Words matter. These are the best Simon Singh Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Many of the worst cases that triggered the campaign for libel reform involved corporations suing critics, so these particular sections of the bill are vital to reduce future abuses of libel law.
The worlds of maths and science have a long history of naming important objects after people.
One of the common responses to criticism of psychics is to suggest that even if their powers are illusory, there is no harm done. After all, the audience seem to enjoy the show and Sally and the theatres certainly enjoy the profits.
I’m fairly unemotional and tend not to get too excited when things go well and I tend not to get too depressed when they go badly.
If you’ve written something that you believe is true, and if you can afford to defend it, then you’ve got to defend it.
Mathematicians always like a deceptively difficult problem.
The age of the universe is not just ‘a guess’, but rather it is a carefully measured number that is now known to a high degree of accuracy.
Cern’s colliders usually shut down for a winter break, because the cost of electricity increases as the temperature drops and the Swiss turn on their heaters and tuck into their fondue.
The fact that we have 7 days of the week can be traced to the Babylonian and Jewish civilisations, with the first documented reference dating to 600BC.
What shocks me is people who have no expertise championing a view that runs counter to the mainstream scientific consensus.
All I am saying is that if you want to answer a question, then we need to examine and weigh up the evidence. To me, that’s not dogmatic that’s just… what else would you do?
People back down because the libel system is so utterly hostile to journalists, bloggers, scientists. The smart thing is not to fight.
Nobody wants to get rid of the libel laws, but we want them to be fairer. If we drove down the costs you might end up with more people suing. The only people who can afford it now are the rich and the giant corporations.
Scientists aren’t necessarily good communicators, because they aren’t trained to be good communicators.
Without doubt, the most mathematically sophisticated television show in the history of primetime broadcasting is ‘The Simpsons’.
I start ‘The Code Book’ with the story of Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot, which was foiled when Mary’s enciphered messages fell into the hands of Elizabeth I’s codebreakers.
Indeed, nobody is close to developing a general formula that predicts the number flips required for any given number of pancakes.
In fact, scientific results are a careful attempt to objectively measure reality, and although they may be refined over time, they are always our best hope of getting at the truth.
There is clearly something right about 7, because other numbers fail to resonate with us in quite the same way.
Part of the problem is that if anybody has a gut reaction about an issue, they can go online and have it backed up. That said, they can also find support for their ideas in the mainstream media – because when the mainstream media gives a so-called balanced view, it’s often misleading.
Sunspots are hubs of intense magnetic activity and they trigger solar flares that launch charged particles, X-rays, ultraviolet radiation and radio waves at the Earth.
The only consolation is that homeopathy can only be practised on animals by a fully trained vet or under the supervision of one, because it is forbidden for the average high street homeopath to treat animals on their own.
As soon as the idea of the Big Bang was proposed in the 1920s, astronomers set about trying to work out when the bang happened. Initial estimates were, not surprisingly, wildly inaccurate, but by the 1980s it was known that the universe was 15 billion years old, give or take 5 billion years.
Bearing in mind that homeopathic remedies are generally so diluted that they contain no active remedy, it seems obvious they can be nothing more than placebos.
You don’t have to be a genius mathematician to have a career in cyber security, but it certainly helps to be a strong mathematician.
Indeed, it is a proven mathematical theorem that a doughnut is topologically distinct from a sphere.
One scientist will interpret data one way, another in another way. One scientist may feel that an experiment is valid, another feels it’s invalid. That’s why scientists have discussions and put forward their opinions in conferences and papers.
I’m happy watching ‘The Simpsons’ at home.
If someone feels they’re being maliciously treated, then they should sue for libel. And if someone is malicious, if they are reckless, they will have no defence in law at all.
Roughly 65% of American households owned a video recorder by 1989, when ‘The Simpsons’ was launched. This meant that fans could watch episodes several times and pause a scene when they had spotted something curious.
