Sunny Side Up is an invitation for me to write a sequel to Izzy explains how to build a particle accelerator. Here we go…

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Here is my spin on MYM Chapter 4 Episode 3. Will I manage to write a random blog post to accompany every new episode? At the current rate, I just might get Chapter 4 done before Chapter 5 comes out. Unless I get distracted by something else. Let’s go into a story of mystery, cryptic messages, relationships, and rules that don’t make sense; and tell the tale of the Proton Spin Crisis.

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Continuing my random commentary on Make Your Mark, Chapter 4…

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The arrival of a new batch of pony episodes reminded me that I hadn’t written anything here for a while, so let’s see what random things I can find to blog about in Chapter 4. Beginning with Bridlewoodstock.

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Yesterday, I had an extra day’s holiday, thanks to the King choosing this weekend to get crowned. This has caused all sorts of admin problems, as he decided to do so in the middle of a busy university term, but it meant I had a bit of time to write a short blog post. Apologies for not writing anything for the last two months. I have been busy doing various complicated, and mostly boring, particle physics things.

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It must be time for me to write another particle physics blog post, telling a story from the quest to find new scientific phenomena and resolve the mysteries of the universe. With pictures of ponies. So here we go. Prepare to learn all about Lepton Flavour Universality. To enhance your blog reading experience, first go and get a smoothie.

Are you ready?

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Yesterday I decided to investigate this Chat GPT thing that I now hear so much about. And wow—this technology has really moved on since I last looked at it. We now have an AI engine which, given a simple prompt, will write a story for you in seconds.

This is the first conversation I had with it:

What is antimatter?

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At this time of year, there is a tradition of planetarium shows about possible astronomical explanations for the story of the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the Magi to the baby Jesus. Scholars have been pondering this for centuries. It’s a fun question to ponder as it mixes biblical scripture, history, astrophysics, and lets us talk about comets, novae, supernovae, planetary conjunctions, along with ancient astronomy from many cultures. See for example

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I went to a very good lecture this week at the Oxford Museum of Natural History, by JRR Tolkien. Not quite in flesh—the museum does not have access to the writer himself (he died in 1973) any more than they have any live dinosaurs, but they were able to reproduce his spirit in about the most convincing way possible without resorting to the sort of necromancy that would not be approved by the university ethics committee.

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