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Who will win the World Cup?

Thu, 12 Jun 2014 00:19:45 +0000

I say Argentina. Messi has been saving himself in the latter stages of the season, running 5km per match where he'd normally run double that.

Spain is a little passed their peak. Brazil might succumb to the pressure and Neymar had a pretty bad season.

I hope for a surprise from Belgium, very talented group, especially that young guy from ManU, Januzay, and of course the guy from Chelsea, Hazard.

Chile could surprise as well, fluent attacking style, but has Vidal recovered?

France and Columbia are hampered without Ribery and Falcao, a real pity

What is it with the Netherlands and Bikes?

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 13:33:49 +0000

Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

In today's Magazine

There are more bicycles than residents in The Netherlands and in cities like Amsterdam and The Hague up to 70% of all journeys are made by bike. The BBC's Hague correspondent, Anna Holligan, who rides an omafiets - or "granny style" - bike complete with wicker basket and pedal-back brakes, examines what made everyone get back in the saddle.

The 70s velo-rution

Before World War II, journeys in the Netherlands were predominantly made by bike, but in the 1950s and 1960s, as car ownership rocketed, this changed. As in many countries in Europe, roads became increasingly congested and cyclists were squeezed to the kerb.

The jump in car numbers caused a huge rise in the number of deaths on the roads. In 1971 more than 3,000 people were killed by motor vehicles, 450 of them children.

In response a social movement demanding safer cycling conditions for children was formed. Called Stop de Kindermoord (Stop the Child Murder), it took its name from the headline of an article written by journalist Vic Langenhoff whose own child had been killed in a road accident.

The Dutch faith in the reliability and sustainability of the motor vehicle was also shaken by the Middle East oil crisis of 1973, when oil-producing countries stopped exports to the US and Western Europe.

These twin pressures helped to persuade the Dutch government to invest in improved cycling infrastructure and Dutch urban planners started to diverge from the car-centric road-building policies being pursued throughout the urbanising West.

Path to glory

To make cycling safer and more inviting the Dutch have built a vast network of cycle paths.

These are clearly marked, have smooth surfaces, separate signs and lights for those on two wheels, and wide enough to allow side-by-side cycling and overtaking.

The sign reads 'Bike street: Cars are guests'

In many cities the paths are completely segregated from motorised traffic. Sometimes, where space is scant and both must share, you can see signs showing an image of a cyclist with a car behind accompanied by the words 'Bike Street: Cars are guests'.

At roundabouts, too, it is those using pedal power who have priority.

You can cycle around a roundabout while cars (almost always) wait patiently for you to pass. The idea that "the bike is right" is such an alien concept for tourists on bikes that many often find it difficult to navigate roads and junctions at first.

A roundabout where cyclists get their own lane and have priority over motorists is being trialled in Berkshire for Transport for London

Early adopters

Even before they can walk, Dutch children are immersed in a world of cycling. As babies and toddlers they travel in special seats on "bakfiets", or cargo bikes. These seats are often equipped with canopies to protect the children from the elements, and some parents have been known to spend a small fortune doing up their machines.

As the children grow up they take to their own bikes, something made easier and safer by the discreet cycle lanes being wide enough for children to ride alongside an accompanying adult. And, as the Dutch are not allowed to drive until 18, cycling offers teenagers an alternative form of freedom.

Most bike-friendly countries in Europe

1=. Denmark

1=. Netherlands

3. Sweden

4. Finland

5. Germany

6. Belgium

7. Austria

8. Hungary

9. Slovakia

10. UK

Source: European Cyclists' Federation Cycling Barometer. Based on daily cycling levels, bike sales, safety, cycle tourism and advocacy activity

The state also plays a part in teaching too, with cycling proficiency lessons a compulsory part of the Dutch school curriculum. All schools have places to park bikes and at some schools 90% of pupils cycle to class.

Behind the bike sheds

In the university city of Groningen, a cyclists' dream even by Dutch standards, the central train station has underground parking for 10,000 bikes. Cyclists are accommodated in the way motorists are elsewhere, with electronic counters at the entrance registering how many spaces are available.

Bike parking facilities are ubiquitous in The Netherlands - outside schools, office buildings and shops. In return you are expected to only lock up your bike in designated spots - if you chain your bike in the wrong place you could find that it is removed and impounded, and that you will have to hand over 25 euros to get it back.

Bike parking, Amsterdam style

At home, even people who live in flats without special bike storage facilities can expect to be allowed to leave their bikes in a communal hallway.

In the 16th Century, houses in Amsterdam were taxed according to their width, a measure residents countered by building tall, narrow houses. So hallways get filled with bikes - but so many people cycle, no-one really minds, and just clambers past.

What is your main mode of transport?
Country	Bike (%)	Car (%)	Public transport (%)
Source: European Commission Future of Transport report 2011. 1,000 people in each country were asked; what is your main mode of transport for daily activities?
Netherlands	31.2	48.5	11
Hungary	19.1	28.2	35.3
Denmark	19	63.4	11.8
Germany	13.1	60.9	14.8
Slovakia	9.5	32.3	30.9
Italy	4.7	54.4	18.2
Ireland	3.2	67.7	14.2
France	2.6	63.7	20.1
UK	2.2	57.6	22.1
Spain	1.6	47.4	30.2
EU27 average	7.4	52.9	21.8

It's not about your ride

How much cities invest in cycling transport, per person per year

Groningen: 26 euros

Amsterdam: 25 euros

Copenhagen: 23 euros

London: 11.5 euros

Munich: 3.8 euros

Berlin: 2.4 euros

Source: Figures collated by GIZ, a German consultancy specialising in economic development

Cycling is so common that I have been rebuked for asking people whether they are cyclists or not. "We aren't cyclists, we're just Dutch," comes the response.

The bike is an integral part of everyday life rather than a specialist's accessory or a symbol of a minority lifestyle, so Dutch people don't concern themselves with having the very latest model of bike or hi-tech gadgets.

