Palaeontologists use fiction all the time.

Writing a children's book means you cannot spin out long narratives or have complex character development.

I always ate healthy, but it wasn't scientific. Now it's a high-protein diet and no carbohydrates. I have more consistent energy, and I don't get tired after a meal. It does take a very detailed meal plan.

I really did have this powerful sense, when I was in New Orleans after the storm, of watching all these profiteers descend on Baton Rouge to lobby to get rid of the housing projects and privatise the school system - I thought I was in some science-fiction experiment.

We physicists don't like to admit it, but some of us are closet science fiction fans. We hate to admit it because it sounds undignified. But when we were children, that's when we got interested in science, for a lot of us.

I remember thinking that people were crazy for reading the same book more than once, but I now have a new-found appreciation for the re-discovery of literature. The lessons we learned from books in the school curriculum are reinvented and updated when we read as adults.