Science, history & wonder
Essays on forgotten pioneers, scientific imagination, engineering, astronomy, mathematics, and the ideas that orbit Jimbo’s Assumption.
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latest featured pieces.
These featured posts connect Jimbo’s Assumption to family, difficult times, engineering, Edinburgh, and the real scientific imagination behind the novel.
Jimbo’s Assumption – Why Now?
A reflection on family, difficult times, Professor Hawking’s consoling insights, and the hope found in the deeds of our forebears.
Find in Posts →For the Herioter Hub
A piece connecting Jimbo’s George Heriot’s background, his passion for engineering, and Richard’s own professional journey.
Find in Posts →Inventors, explorers, thinkers, and the people behind progress.
Browse science-history essays inspired by the same curiosity that powers Jimbo’s Assumption.
Heinrich Olbers
The insomniac Bremen physician and astronomer linked with comets, Pallas, Vesta, Olbers’ paradox, and the mentoring of Friedrich Bessel.
Read post →Charles Hastings
The Worcester physician and public health reformer whose compassion, intellect, and social conscience helped shape the modern city’s identity.
Read post →James Ferguson
The self-taught Scottish instrument-maker, astronomer, lecturer, and communicator who helped make Newtonian science understandable.
Read post →Jimbo’s Assumption – Why Now?
The immediate reason was to mark the arrival of a grandchild; the deeper reason is a reaction to difficult times and a search for solace in human achievement.
Read post →For the Herioter Hub
Jimbo attended George Heriot’s and has a passion for engineering, linking the fictional hero to Richard’s professional journey.
Read post →William Playfair
From Scottish population figures to political landscapes, Playfair’s legacy helps explain how data became visual and persuasive.
Read post →Mary Anning
Beginning with Hawking’s advice to look up at the stars, this post turns towards curiosity, fossils, and the bigger picture.
Read post →Thomas Harriot
A reflection on the rare word polymath and a thinker whose many-sided work deserves renewed attention.
Read post →Urbain Le Verrier
Once celebrated across scientific Europe, Le Verrier is now almost unknown to many British readers.
Read post →Evangelista Torricelli
A walk in a blustery wind becomes evidence of air’s invisible presence and a route into scientific discovery.
Read post →Robert FitzRoy
A grey sky and patches of blue become the beginning of a post about weather, observation, and prediction.
Read post →Henry Maudslay
Locks, furniture, model aircraft, and the shared engineering principles behind ordinary acts of making.
Read post →Ole Rømer
Light has preoccupied humanity for millennia, both as metaphor and as physical reality.
Read post →George Cayley
Travel has shaped human history; Cayley’s work points towards the engineering imagination that made flight possible.
Read post →Fibonacci
Numbers organise science, commerce, government, and everyday life. Fibonacci offers a way into that story.
Read post →Ada Lovelace
Could our computer age have begun a century earlier? A thought experiment about imagination, machines, and society.
Read post →John Rennie
Imagination has marked our species since cave paintings; engineering is one way that imagination becomes infrastructure.
Read post →Aristarchus
Earth is more than 4½ billion years old, but human understanding of our planetary spaceship is much more recent.
Read post →Sarah Guppy
A post on human progress, invention, and the changes that have shaped modern life for better and worse.
Read post →Maria Gaetana Agnesi
The formation of modern Italy provides a route into the life and legacy of a remarkable mathematical mind.
Read post →Colin Maclaurin
Scottish history, strife, and intellectual progress form the backdrop to Maclaurin’s mathematical significance.
Read post →William Caxton
The Scientific Revolution and the spread of printed knowledge meet in a reflection on communication and discovery.
Read post →John Mitchell
The Enlightenment becomes the setting for a vital era in human advancement and scientific imagination.
Read post →John Dalton
Mid-18th century England was tumultuous and pivotal to human advancement, whether or not ordinary citizens recognised it.
Read post →Robert Hooke
A plethora of geniuses feature in Jimbo’s Assumption; some remain familiar, while others have faded from public memory.
Read post →Abraham de Moivre
Another sage from the recent past who pondered nature and bequeathed insights, with contributions in mathematics and probability.
Read post →Caroline Herschel
Herschel is a name linked with discovery and astronomy, and Caroline Herschel’s achievements deserve continued attention.
Read post →Never miss a new post.
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