They regard their bikes as trusty companions in life's adventures. In that kind of relationship it is longevity that counts - so the older, the better. It's not uncommon to hear a bike coming up behind you with the mudguard rattling against the wheel. If anything, having a tatty, battered old bike affords more status as it attests to a long and lasting love.

No lycra, no sweat

The famously flat Dutch terrain, combined with densely-populated areas, mean that most journeys are of short duration and not too difficult to complete.

Find out more

Anna Holligan cycled 200 miles from The Hague to Westminster for BBC Newsnight to find out whether the UK could and should learn from the Netherlands' cycling culture.

You can watch the programme in full on the BBC iPlayer.

Few Dutch people don lycra to get out on their bike, preferring to ride to work, the shops or the pub in whatever clothes they think appropriate for their final destination.

Of course, the cycle paths lend themselves to sauntering along in summer dresses in a way a death-defying, white-knuckle ride in rush-hour traffic does not. It is also partly because of this that people don't need showers at work to be able to commute by bike - it's a no-sweat experience.

Dutch people also tend to go helmet-free because they are protected by the cycle-centric rules of the roads and the way infrastructure is designed. If you see someone wearing a cycling helmet in The Netherlands, the chances are they're a tourist or a professional.

I had to buy a helmet for my ride to the UK reporting for BBC Newsnight on the differences between cycling in The Netherlands and the UK. My local bike shop had just one on display, which the shop assistant said had been there "a few months or maybe a year".

WATCH: Anna Holligan (left) en route from The Hague to London

Right not might

The fact that everyone cycles, or knows someone who does, means that drivers are more sympathetic to cyclists when they have to share space on the roads.

In turn, the cyclists are expected to respect and obey the rules of the road. You may be fined for riding recklessly, in the wrong place or jumping red lights. Police (often on bikes) will issue a 60-euro ticket if you are caught without lights at night, and you will have to shell out even more if any of the mandatory bike reflectors - of which there are many under Dutch law - are missing.

Accidents do still happen of course, but in the event of a collision involving a cyclist, insurers refer to Article 185 of the Dutch Road Safety Code which deals with something called "strict liability". It is often mistakenly interpreted as a law that establishes guilt. What it essentially means is the driver will usually be expected to cover at least 50% of the financial costs to the cyclist and their bike.

When out on the road, Dutch cyclists feel powerful and protected, making the whole experience much more enjoyable. There are dangers on the roads, but very rarely do they involve heavy goods vehicles, poorly designed junctions or dangerous drivers.

The best, most revolutionary club team in history

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:32:54 +0000

Don't just believe us, check here

The great European Cup teams: Ajax 1971-73

In the second of our six-part series, we remember the revolutionary Ajax team created by Rinus Michels, and the Total Football that won them three successive titles

Ajax's victory in the 1971 European Cup final against Panathinaikos marked the Netherlands as the new centre of European football. Photograph: PA Archive/Press Association Ima

It's difficult now, given the city's reputation for liberalism and excess to imagine Amsterdam in the years following the second world war. It was a dull, staid place where, as Albert Camus wrote in the Fall, published in 1955, "for centuries, pipe smokers have been watching the same rain falling on the same canal". Yet within a decade it had become the heart of the youth revolution and had begun to nurture revolutionary ideas. Among them was Ajax, a football team that if not the greatest there has ever been, was almost certainly the most influential. Speak to Arsène Wenger or Arrigo Sacchi, Marcelo Bielsa or Pep Guardiola, and all, to an extent, have drawn their philosophies from the team created by Rinus Michels.

Dutch football in the time Camus was writing of was dismal. The national side won only two of 27 internationals between June 1949 and April 1955 but the coming of professionalism in 1954 provided a stimulus. It was a culture with few preconceptions and little to lose; it was open to change. Ajax's revolution was the development of pressing – independent from and simultaneous with the same process being enacted under Viktor Maslov at Dynamo Kyiv. It's a style of play that requires great physical preparedness – it would have been impossible in an amateur context. By the time of Michels, not only was professionalism established, but the shortages of the war years were over, nutrition was good and sports science (both legal and illicit) had advanced sufficiently that players could keep running for 90 minutes.

The seeds of Ajax's development had been sown by Jack Reynolds, who had played for Grimsby, Sheffield Wednesday and Watford before moving to Switzerland in 1912. He had three stints as coach of Ajax, the last of them immediately after the war, which he spent interned in a cap at Tost, where PG Wodehouse was also detained. Reynolds believed in attacking, passing football and ensured all levels of the club played in the same style. One of his pupils was Michels.

It was only in 1959 with the appointment of Vic Buckingham, schooled in the best passing traditions by Peter McWilliam at Tottenham, that the seeds began to sprout. Six years later, he was succeeded by Michels, who led Ajax to the title in his first season. That this might have more than local significance was demonstrated the following season as they thrashed Liverpool 5-1 in the European Cup.

Still the style was developing. Michels had changed the shape to 4-2-4 and encouraged a passing, possession-based game, but there was no sense of systematised pressing at that stage. There was, though, a radicalism in the air. Amsterdam in the 1960s was, as the British anarchist Charles Radcliffe put it, "the capital of the youth rebellion". Provos, dressed all in white, staged anti-consumerist demonstrations and art became increasingly avant garde. The key moment came in 1966 with the wedding of Princess Beatrix to Claus von Amsberg, a German aristocrat who had served in the Wehrmacht. Police set about protestors demonstrating against their marriage with batons, prompting such revulsion that tolerance became official policy. Within a couple of years Dam Square had become a camp for foreign hippies and the Amsterdam police had a reputation as the most easy-going in Europe. It is no coincidence that it was in the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969 that John Lennon and Yoko Ono celebrated their marriage with a week-long bed-in.

