Podcast appearance: I discuss The Random Universe on The New Books Network with host Gregory McNiff.

We want to make sourdough. Should I buy starter, or try to make my own?

Thrilling to see The Random Universe in the real world.

The Random Universe IRL!

Come hear us talk about the first moments in the history of the Universe, part of Imperial Lates at Imperial College in South Kensington, London.

Come hear us talk about the first moments in the history of the Universe, part of Imperial Lates at Imperial College in South Kensington, London.

Grateful to the colleagues, friends, students, and others who showed up for The Random Universe launch last night, and to Imperial College and Yale University Press for sponsoring and enabling the event.

First batch of winter buns.

Listening to A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs on the Richmond origins of The Yardbirds while riding the 65 London bus through Richmond.

The good news: The Random Universe is the “#1 New Release in Cosmology”.  The bad news: a friend and cosmology colleague has found the first error in the book.

Today in the NY Times: Lisa Lucas’ love letter to Leiden, one of the intellectual capitals of Europe.

I talk about The Random Universe (the book, and the Universe itself) on [Sean Carroll's Mindscape. We cover epistemology, probability, quantum mechanics, cosmology and more. Sean and I were cosmology grad students at the same time, and it was a pleasure and an honour to spend time with him online.

The Random Universe is out! Buy it or borrow it, read it and review it!

in this week’s Mindscape, as @seanmcarroll.bsky.social talks with @defjaf.bsky.social about “Models, Probability, and the Universe”, I learned that in Jaffe’s (and others’) model, the Hubble constant is 67. kids today might be either thrilled or deflated by this value. I myself would prefer 42.

The Random Universe isn’t out until tomorrow (November 11), but the Kindle edition is on sale in both the US and in the UK. (And if you look very carefully, you’ll see that it has broken into the top 100 UK cosmology bestsellers…)

Unboxing The Random Universe youtube.com/shorts/tvQJh...

Unboxing my book, The Random Universe

What happens when science takes a backseat in government policy? A critical examination from @defjaf.bsky.social . 

The Random Universe isn’t due out until November 11, but not only can you pre-order your copy today, you can also download a free sample from the e-book. (Similar on Amazon UK and Apple Books — though it’s even better if you buy your hardcopy from an independent bookseller!)

The clocks went back an hour here in London overnight—summertime is over. I suppose I’m happy for the extra time to rest (though in fact I didn’t sleep very well last night) but not looking forward to six months of early darkness.

The Trump Administration’s Contempt for Science. (Thanks to the Yale University Press for letting me express my opinions.)

Apparently I am the subject of an unauthorised biopic.

Lots of fun recording an episode of the Mindscape podcast with Sean Carroll. Should appear on November 10, just before the release of The Random Universe.

I made a thing.

Surprised that Taylor needs to promote her latest with an A4 poster at the Imperial College elevators (lifts).

Last year was a sabbatical, so today I’ve got my first proper teaching in a full year and a half — a two-hour lecture to start my Information Theory course. Feeling a bit nervous!

R.I.P. George Smoot, experimental cosmologist, Nobel prize winner and one of the discoverers of primordial fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, a colleague and mentor back when I was a postdoc in Berkeley, always curious and enthusiastic.

macOS Tahoe/Safari complaint: in sidebar showing Tab Groups, current group shows tab list as if the disclosure triangle clicked. Bad enough. But worse: old group in the sidebar stays open even when I click to a new one! This seems so wrong that there must be a setting — but I couldn’t find it.

This seems like a whole mess of bugs. (Trying to update to macOS 26 Tahoe. Perhaps this is telling me it’s a bad idea?…) > `PASSWORD_ALERT_TITLE_WITH_USERNAME_OSX_REBRAND_SERVICE_ICLOUD` > `PASSWORD_ALERT_MESSAGE_WITH_USERNAME_OSX_REBRAND` > `FOL... https://andrewjaffe.net/microblog/2025/09/1062/

Yesterday, someone walked into the café I was sitting in wearing a Primitives t-shirt. Today, their wonderful “Crash” came on my random streaming mix, so it seems appropriate to share one of the great pop songs of all time.

The amazing Lisa Lucas’ latest for the NY Times, on hunting the autumn leaves in Japan — 3 Days of ‘Momijigari’: Experiencing Japan’s Fiery Autumnal Foliage.

You can pre-order The Random Universe, get a 7% discount, and support local bookstores, all at the same time.

Back — home — to London after 386 days away.

A highlight of our road trip through Western Europe has been my daughters singing along to Lucinda Williams’ “Car Wheels on a gravel Road”, the Mekons’ version of “Wild and Blue”, and Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” as well as songs from “Hamilton” (along with, yes, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran).

Spent the night with the family in the Frassenhütte at the top of an Austrian Alp… … followed by our trek down the mountain in pouring rain, hail, thunder and lightning (and inappropriate clothing).

Spent the night with the family in the Frassenhütte at the top of an Austrian Alp.

Cornhole is “American pétanque”.

We left our home in London exactly a year ago for my sabbatical abroad. After stops in Japan & New York, tomorrow we depart from our last long-term stop — a temporary but already much-loved home — in Leiden, the Netherlands, with still a few weeks to go before our final return.

Congratulations to Imperial’s Professor Michele Dougherty, the UK’s new Astronomer Royal!

15% still seems like a lot.

. @ppfideas.bsky.social Thanks to the Past Present Future podcast episodes on the American Revolution, trial of Charles I & English Revolution, I finally understand the American Revolution against the tyranny of the King despite the British constitution’s weak monarch and strong Parliament.

The latest from Lisa Lucas at the Guardian! Freewheeling family fun in the Netherlands: a cycling and camping trip along the Maas river. With special guests!

U.S. abandons hunt for signal of cosmic inflation | Science | AAAS Now-canceled CMB-S4 project would have searched the afterglow of the Big Bang for signs of cosmic exponential growth spurt.

This is mildly clever, very slimy, and a little bit funny (since it only works against other slimy — or at least lazy — people).

@tedbunn.bsky.social Happy Birthday, Ted!

@scripting.com Just trying to figure out how best to ask about my wordland.social questions/feature requests... (1. getting my posts into wordland when created/edited elsewhere; 2. direct markdown editing.) Are these hopeless?