Alice the camel

As we drove on a family outing at the weekend, we sung “Alice the camel”.   For those who don’t know it, it goes like this (to the tune of “Dem Bones”): “Alice the camel had five humps; Alice the camel had five humps; Alice the camel had five humps; so go, Alice go! Alice the […]

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Colour blindness and Bayes’ theorem

Following from my last post, there’s more to say about colour blindness in my family. This time we’ll look at my side of the family.  My maternal grandfather was red-green colour blind. That means my mother is a carrier of red-green colour blindness, with a “faulty” (well, “alternative” would be better) X-chromosome.  And as a […]

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Physics is a science. Or maybe not.

A couple of hours ago I gave a talk to the 'education group' in the Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Western Australia. Broadly speaking, the audience was a group of physicists and engineers who are interested in education. I recycled a talk that I'd given a couple of years ago […]

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