . Though usually described as a novel, this is really a linked set of short novellas, featuring an 1960s Britain that follows on from Queen Elizabeth I being assassinated, resulting in a clamping down of Catholicism that also has ended with an iron grip across half the world. The novellas present (mostly) charming snapshots of a rural, low-tech England where steam traction engines pull trains of wagons across the country, long distance communication is largely by semaphore towers and monks work on lithographic printing presses. Roberts does a wonderful job of giving us the ...

This is an oddity. I heard about this book on the excellent Science Fictions podcast, where I was told that anyone with an interest in popular science had probably read this 2017 book - I hadn't, and after hearing their podcast I wouldn't want to, but felt it worth highlighting some key points. As the Science Fictions podcast notes, the book 'said, among other things, that we are living through an epidemic of sleeplessness, that the less we sleep the sooner we die, and that sleeping less than six hours a night doubles your risk of cancer.' No surprise it was a big seller. But it appears that the book is riven with errors and its underlying thesis seems to have little or no scientific basis. A lot of the podcast was inspired by a fact-check by Alex Guzey that only covered the first chapter, yet uncovers a whole host of issues. I'd suggest taking a look at that fact check and, if you want more, listening to the podcast. But if, like me, you haven't read the book...

In the past I've found Steven Pinker's books hypnotic - I drift along enjoying the words and feeling I'm getting something deep from it without anything much sinking in. This one was different - it was sometimes a little harder to get your head around the underlying concept, descending as it tends to into infinite regression, but overall I did feel I'd gained a lot.  Pinker's focus here is 'common knowledge' which is when not only do we both/all know something, but we know that the other(s) know as well and the implications this has for human interactions. One entertaining thing to emerge from this is the ability to get into infinite loops of the 'I know that you know that I know that...' variety. Although we aren't mentally equipped to deal with more than a handful of iterations, we are told that a simple but limited interaction like a text exchange strictly needs the full infinite set to be definitive. For example, if you and a friend are tryin...

By a small margin Jim Al-Khalili's The World According to Physics is my favourite of his books, both because the 'three pillars' concept at its heart works so well - but also because it's short. On Time is somewhat heavier, but thankfully not a wrist-buster. It might seem at first sight odd that a book on a subset of physics is considerably longer than one covering the whole thing, but time is one of those subjects that inevitably involves considerable complexities and needs depth. As Al-Khalili establishes, it's hard to think of any other scientific concept where our perception of it - what he refers to as manifest time or psychological time - is so different from the view from physics. Some physicists go so far as to suggest that time doesn't exist at all. In the book, Al-Khalili sets out (to my mind quite successfully) both to explain why they think this is the case, but also why it's not the best interpretation of time. I'd certainly note that I...

The forensic scientist's work forms a fascinating part of crime drama, with the pathologist playing a big supporting role in many police procedurals, while some shows such as the various CSI series , Silent Witness, Bones, Waking the Dead  drive the action from the forensics. It's not surprising, then, that Sanjukta Mondal makes good use of this TV introduction to this science both to introduce real concepts, but also to point out where the fictional versions get it wrong. It's also essential to cover, as she does, the reality that forensic work has itself slipped up. The book's introduction finishes with a reference to the key phrase 'every contact leaves a trace' becoming a guiding principle, but then tells us 'Does that mean forensic science is foolproof? The answer is no. It comes with its own set of pitfalls.' And these pitfalls will form a significant part of telling the story of the development of forensic science as a discipline. Although TV show...

It has always seemed a hope that we could help readers to think about science through science fiction, and this latest book in Springer's noble attempt to have crossover titles between science and science fiction (more on the series later) digs into the history of schemes to educate using SF as either bait or a medium of education. Jörg Determann sets out up front that he is not out to tell us how this should be done, but rather to document the attempts. There is a whole range of media here: we begin with university classes on science fiction writing, move onto movies and TV, planetariums, museums, 'The Science of X' books and finally games and the future of the approach. Some sections worked better than others. The movies and TV part was probably most enjoyable, while the planetariums parted seemed somewhat excessive, dedicating a whole chapter to a very niche means of doing science education.  One mixed section was 'The Science of X'. This dealt with the books tha...