Perhaps there were no direct links between the Provos and Ajax but the football of Ajax developed in an age when questioning the orthodoxy was the norm; everything could be challenged. Johan Cruyff became an icon of the burgeoning Dutch youth movement of the time. In 1997, in a piece in Hard Gras magazine marking Cruyff's 50th birthday, the journalist Hubert Smeets wrote that: "Cruyff was the first player who understood that he was an artist, and the first who was able and willing to collectivise the art of sports". In a piece in issue three of the Blizzard, Simon Kuper and David Winner argue that Ajax played the same role in the Netherlands as the Beatles played in England. "The Dutch," Smeets went on, "are at their best when they can combine the system with individual creativity. Johan Cruyff is the main representative of that. He made this country after the war. I think he was the only one who understood the sixties."

That notion of individuality within a system, as David Winner argues in Brilliant Orange, was characteristic of the Netherlands at the time. Indeed, the prefix "totaal", first attached to football after the performances of the national team at the 1974 World Cup, was used across a range of disciplines to express that relationship between individual and system. The architectural theorist JB Bakema, who wrote for the influential Forum magazine, spoke of Total Urbanisation, Total Environment and Total Energy. "To understand things," he said in a lecture given in 1974, "you have to understand the relationship between things … Once the highest image of interrelationship in society was indicated by the word God; and man was allowed to use earth and universal space under condition that he should care for what he used. But we have to actualise this kind of care and respect since man came by his awareness nearer the phenomenon of interrelationship called the relation of atoms. Man became aware of his being part of a total energy system."

After beating Liverpool in 1966-67, Ajax lost to Dukla Prague in the quarter-final, something that prompted Michels to reshape his defence, bringing in the tough Serbian sweeper Velibor Vasovic from Partizan. Ajax won the league four times between 1966 and 1970, and also lost in the final of the European Cup to Milan in 1969. It was that achievement that captured the imagination of the Dutch public, with over 40,000 travelling to Paris to watch a play-off against Benfica after Ajax had overcome a 3-1 deficit from the home leg to draw 4-4 on aggregate in the quarter-final. "I played the last man in defence, the libero," said Vasovic. "Michels made this plan to play very offensive football. We discussed it. I was the architect, together with Michels, of the aggressive way of defending."

The pressing aspect stemmed largely from Johan Neeskens's aggression. He was usually deputed to pick up the opposing playmaker and the coach Bobby Haarms described him as being "like a kamikaze pilot" as he pursued him, often deep into opposition territory. At first other Ajax players hung back, but by the early 1970s they had become used to following him. That meant they were playing a very high defensive line, squeezing the space in which the opposition had to play. That was risky, but Vasovic was adept at stepping out to catch opposing forwards offside.

Vasovic was a rarity. Most of the side had grown up together through the academy and so became capable of what Buckingham called "habit football", instinctively knowing where their team-mates would be. The intermovement of Ajax was to a large extent organic. "When I saw [Wim] Suurbier going forward, I knew I had to go back," Sjaak Swart said. 'I didn't have to be told. And after two years everybody knew what to do."

That is not, though, to downplay the role of Michels, who oversaw and encouraged the intermovement, particularly as teams began to play with massed defences against Ajax.

"I tried to find guidelines that meant we could surprise a little those walls," he said. "I had to let midfield players and defensive players participate in the building up and in the attacking. It's easy to say, but it's a long way to go because the most difficult thing is not to teach a full-back to participate in attacking – because he likes that – but to find somebody else who is covering up. In the end, when you see they have the mobility, the positional game of such a team makes everyone think: 'I can participate too. It's very easy'. And then you have reached the top, the paramount of the development."

Shifting from 4-2-4 to 4-3-3 made that switching of positions rather easier to structure, because it tended to happen either down one flank or down the middle. So Suurbier, Arie Haan and Swart interchanged on the right; Vasovic (or later Horst Blankenburg or Barry Hulshoff), Neeskens and Cruyff down the middle; and Ruud Krol, Gerrie Mühren and Piet Keizer on the left. "People couldn't see that sometimes we just did things automatically," said Hulshoff. "It comes from playing a long time together. Football is best when it's instinctive. This way of playing, we grew into it. Total Football means that a player in attack can play in defence – only that he can do this, that is all. You make space, you come into space. And if the ball doesn't come, you leave this space and another player will come into it."

The tangible evidence that Ajax had reached the "paramount of development" came in 1971 as they beat Panathinaikos in the European Cup final, following up the success of Feyenoord a year before to mark the Netherlands as the new centre of European football. Michels left for Barcelona after that, and Ajax turned to the avuncular Romanian Stefan Kovacs. He relaxed the reins, and it was under him that Ajax probably played their best football, attacking with greater freedom than Michels had ever allowed them. "Kovacs was a good coach," Mühren said, "but he was too nice. Michels was more professional. He was very strict, with everyone on the same level. In the first year with Kovacs we played even better because we were good players who had been given freedom. But after that the discipline went and it was all over. We didn't have the same spirit. We could have been champions of Europe forever if we'd stayed together."

Certainly it was in 1971-72 that Ajax were at their most fluent, as Kovacs replaced Vasovic with Blankenburg and encouraged him, Suurbier and Krol to advance, safe in the knowledge that Neeskens, Haan and Mühren could drop in to cover. Vasovic himself always insisted Kovacs's impact was minimal. "Those who say Total Football started with Kovacs are wrong," he said shortly before his death in 2002. "Kovacs had nothing to do with it. He simply took over a very good team, the champions of Europe, and let them continue the way they had already been playing."

Such were the doubts about Kovacs that only a player revolt saved him from the sack in April 1972, shortly after a goalless draw away to Benfica had confirmed their progress to a second successive European Cup final. At the time, Ajax were five points clear in the league, had just hammered Feyenoord 5-1 in Rotterdam and had reached the Dutch Cup final. "The results show that Kovacs was not wrong," Cruyff said. "Our team was ready to take part in making decisions." They went on to beat Internazionale 2-0 in the final. "Ajax proved that creative attack is the real lifeblood of the game," the report in the Times read the following morning; "that blanket defence can be outwitted and outmanoeuvred, and by doing so they made the outlines of the night a little sharper and the shadows a little brighter."

