:: gia’s blog ::

Last year I did a run-down of my year and thought I’d do the same again this year.
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Last year I did a run-down of my year and thought I’d do the same again this year.
Read the rest of this entry »

BBC 2, 9pm, tonight.

Brian’s Horizon on Time tonight is brilliant. Honestly. I watched it a couple months ago and even though I knew what was in it, there was one point at which I actually got a kind of vertigo. Brian talks to mathematical physicist Neil Turok about the idea that the Universe has been around ‘forever’ and didn’t, in fact, start at the Big Bang. That’s what did it to me.

Now, this wasn’t the first time I’d heard about M-Theory or Brane Cosmology at all, but for some reason I had one of those rare moments when I actually attempted to visually imagine what it means. The idea of there being a “start” to the Universe is comforting and easy to deal with even if it was 13.7 billion years ago… the idea, however, that it’s been around forever- when I really REALLY think about what that means- makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of an endless void. My heart starts racing, everything starts getting tingly, I get a bit dizzy and I can’t sit still – I need to get up and move away from where I am because I start to feel that I might just randomly decide to jump.

That’s what happened to me when watching Brian’s Horizon.

And for a TV science programme to do that to me, makes me very excited. I’m so proud of my lovely husband.

These photos are high speed photographs taken during filming.

The trailer again, in case you’ve not watched it yet.

There are loads of behind-the-scenes videos on the director Paul Olding’s YouTube channel.

I was looking for a photo of me on Flickr and stumbled across these pics of Brian and me at SciFoo.
Brian
Me
Brian
Me

I was looking for a photo of me on Flickr and stumbled across these pics of Brian and me at SciFoo.
Brian
Me
Brian
Me

Click for big version.

via WaterKula

Click for big version.

via WaterKula

My son and I really enjoy beach-combing. We have spent hours at a time on beaches finding stones, shells, old pottery, worn glass… We have several carrier bags full of stuff we’ve found on beaches. One day, we’ll do something with it all.

One of our very favourite places to go is the beach along the Thames, so when my mother was here last week, we went on another expedition.
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