The Sand Reckoner

The Sand Reckoner

Driving home one night last week, Auckland’s Spaghetti Junction was more than normally congested and my thoughts turned to physics. Sluggish traffic provided my initial topic – the differences between sand and water. – as well as letting me follow my...
The Angle of Repose

The Angle of Repose

Last month, I visited the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University. Yukawa — Japan’s first Nobelist in physics — looks to have been an amiable man, so far as one can tell from a statue. He stands watch outside the institute, and when I was there...