The following year, by winning the European Cup again, Ajax became the first side since Real Madrid to complete a hat-trick of titles. Appropriately, having hammered Bayern Munich 4-0 in the first leg of the quarter-final, it was Real Madrid whom Ajax beat in the semi. The aggregate score of 3-1 barely did justice to their superiority, and the tie is better remembered for Mühren's keepie-ups in the second leg at the Bernabéu, a moment of arrogance and joie de vivre that encapsulated the ethos of Kovacs's Ajax. "I knew I was going to give the ball to Krol, but I needed some time until he reached me," Mühren recalled. "So I juggled until he arrived. You can't plan to do something like that. You don't think about that. You just do it. It was the moment when Ajax and Real Madrid changed positions. Before then it was always the big Real Madrid and the little Ajax. When they saw me doing that, the balance changed. The Real Madrid players were looking. They nearly applauded. The stadium was standing up. It was the moment Ajax took over."

In Belgrade in the final, they beat Juventus 1-0, but it was as emphatic as a one-goal victory can be as, having taken a fourth-minute lead, Ajax taunted the Italians with long strings of passes – what we might today think of as sterile domination but at the time seemed a thrilling daring way of humiliating beaten opponents.

But that was the end. Freedom became decadence and at the end of the season, in circumstances that have never been fully explained, Cruyff lost the vote to be captain. He went to join Michels at Barcelona, and it wouldn't be until he returned as coach over a decade later than Ajax again won a European trophy.

A different kind of man

Fri, 10 May 2013 03:03:40 +0000

Richard Feynman: Life, the universe and everything

Flowers, music, strip clubs...Richard Feynman's scientific curiosity knew no bounds. Christopher Riley pays tribute to an eccentric genius

Scientist Richard Feynman

By Christopher Riley

9:56AM BST 09 May 2013

Comments

In these days of frivolous entertainments and frayed attention spans, the people who become famous are not necessarily the brightest stars. One of the biggest hits on YouTube, after all, is a video of a French bulldog who can’t roll over. But in amongst all the skateboarding cats and laughing babies, a new animated video, featuring the words of a dead theoretical physicist, has gone viral. In the film, created from an original documentary made for the BBC back in the early Eighties, the late Nobel Prize-winning professor, Richard Feynman, can be heard extolling the wonders of science contained within a simple flower.

There is “beauty”, he says, not only in the flower’s appearance but also in an appreciation of its inner workings, and how it has evolved the right colours to attract insects to pollinate it. Those observations, he continues, raise further questions about the insects themselves and their perception of the world. “The science,” he concludes, “only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of the flower.” This interview was first recorded by the BBC producer Christopher Sykes, back in 1981 for an episode of Horizon called “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out”. When it was broadcast the following year the programme was a surprise hit, with the audience beguiled by the silver-haired professor chatting to them about his life and his philosophy of science.

Now, thanks to the web, Richard Feynman’s unique talents – not just as a brilliant physicist, but as an inspiring communicator – are being rediscovered by a whole new audience. As well as the flower video, which, to date, has been watched nearly a quarter of a million times, YouTube is full of other clips paying homage to Feynman’s ground-breaking theories, pithy quips and eventful personal life.

The work he did in his late twenties at Cornell University, in New York state, put the finishing touches to a theory which remains the most successful law of nature yet discovered. But, as I found while making a new documentary about him for the BBC, his curiosity knew no bounds, and his passion for explaining his scientific view of the world was highly contagious. Getting to glimpse his genius through those who loved him, lived and worked with him, I grew to regret never having met him; to share first-hand what so many others described as their “time with Feynman”.

William Hurt interview: The Challenger 18 Mar 2013
The man behind the maths 23 Jan 2009

Richard Phillips Feynman was born in Far Rockaway — a suburb of New York – in May 1918, but his path in life was forged even before this. “If he’s a boy I want him to be a scientist,” said his father, Melville, to his pregnant wife. By the time he was 10, Feynman had his own laboratory at home and, a few years later, he was employing his sister Joan as an assistant at a salary of four cents a week. By 15, he’d taught himself trigonometry, advanced algebra, analytic geometry and calculus, and in his last year of high school won the New York University Math Championship, shocking the judges not only by his score, but by how much higher it was than those of his competitors.

He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939 and obtained perfect marks in maths and physics exams for the graduate school at Princeton University — an unprecedented feat. “At 23 there was no physicist on Earth who could match his exuberant command over the native materials of theoretical science,” writes his biographer James Gleick.

Such talents led to him being recruited to the Manhattan Project in the early Forties. Together with some of the greatest minds in physics in the 20th century, Feynman was put to work to help build an atom bomb to use against the Germans before they built one to use against the Allies. Security at the top secret Los Alamos labs was at the highest level. But for Feynman — a born iconoclast – such control was there to be challenged. When not doing physics calculations he spent his time picking locks and cracking safes to draw attention to shortcomings in the security systems.

“Anything that’s secret I try and undo,” he explained years later. Feynman saw the locks in the same way as he saw physics: just another puzzle to solve. He garnered such a reputation, in fact, that others at the lab would come to him when a colleague was out of town and they needed a document from his safe.

Between the safe cracking and the physics calculations, the pace of life at Los Alamos was relentless. But for Feynman these activities were a welcome distraction from a darker life. His wife, Arline, who was confined to her bed in a sanatorium nearby, was slowly dying of TB.

When she died in the summer of 1945, Feynman was bereft. This misery was compounded, a few weeks later, when the first operational atom bomb was dropped on Japan, killing more than 80,000 people. His original reason for applying his physics to the war effort had been to stop the Germans. But its use on the Japanese left Feynman shocked. For the first time in his life he started to question the value of science and, convinced the world was about to end in a nuclear holocaust, his focus drifted.

