You’re going to a conference!! Your abstract has been accepted. Yippee. All that remains now is to pack your bags, sort out funding and actually write the paper. Simple. Well no. Presenting at a conference involves lots of decisions – there are Serious Things to consider. One of the decisions that you have to make […] … learn more→

How does book promotion happen when the people involved are averse to self-promotion? It’s a common enough question and one that has become more urgent as researchers feel the pressure to hawk their publications across their social media accounts. It’s something researchers often feel ill equipped to do, and they may also be reluctant to […] … learn more→

There is still so much we don’t understand about the origin of life on Earth. The definition of life itself is a source of debate among scientists, but most researchers agree on the fundamental ingredients of a living cell. Water, energy, and a few essential elements are the prerequisites for cells to emerge. However, the […] … learn more→

Knowledge is said to be cumulative. We accumulate knowledge throughout our formal education. We become more learned. The logic of studying is to get more knowledge. By the time we have completed a doctorate we know a lot. Right? The purpose of doing more and more formal education is to know more. That’s why we […] … learn more→

So I didn’t blog during my conference at all. I could say that I was out doing social things, which I was, but that really doesn’t account for the lack of posts. It’s actually that I have been pondering. The conference was a mix of academic and research responsible staff, a combination that you don’t […] … learn more→

Modern physics suggests time may be an illusion. Einstein’s theory of relativity, for example, suggests the universe is a static, four-dimensional block that contains all of space and time simultaneously – with no special “now”. What’s the future to one observer, is the past to another. That means time doesn’t flow from past to future, as we experience it. […] … learn more→

The late Anna Craft said that possibility thinking is moving from asking what something is, or does, to asking questions about what something might be or do or become. Possibility thinking is wondering, imagining, asking the question What if….? Possibility thinking is at the heart of creative practice. Possibility thinking is the way that ideas are […] … learn more→

It’s easy to get the idea that research is all about developing a plan, and then doing what you plan. A bit like this. Develop. At the start, you read a lot to help you work out your question or hypothesis. Then you decide how you will get an answer – what methods you will […] … learn more→

I was recently reviewing a paper and saw my own work cited. Very nice, you might think. However, I was cited for saying a thing that I didn’t say – a thing that I would never ever say. It was a thing that I have railed against in almost everything I’ve written on the topic. […] … learn more→

How can you earn 7.5 million Norwegian crowns (about €660,000) with mathematics? If you are thinking about something like “discovering the fault of a roulette wheel” or “counting cards”, I am sorry to disappoint you: the probability in these cases is usually against us, no matter how much the cinema insists on stating the opposite. […] … learn more→