Understanding the Shift from ICE to Electric Vehicles

Updated 25 November 2025 In what is a departure from my usual topics of astronomy and space science, I have written a series of posts on the transition to electric vehicles.  Like most countries in the world, the UK is phasing out motor vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine (ICE), in favour of “zero… Continue reading Understanding the Shift from ICE to Electric Vehicles

Creating Videos

I started my Explaining Science blog nearly 11 years ago in April 2014. Back then I wasn't sure how long I'd want to keep it  going. But now in 2025 I still find  that I enjoy blogging very much. In July 2020, the year of the first covid-19 lockdowns in the UK, I started the… Continue reading Creating Videos

eBooks from Explaining Science 2024

Update 30 August 2025 I have extensively expanded and rewritten all three “A Short Guide to…” e-books. I will make these books available on Kindle for a competitive price. However, in future I won’t do any deals where I offer free or discounted prices on these books for a limited time period.  I believe the… Continue reading eBooks from Explaining Science 2024

The Magnitude Scale

When measuring the brightness of objects in the sky, astronomers use the magnitude scale. The basis of the scale we use today was invented by ancient Greek astronomers. They classified all the stars into six magnitudes. The brightest stars were magnitude 1, the next brightest magnitude 2 and so on. The faintest stars visible to… Continue reading The Magnitude Scale

Twice Yearly Clock Changes

At 0100 UTC (2 AM local time) on Sunday 27 October, the UK like most of Europe will put it clocks back by one hour at is comes to an end of Daylight Saving Time. Most of the USA will follow a week later. In this post I'll give an overview of DST and why… Continue reading Twice Yearly Clock Changes