He became something of a womaniser, dating undergraduates and hanging out with show girls and prostitutes in Las Vegas. In a celebrated book of anecdotes about his life – Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman – the scientist recounts how he applied an experimental approach to chatting up women. Having assumed, like most men, that you had to start by offering to buy them a drink, he explains how a conversation with a master of ceremonies at a nightclub in Albuquerque one summer prompted him to change tactics. And to his surprise, an aloof persona proved far more successful than behaving like a gentleman.

^{William Hurt as Richard Feynman in a BBC drama based on his role in the Challenger disaster report}

His other method of relaxation in those years was music; his passion for playing the bongos stayed with him for the rest of his life. Physics had slipped down his list of priorities, but he suddenly rediscovered his love for the subject in a most unexpected way. In the canteen at Cornell one lunchtime he became distracted by a student, who had thrown a plate into the air. As it clattered onto the floor Feynman observed that the plate rotated faster than it wobbled. It made him wonder what the relationship was between these two motions.

Playing with the equations which described this movement reminded him of a similar problem concerning the rotational spin of the electron, described by the British physicist Paul Dirac. And this, in turn, led him to Dirac’s theory of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED); a theory which had tried to make sense of the subatomic world but had posed as many questions as it answered. What followed, Feynman recalled years later, was like a cork coming out of a bottle. “Everything just poured out,” he remembered.

“He really liked to work in the context of things that were supposed to be understood and just understand them better than anyone else,” says Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist who sits today at Feynman’s old desk at Caltech, in Pasadena. “That was very characteristic of Feynman. It required this really amazing physical intuition – an insight into what was really going on.” Applying this deep insight, Feynman invented an entirely new branch of maths to work on QED, which involved drawing little pictures instead of writing equations.

Richard’s sister, Joan, recalls him working on the problem while staying with her one weekend. Her room-mate was still asleep in the room where Richard had been working. “He said to me, ‘Would you go in the room and get my papers, I wanna start working’,” she remembers. “So I went in the room and I looked for them, but there was no mathematics. It was just these silly little diagrams and I came out and said, ‘Richard, I can’t find your papers, it’s just these kind of silly diagrams’. And he said, ‘That is my work!’” Today Feynman’s diagrams are used across the world to model everything from the behaviour of subatomic particles to the motion of planets, the evolution of galaxies and the structure of the cosmos.

Applying them to QED, Feynman came up with a solution which would win him a share of the 1965 Nobel Prize for Physics. Almost half a century later QED remains our best explanation of everything in the universe except gravity. “It’s the most numerically precise physical theory ever invented,” says Carroll.

Discovering a law of nature and winning a Nobel Prize, for most people, would represent the pinnacle of a scientific career. But for Feynman these achievements were mere stepping stones to other interests. He took a sabbatical to travel across the Caltech campus to the biology department, where he worked on viruses. He also unravelled the social behaviour of ants and potential applications of nanotechnology. And he was active beyond the world of science, trading physics coaching for art lessons with renowned Californian artist Jirayr Zorthian. (While at Caltech he also began frequenting a local strip club, where he would quietly work out his thories on napkins; he found it the ideal place in which to clear his head.)

But it was his talent as a communicator of science that made him famous. In the early Sixties, Cornell invited him to give the Messenger Lectures – a series of public talks on physics. Watching them today, Feynman’s charisma and charm is as seductive as it was 50 years ago.

“He loved a big stage,” says Carroll. “He was a performer as well as a scientist. He could explain things in different ways than the professionals thought about them. He could break things down into their constituent pieces and speak a language that you already shared. He was an amazingly good teacher and students loved him unconditionally.”

Recognising this ability, in 1965 Caltech asked him to rewrite the undergraduate physics course. The resulting Feynman Lectures on Physics took him three years to create and the accompanying textbooks still represent the last word on the history of physics. The lectures themselves were brimming with inspiring “showbiz demonstrations” as his friend Richard Davies describes them. Most memorably, Feynman used to set up a heavy brass ball on a pendulum, send it swinging across the room, and then wait for it to swing back towards him. Students would gasp as it rushed towards his face, but Feynman would stand stock still, knowing it would stop just in front of his nose. Keen to capitalise on these talents for engaging an audience, Christopher Sykes made his film for Horizon. “He took enormous pleasure in exploring life and everything it had to offer,” remembers Sykes. “More than that, he took tremendous pleasure in telling you about it.”

In the late Seventies, Feynman discovered a tumour in his abdomen. “He came home and reported, ‘It’s the size of a football’,” remembers his son Carl. “I was like ‘Wow, so what does that mean?’ And he said, ‘Well, I went to the medical library and I figure there’s about a 30 per cent chance it will kill me’.” Feynman was trying to turn his predicament into something fascinating, but it was still not the kind of thing a son wanted to hear from his father.

A series of operations kept Feynman alive and well enough to work on one final important project. In 1986, he joined the commission set up to investigate the Challenger disaster. The space shuttle had exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing the entire crew of seven astronauts. Feynman fought bureaucratic intransigence and vested interests to uncover the cause of the accident: rubber O-ring seals in the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters that failed to work on the freezing morning of the launch. At a typically flamboyant press conference, Feynman demonstrated his findings by placing a piece of an O-ring in a glass of iced water. But the inquiry had left him exhausted. With failing kidneys and in a great deal of pain he decided not to go through surgery again and went into hospital for the last time in February 1988.

His friend Danny Hillis remembers walking with Feynman around this time: “I said, ‘I’m sad because I realise you’re about to die’. And he said, ‘That bugs me sometimes, too. But not as much as you’d think. Because you realise you’ve told a lot of stories and those are gonna stay around even after you’re gone.’” Twenty-five years after his death, thanks to the web, Feynman’s prophecy has more truth than he could ever have imagined.

Christopher Riley is a visiting professor at the University of Lincoln. His film 'The Fantastic Mr Feynman' is on BBC Two on Sunday. Follow Telegraph TV & Radio on Twitter

Hello!

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:56:30 +0000

Tardigrades are one of a handful of animals which can live without water (Copyright: SPL)

A strange creature has a trick that could change the delivery of vaccines – and other medical supplies – forever.

What happens next...

