I have made a career of bumbling around places, stumbling on landmarks and generally being quite haphazard and shambolic about the way I go about things.

I don't want to go and start trying to make jokes in places like India, Tanzania or Iraq. Afghanistan is not a funny place.

To me, the greatest invention of my lifetime is the laptop computer and the fact that I can be working on a book and be in an airport lounge, in a hotel room, and continue working; I fire up my laptop, and I'm in exactly the same place I was when I left home - that, to me, is a miracle.

The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place indeed.

That is one of the things that has come out of the discovery of pulsars - more knowledge about the space between the stars.

You have to imagine a world in which there's this abundance of data, with all of these connected devices generating tons and tons of data. And you're able to reason over the data with new computer science and make your product and service better. What does your business look like then? That's the question every CEO should be asking.

The facts of science are real enough, and so are the techniques that scientists use, and so are the technologies based on them. But the belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith.

Governments and scientists in India need to ensure that politics and religious ideology do not intrude into science. They belong to separate spheres, and if they are not kept separate, it is science in India and the country as a whole that will suffer.