Andrew Jaffe is professor of astrophysics and cosmology at Imperial College, London and director of the Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology. His new book is The Random Universe. Why science? I’ve always been interested in science, in particular in  astronomy, astrophysics, and space. One of my earliest memories - back in nursery school in New Jersey, I think - was watching one of the moon launches. I wanted that excitement to be part of my life! I never got to be an astronaut, but I did get to be part of the Planck Satellite team, and was privileged to be able to travel to the ESA Spaceport in French Guiana to watch the launch.  In between, I was lucky enough to have a supportive family, get a good education, and find inspiring teachers, mentors, and collaborators. They helped me model the universe, and helped me learn how to refine those models in the face of experimental and observational evidence. That is, they taught me to be a scientist. Why this book? The Random...

The central thesis presented by Roopika Risam is that information gives us (and particularly countries) the power to organise, control and dominate others. Although I have a couple of issues with the presentation, this is a genuinely interesting trip through the history of our use of stored information from the earliest tallies to the latest information technology. I loved a quote from Lisa Gitelman that data is is always 'cooked' so 'raw data is an oxymoron'. This neatly underlines Risam's thesis that data and information are not neutral facts, but rather tools that (like everything from fire to electronics) can be used for good or evil. As we are taken through the historical context, it can sometimes be a little difficult to judge whether Risam regards a particular example as bad or good, even when the outcome is disastrous. One thing I didn't like too much is the adherence to a popular science writing approach that has got distinctly hackneyed: opening chapte...

Christophe Galfard holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge, where he was Stephen Hawking's graduate student from 2000 to 2006, researching the so-called black hole information paradox. With Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy Hawking, he co-authored George’s Secret Key to the Universe. His own book, The Universe in Your Hand, has been translated into over twenty languages. His new book is This is Life . Why science? Because as far as I am concerned, it is by far, the most powerful, imaginative and thrilling discipline ever invented by mankind, a discipline whose discoveries are humankind’s common heritage. Why this book? I wrote this book so that everyone can have an up to date knowledge of what is known about life here on Earth - from its beginning to the most recent medical discoveries - and out there in outer space. I love the way you link from one topic to another, often in rapid succession: was this a conscious decision, or does it reflect your ...

I love popular science books, but it's a quiet sort of love: it's not often a book like this gets me really excited - but Meet the Neighbours (sorry, I know it's Neighbors, but it grates) does just that.  Once upon a time there was quite a market in books speculating about life on Mars, but of late most Martian titles have focused on getting to and colonising Mars (though often avoiding the 'c' word). Steven Benner drags us back to see the evidence for life having existed there, and does so with a vengeance. (Almost literally - he really lays into those who are dismissive of what evidence there is.) Do we have proof? Well, no - but proofs are for mathematicians. As Benner says 'science does not deal in proof... Rather, it relies on a 'preponderance of evidence' standard to shift the burden of proof.' Benner points out the weird reality that since the Viking landers, which arrived in the 1970s, there hasn't been a mission looking for organic sig...

Remarkably for those who came across it in the early days, this classic of popular science writing is now 50 years old - and like many of us who reach a certain age it has become somewhat overweight: a reasonable sized paperback has morphed into a 500-page monster. Even so, we have to recognise the importance of the book, despite its message not being as clear as it once was. One major change is that Dawkins, with his God Delusion hat on, was once the hero of the provisional wing of the progressive movement, where now he has been pushed aside for daring to suggest that there are only two sexes. The other change, of course, is that the science has moved on and some of the genetics certainties of Dawkins' day have reached the scientific stage of 'it's more complicated than we thought.' In a couple of chapters that weren't in the original book and about 120 pages of discursive end notes and an epilogue, Dawkins attempts to clarify some scientific developments and to ...