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 15:56:08 +0000

Here are people in China that refused to sell their house to make way for a highway.. Apparently they couldn't be forced out

Neda Soltani: 'The media mix-up that ruined my life'

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:23:25 +0000

Neda Soltani: 'The media mix-up that ruined my life'

Neda Soltani (left) and Neda Agha-Soltan (right)

In June 2009, a woman was shot dead in a demonstration in Tehran. Neda Agha-Soltan became the face of the Iranian protest movement - except that it was not her face to begin with, but the face of university teacher Neda Soltani. Here, Neda Soltani tells her disturbing story.

On 21 June 2009, I went to my office early in the morning and opened my email account to find 67 Facebook "friend requests". Over the next few hours I received another 300 requests.

I didn't know then that my photo and name had appeared on websites and TV broadcasts across the world.

Students at the university where I worked were holding sit-ins and protests on campus, and since I was on the administrative board I could not go home at the usual time. I was still at work that evening when I received an email from someone I didn't know.

In this email I read that a girl called Neda Soltani - which is my name - had been killed on the streets of Tehran the day before. Since no information had been made available about her, this person was trying to find her on Facebook through a process of elimination - ruling out the other Neda Soltanis on the site.

When I got home, I found I had received calls from students, colleagues, friends and relatives saying: "We saw you on CNN, we saw you on Fox News, we saw you on Farsi channels, Iranian channels."

The international media was using a picture of me taken from my Facebook account to accompany the footage of Neda Agha-Soltan's death.

Continue reading the main story

The other Neda: Neda Agha-Soltan

Not known for political activism, she was 26 when she was shot in the heart during a street protest
Footage of her death spread via the internet - leading Time to describe it as "probably the most widely witnessed death in human history"
Her family was banned from holding a public memorial service - her grave was desecrated
Neda's mother told the BBC that the "most painful thing of all" was that Neda had not had the chance to fulfil her dream of having children

Iranian doctor tells of Neda's death

I confirmed as friends everybody who had added me on Facebook - there were several international journalists and bloggers among them - and explained that this was a mistake, I was not the person who had been shot dead the day before.

Some bloggers posted updates, but the journalists who received my message did not react - my picture continued to be used.

I received a lot of hate messages. People accused me of being an agent of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who had gained access to Neda's Facebook account and wished to distort the face of their hero, this symbol of resistance and opposition.

Agha-Soltan's family did release authentic photos of her. But you can imagine what a terrible state the family were in and it took them quite some time - it was something like 48 hours before they released the first photos.

By that time my photo had been well established and identified as the face of the martyr and of the whole opposition movement, and the media kept using it side-by-side with the images of the death of the real martyr, the real Neda.

It was just ridiculous to see how such a huge mistake had come out of a simple photo on Facebook.

But it was also very shocking to see my face side-by-side with the video of Agha-Soltan. When I saw people all over the world demonstrating with my photo, putting up shrines, lighting candles - it was just like sitting there and watching my own funeral.

Of course, I knew that it could have been me - I could well have suffered the fate of that poor, innocent woman.

The Iranian regime felt harassed by the attention Agha-Soltan's death had brought on them from abroad. Within three days, Ministry of Intelligence agents came to my home and summoned me for a meeting.

They wanted to find a way to wash their hands of the blood of Neda Agha-Soltan. My name and my face were the only part of the puzzle that they could use to their advantage.

They wanted to imply that Neda Agha-Soltan's death had not taken place but was a piece of propaganda against Iran, and that the photo had not been taken from my Facebook page but had been released by the European Union. They accused the European Union, the United Kingdom and of course the US.

I refused to co-operate with them.

When they understood that I wasn't willing to play my part they turned against me. I remember one of the agents telling me: "You as a single individual do not count for us - right now, the national security of our Islamic fatherland is in question."

Continue reading the main story

Analysis Phil Coomes BBC Picture editor

Photographs of those unfortunate enough to be caught up in news events, often in tragic circumstances, have always been sought by the media. They bring a sense of the person central to the story and allow readers to identify with them.

In the past, reporters on the ground would approach relatives for a hand-out picture, which agencies would syndicate to national and international media. But this takes time and today we consume, and demand, stories and photographs faster than ever before, which means news organisations will dig for those pictures on social media sites.

So far as I am aware, the BBC did not use a picture of the wrong Neda.

Of course, there are many issues to consider, including verification of identity and copyright. Both of those can be dealt with in time, but there is also an ethical angle - whether the media has the right to take a photograph from one context and use it in another, away from the audience it was intended for.

There is no simple answer as the situation varies from story to story.

My situation was getting very complicated. Many friends and colleagues decided that being in contact with me could endanger them as well. My boyfriend was one of these people - I lost contact with him.

Other friends tried to get me to focus on what I should do. They told me: "You need a Plan B." But I didn't listen to them, I was so distressed and afraid. I simply couldn't believe a photo could ruin my whole life.

The last time the agents came to my house they refused to let me take anybody or anything with me and they took me away.

They accused me of betraying the national security of my country. I was charged with being a spy for the CIA and told to sign a confession. I knew very well that such an accusation could end in a death sentence for me in Iran.

It was a surreal, Kafkaesque experience.

The whole thing happened in a matter of 12 days. In less than two weeks I had gone from being a professor of English literature, leading a very normal life, to a person who had to flee her homeland.

My friends arranged it. With their help, I bribed a security official at the airport and left Iran. I had to pay 11,000 euros ($14,000 or £9,000).

I went first to Turkey, and it was there that I was introduced to the idea of seeking political asylum. I then went to Greece and in the end, Germany. The German government sent me to a refugee camp where I was provided with shelter and food, and went on to grant my request for asylum.

Continue reading the main story

Irrevocably linked

How much time now do you find yourself thinking about the other Neda?

Neda Soltani: It's a daily phenomenon for me. It's just something which is part of me. And it is impossible to think about myself without thinking about her. It is impossible to think about my own mother without thinking about her mother. It is impossible to think about my own brother without thinking about her brother. She's part of my life and she's a conscious part, an active part, of my memories.

