New Scientist Mysteries of the Universe
September 16, 2026
Harry didn’t turn up at the New Scientist weekend but grew up in nearby Holmes Chapel
Harry Styles didn’t turn up at the New Scientist “Mysteries of the Universe” weekend but he grew up in nearby Holmes Chapel, close to the venue, the De Vere Cranagh Estate Hotel, where I talked on my book, The One Thing You Need to Know: The Simple Way to Understand the Most Important Ideas in Science. Everyone I spoke to seemed to really enjoy the weekend, organised by the the wonderful Lara Paxton and hosted by Dr Stuart Clark, which included a visit to the radio observatory at Jodrell Bank. I left with a warm, fuzzy feeling, which survived even the train delay on the journey back to London! “There’s a thing on the back-end”, the train driver helpfully announced. Your guess is as good as mine!
New Scientist very kindly used a photo of me taken about 200 years ago!
Eunice Foote, the American amateur scientist, who in 1856 discovered the greenhouse effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapour
Ray Davis of the Kinks, who didn’t discover the solar neutrino puzzle
Ray Davis, the physicist, who did discover the solar neutrino puzzle
Chatting with Stuart Clark, the compère of the New Scientist weekend. I commissioned his first article for the magazine; he invited me to his university to talk about my first book
The lovely view from my room at the Cranagh Estate Hotel in Cheshire
What every author likes to see: A selection of my books, including the book I was talking about: THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW
One of the detectors of the Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope before being lowered into the sea off Sicily. In 2023, Km3NeT detected a neutrino with an energy 35 times as high as any detected before (30,000 times the energy of any particle created at the Large Hadron Collider)
One of the topics I explained in my talk on my book, THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW
