Highlights

Despite popular demand, here is more of the Unravelling the Universe show I posted a little bit from a few days ago. My total screen time on this programme only amounted to a couple of minutes, so I asked if it was possible to do an appropriate edit of the hour-long footage. Unfortunately, Ed got the wrong idea, so removed most of the highlights and left practically only the few minutes with me in them. You just can’t get the help these days.

The film  was shot in a studio in Greenford and I had to hang around there a long time before they even started shooting. I think that was because of the lights. I need a special form of  illumination if I am to present the illusion of having three dimensions. The director had insisted I wear my leather jacket for the sequence and under the very powerful lights I was sweating so much I had to wear make-up to stop me shining.

They reckon that there is a ratio of about 100:1 of film shot to film broadcast on programmes like this, and this is probably even higher when the subject is as inarticulate as me. In my memory it certainly took several hours just for my little bits.

If nothing else this tape gives you the chance to see Rocky Kolb in a splendid jumper that puts that of the new Lucasian professor well and truly in the shade. What was that about chromodynamics?

The Michael Green Experience

It’s been a couple of weeks since the University of Cambridge announced that the successor to Stephen Hawking as Lucasian Professor  of Mathematics would be Michael Green, who is best known for his work on string theory. Heartiest congratulations to him for reaching a position of such eminence.

I was trying to think of a suitable way of marking the occasion of his election to this prestigious post when I suddenly remembered that we were actually on a TV programme together years ago. The show in question was called Unravelling the Universe and was first broadcast in December 1991 as part of a science documentary series called Equinox.

I eventually found my ancient VHS copy of the broadcast master tape of this show and persuaded Ed and Stephen, two of the excellent elves that work in the School of Physics & Astronomy here at Cardiff University, to transfer it to a digital format and put a bit on Youtube for all to see. Many thanks to them for their help.

Other people involved in the programme included Rocky Kolb, Chris Isham and Paul Davies but the short (2-and-a-half minute) clip below features just Michael Green (who basically put the show together) and myself (who was just there to make up the numbers), plus wonderful narration by the late great Peter Jones.

Michael Green hasn’t changed a bit in 18 years. In fact, I saw him last year and am sure he was even wearing the same sweater.

I, on the other hand….Oh dear.