Neda Soltani on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour

To live the life of a refugee is to be a leaf in the air. You just hang in the air with no sense of belonging. You have been uprooted and you are not allowed to go back to where you belong.

Looking back, the people I am most angry with are the Western media. They kept using my photo even though they knew it was not a picture of the real victim in that tragic video. They knowingly exposed me to extreme danger.

I can never be the person that I was before these things happened. I'm still suffering from depression, I am still suffering from nightmares.

However, I have decided to fight for a new, good life - what I believe I as a human being deserve. I am optimistic that with the passage of time my situation will get better.

Neda Soltani spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service . Listen back to the interview via iPlayer or browse the Outlook podcast archive .

Now who does this remind me off..

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:11:32 +0000

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...nted-troll

We're not alone..

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 22:56:00 +0000

Hubble captures extraordinary view of Universe

A minute little patch in the sky with 5500 galaxies, each containing 100 billion(!) stars or so..

How about that for putting IOC's share price into perspective..

Phone with 5 inch 1080p screen..

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 15:38:53 +0000

HTC One X 5 to be the next Google Nexus, named Google Nexus 5 for its 5-inch screen size?

By Ardjuna Seghers
25 September 2012

Unlike many technology companies, Google’s naming scheme recently is very transparent. Its Google Nexus 7 tablet was called that because of its 7-inch screen. Now its latest smartphone, and the overdue sequel to the popular Samsung Galaxy Nexus, is rumoured to be called the Google Nexus 5 and to be based on HTC’s One X 5 ‘phablet’.

This is not unlikely, as the Google Nexus One was manufactured by HTC. After partnering with Samsung for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Google Nexus S, and Asus for the Nexus 7 tablet, it’s probably about HTC’s turn – though we might have been expecting Google-owned Motorola to have a go, as you can read in The Art of War: Why Google Bought Motorola.

Anyway, the HTC One X is still one of our favourite premium smartphones, so Google could do a lot worse than basing its Nexus 5 on HTC’s One X 5 – especially since the rumoured specs for the phone are simply scrumptious. Naturally, the HTC One X 5/Google Nexus 5 will have a 5-inch screen, but rather than the 720p most HD phone displays offer, it will sport a 1080p resolution – that’s the same as a premium telly, and far better than the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 or iPhone 5, easily beating ‘Retina Display’.

If the tipster, who talked to GSM Arena, is correct, it also comes with enough grunt under the hood to run this resolution thanks to a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, the same found in the LG Optimus G flagship. That means Adreno 320 GPU power for amazing mobile gaming, too.

Up to 64GB of storage, 4G/LTE and a 12 megapixel camera with LED flash round out the rumoured specs list for the Google Nexus 5. Battery life too should be impressive thanks to a supposed 2,500mAh unit. We just hope this Nexus will finally offer expandable memory, especially since the S4 Pro would make it powerful enough to act as your main media centre.

Naturally you would expect an Android OS version update with a new Nexus smartphone, and indeed the HTC One X 5/Google Nexus 5 is rumoured to come rocking the latest version of Jelly Bean, AKA Android 4.1.2. In other words, thanks to OS enhancements like Project Butter and all that power under the hood, everything should run smoother than ever before.

As lovers of the latest cutting-edge tech, we can only hope the Google Nexus 5 AKA HTC One X 5 is real, and that the leaked specs are real too. Why not let us know your thoughts in the comments?

Americans pay 38 times as much as the Japanese for Internet data!

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 01:53:52 +0000

Why Your Phone, Cable & Internet Bills Cost So Much

The U.S. has fallen behind much of the Western world when it comes to phone, cable and Internet service. Americans actually pay much more for inferior service compared to their global counterparts.

In his new book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use 'Plain English' to Rob You Blind, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston highlights these astounding facts:

Americans pay four times as much as the French for an Internet triple-play package—phone, cable TV and Internet—at an average of $160 per month versus $38 per month.
The French get global free calling and worldwide live television. Their Internet is also 10 times faster at downloading information and 20 times faster uploading it.
America has gone from #1 in Internet speed (when we invented it) to 29th in the world and falling.
Bulgaria is among the countries with faster Internet service.
Americans pay 38 times as much as the Japanese for Internet data.

Since the mid-1970's when Ma Bell was cited as holding a monopoly over phone service, Americans have been told more competition would lower their phone bill. But the promise of lower prices has actually led to higher prices, says Johnston.

In his book, he tells of a woman who in 1984 paid $9.51 for her local phone service. He writes:

"By 2003 her bill had swollen fourfold to $38.90. In the two decades since the breakup of the AT&T monopoly, even after adjusting for inflation, [her] telephone cost $2.30 for each dollar paid in 1984. And that was without any charges for long-distance calls."

Not only have prices increased, phone service providers now charge fees for everything, including options that used to be free, such as directory service. Bills have also become increasingly complicated. A poll of 1,000 people found that only three people actually knew how to read their statement. That means virtually no one understands their phone bill in its entirety.

Of cable service Johnston writes:

"Since 1995, average cable prices have been rising 2.6 times faster than the cost of living, reaching an average of almost $53 a month for basic, no frill service in 2009, FCC reports show....

According to SNL Kagan, a market research firm, the average cable bill in 2011 was $78, almost double the price of $40 in 2001 and significantly higher than the FCC figure.

How did this happen?

"The telecos got the rules changed while we weren't watching," says Johnston in the accompanying interview. Basically, the phone and cable companies lobbied Washington to change laws and regulations to favor their business over their customers.

And remember the so-called "Information Superhighway"?

Over the course of the last 20 years, nearly $500 billion has been collected by the telecom companies to (allegedly) bring America into the 21st century with an "Information Superhighway," says Johnston. That works out ot $3,000 per household to have access to high-speed Internet.

But America did not get what it was promised and much of the country will never get fiber optic lines, Johnston tells The Daily Ticker. And even in cities that do have the faster service, the service is not always accessible.

