My wife discovered a remarkable poster when she was visiting Myanmar. Hanging in most domestic kitchens, it advises against certain food combinations that, it is claimed, could make you ill or even kill you outright. But where do such remarkable beliefs come from? And how can they remain embedded, sometimes for hundreds of years, in […]| Dr Len Fisher
Yes, it’s a grand hope, but I am not the first to hold it. It was fundamental to the philosophy of the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and many of the other great historical characters. More surprisingly, it was fundamental to David Hume, whose Wealth of Nations is often seen as the driver of today’s greed creed. Yes, it was, but only because so many people (economists especially) overlook his companion volume Theory of Moral Sentiments (actually published first), in which he argues that the pur...| Dr Len Fisher
Way back in 2003 the British Cheese Board asked me if I could work out scientifically the optimum amount of cheese to put in a cheese sandwich. Well, I did, by measuring the concentration of aroma released when I ate sandwiches made with different thicknesses of cheese.| Dr Len Fisher
My home village of Blackheath in Australia’s beautiful Blue Mountains boasts many beautiful gardens, none more beautiful than the fifty year-old rhododendron gardens, maintained by an enthusiastic group of volunteers who are mostly older than the gardens themselves. They wanted me to give them a talk. But what on earth could I talk about. It needed to be something linked to the gardens, but I know nothing about rhododendrons, or about gardening for that matter.| Dr Len Fisher
Very excited to have been invited to speak at the Eighth International Conference on Humanistic Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist per se, but I have great sympathy with many of its aims, and especially with the all-permeating idea of interconnectedness. I will be talking about our role as individuals in an increasingly interconnected world, and the many connections between traditional Buddhist thinking and the modern sciences of complexity and networks. I am looking forward to an entertaining and...| Dr Len Fisher
A talk delivered at the meeting “Food Futures in the Anthropocene” (University of Tasmania, November 7-10 (2020)). One of a number of talks and articles where I have been trying to bring people’s attention to the importance of interconnectedness between the many global challenges that we now face. I still haven’t had time to write this one up for publication, so here are my notes. Enjoy – and pass the word along!| Dr Len Fisher
I appeared on the front page of Wikipedia today (April 7th 2021). “Did you know?” asked the editors “that Len Fisher won the 1999 Ig Nobel Prize for physics for his research on the optimal way to dunk a biscuit?”| Dr Len Fisher
This piece that I wrote some time ago for Psychology Today bears repeating, especially given the number of questions (usually the same ones) that I get from aspiring writers. I sympathise; I was in the same position myself once. An article like this would have helped me then. Maybe it will help you now.| Dr Len Fisher
