This is actually my third blog.
The first was at the general election in 2010, when I was standing as the Lib Dem candidate in Macclesfield. It was early days for social media campaigns and look pretty primitive now. It includes a passionate Liberal Democrat pledge to abolish student fees – subsequent events made me feel pretty sick about that. I didn’t quit the party, but it was close.
The second charted events in the Huddersfield Accelerator Institute, and it gave way of recording a lot of the things we did. I got some of the students to write some of the posts, which was good. It’s not clear if anyone ever read it, and all the university blogs seem to have dropped out of sight in a recent web reorganisation.
So this, my third, is a retirement project. (Well, it’s better than taking up golf or buying a motorbike.) As any researcher will tell you, the urge to find out about things is closely linked to a ‘mission to explain’ need to share them with other people. Before retirement, teaching students gave me that outlet. This is a substitute. When I’ve understood (by hard struggle or by blinding insight) something in physics, or statistics, or whatever, this will give me a platform to tell others about it.
Of course there’s no guarantee that anyone will read it – there is so much published on the web. But I can only try, and see what happens.
Roger Barlow 