"This is terrible for commerce and our economic future," says Johnston, adding that our global competitors are investing in the proper infrastructure.

"The companies essentially have a business model that is antithetical to economic growth," he says. "Profits go up if they can provide slow Internet at super high prices."

The relationship between phone and cable providers has essentially become a cartel, says Johnston, who cites the relationship between Verizon and Comcast.

He writes:

Verizon announced in 2008 that it would stop building out its FiOS (fiber-optic system) once it reaches about 16 million of America's 100 million households....

Instead, it has made deals with Comcast to sell its services using Comcast cables. Verizon said it anticipates similar deals with other cable providers to sell of their systems.

In terms of phone service, what America really got was a duopoly, says Johnston, noting that AT&T and Verizon control 60% of phone service in America.

Testing Pictures

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:19:05 +0000

Olympic Games

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 20:17:06 +0000

Yes, there is Bolt, a phenomenon and entertainer, but what that guy (Rudisha) just did at the 800 meters really is unprecedented. To lead from the start and run a world record, never seen anything like it.

[split] Disunited states of Europe

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 17:12:03 +0000

STP, while I think about this interesting Latin post, including an objective reply, may I invite you - as a self admitted Anglophile - to read today's article in The Economist, titled: "Disunited states of Europe". Please meet Churchill again... In my opinion, poor Mr. Cameron will be taken to task pretty soon, as will Frau Merckel.

http://www.economist.com/node/21559387

What percentage of the float can be shorted

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 20:59:43 +0000

Interesting question, here is the answer from Investopedia (below). Not very satisfactory, the short interest can be over 100% of the float..

What percentage of a company's float can be shorted?
The quick answer is that the amount of shares shorted can actually exceed 50% of the float in a company. The percentage of shares shorted compared to the float is referred to as the short interest. It is calculated by taking the total amount of shares shorted and dividing it by the total amount of shares available for trade. For example, if 5 million shares are shorted and there are 20 million tradable (or floated) shares, the short interest is equal to 25%. In this example, the maximum amount of shares that could be shorted would be 20 million shares. How is it that the maximum amount that could be shorted is equal to the float? The float is simply the amount of a company's shares that are publicly owned and available for trading, and tradable shares can be borrowed by short sellers.

While it is rare for a stock to have a short interest greater than 50%, it does happen. This was the case for TASER International Inc (TASR) in late 2004, when it had around 33 million shares shorted compared to a float of around 59 million, which gave the company a short interest of approximately 56%. When a company's short interest is high - above 40% - it means a large portion of the investors in the company are hoping the shares will go down in value. This large negative position would suggest that buyers should stay away from the company due to the negative sentiment. But this is not always the case - it can be difficult to tell exactly why investors are shorting a company in such high numbers.
Most commonly, investors will be shorting with the intent of gaining on a drop in the share's price. Some investors may be shorting against the box to hedge an already held position from losing any value. Brokerage firms in need of shares to sell to their clients will borrow stock from another firm, effectively going short and selling the borrowed shares to their clients. So while it may seem like a very negative sign for a company when its stock has a large short interest, it is generally very difficult to predict the stock's future price movement because the reasoning behind shorts is never completely clear.

Natural Gas Liquids

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 22:36:59 +0000

Interesting read, here

While we wait on the election

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 19:23:17 +0000

Does anyone have any good ideas for short term trading coin?

STP: LED General Lighting

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 03:18:20 +0000

Hi STP, do you have any broker reports you can share, covering companies in the LED General Lighting industry?

Would appreciate your advice.

Best,
Petro

Shale gas, decline rates and Ultimate Economic Recovery

Wed, 09 May 2012 13:37:26 +0000

Very good article about shale gas here

Seems to need $8/mcf to be economical..

Rumours of GKP buyout - I think not - it is FACT

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:24:33 +0000

Hello,

For those following GKP you may know that they are involved in a legal suit with Excalibur (personally, I believe the claims by Excalibur are the biggest joke ever, but that is another story). In any event with numerous hearings over the past and upcoming months, one fellow obtained the transcript and posted a relevant snippet.

It would appear that the GKP lawyer had to divulge the movements of Todd Kozel, CEO up to March 16th. And for some crazy reason, this also involved the GKP Chief Operating Officer; it involves finance advisers, it involves external legal advisers, and it involves a number of counterparties in the Far East who this team is going to see.

Where in the far east are they going? Well China of course. And as coincidence has it, Sinopec is operating in Kurdistan is aggressively looking to acquire oil reserves.

Now I am not the smartest kid on the block, but I can put two and two together. And the absolute best part about this, Sinopec when it acquires reserve pays top dollar as it doesn't price in a profit margin as they are more concerned about national energy needs.

Take a read of the brilliant post from the horses mouth: http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail/?display=discussion&code=cotn%3AGKP.L&threshold=20&it=le&action=detail&id=9467595

As always, PDYOR, fwiw, and Health and Happiness,
hemi

ps. Now this is just rumour - but a while back there was speculation that Sinopec would buy out GKP for 27 pounds........we currently sit at 2.5 pounds.

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Hello!

What happens next...

Neda Soltani: 'The media mix-up that ruined my life'

Neda Soltani: 'The media mix-up that ruined my life'

The other Neda: Neda Agha-Soltan

Irrevocably linked

Now who does this remind me off..

We're not alone..

Hubble captures extraordinary view of Universe

Phone with 5 inch 1080p screen..

HTC One X 5 to be the next Google Nexus, named Google Nexus 5 for its 5-inch screen size?

Americans pay 38 times as much as the Japanese for Internet data!

Why Your Phone, Cable & Internet Bills Cost So Much

Testing Pictures

Olympic Games

[split] Disunited states of Europe

What percentage of the float can be shorted

Natural Gas Liquids

While we wait on the election

STP: LED General Lighting

Shale gas, decline rates and Ultimate Economic Recovery

Rumours of GKP buyout - I think not - it is FACT