Reality check: mathematics is not racist
Engaging with students on the history of mathematics would do far more than pretending that the subject abounds with racism. My article in The Critic, 18 March 2021
View publicationJust keep swimming
Those of us who partake in open air swimming should be allowed to return to this miraculous prophylactic, despite the semi-lockdown. The Critic, 12 November 2020.
View publicationUS Election History — a personal view
Recollections about elections from the post-Vietnam era when I first went to America, and their relevance today. The Article, 11 November 2020.
View publicationDark Matters
Academics in this country need to allow new ideas rather than orthodoxy and group-think. See my article in The Critic on 22 June 2020 about the dis-invitation of a physicist who was scheduled to give a technical talk.
View publicationBrought to book
Some academic publishers abuse the system by producing fifth rate books with a good title and blurb, which American university libraries feel obliged to buy. Standpoint magazine, April 2019, p. 8.
View publicationWagner’s Ring and the European Union have a lot in common
A comparison of the Ring itself with the Euro, and Valhalla with the EU. The Article, 16 November 2018.
View publicationEscaping the Moscow ghetto
Now a professor at UC Berkeley, Edward Frenkel was once a brilliant Russian teenager rejected by Moscow State University simply because he was classed as Jewish. Standpoint magazine, Oct 2018, p.55.
View publicationActing the goat with the Greeks
Innumeracy at the top of European politics beggared Greece and may now vitiate Brexit negotiations, Standpoint magazine, December 2017, p. 69
View publicationCountry cousins show how to do it
Private festivals avoid the absurd interpretations of classic operas that shame the subsidised sector. Standpoint magazine, October 2016, p. 71.
View publicationGlorious Summer
Compares the success of Britain’s privately funded opera festivals, with the ready acceptance of failure at publicly funded Covent Garden, Standpoint magazine, September 2015, p. 6.
View publicationWotan’s trolley
In Berlin to review Wagner’s Ring, my request to pay for a shopping trolley was refused. Can the Eurozone survive even stronger differences, and does the Ring hold a warning for us? Standpoint Magazine, May 2013, p. 12.
View publicationAccelerating the debate on motion
Compares Einstein’s depth of thought with the lower level sophistication in modern finance, Standpoint Magazine, July/August 2012, p. 83.
View publicationEurodämmerung
As the Eurozone countries wrestle with the fate of the single currency, we examine parallels in Wagner’s Ring cycle. History Today, July 2012, p. 5.
View publicationA light shining from Babylon
Compares the search for the Higgs boson to the Babylonian discovery of how to predict eclipses, Standpoint Magazine, May 2012, p 72.
View publicationPerishing Publishers
Describes publication practices in academia, and mathematicians’ recent boycott of Elsevier, Standpoint Magazine, April 2012, p. 11.
View publicationEuro soap opera
Describes the new Bayreuth production of Tannhäuser in relation to the Euro Crisis, Standpoint Magazine, September 2011, p. 13.
View publicationUniversity Challenged
On the stifling bureaucracy in universities, Standpoint Magazine, January/February 2011, p. 12.
View publicationNever too Old
Applauds the value of learning ancient Greek, Standpoint Magazine, May 2010, p. 13.
View publicationUnsound Science
Criticises the government’s recent misguided proposal to evaluate the social and economic impact of scientific research, Standpoint Magazine, December 2009, p. 10–11.
View publicationTaking research for granted
Suggests better ways to fund scientific creativity in universities, Standpoint Magazine, April 2009, p. 82.
View publicationDitch the new maths for good old Euclid
On the sad loss of Euclidean geometry as a foundation for logical reasoning, Standpoint Magazine, November 2008, p. 54.
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