David Lindley

In The End of Physics, Lindley challenged the assumption that string theorists might achieve a unified theory. He contended that particle physics was in danger of becoming a branch of aesthetics, since these theories could be validated only by subjective criteria, such as elegance and beauty, rather than through experimentation. [John Horgan, The End of Science, 1996, p. 70; cf. Wikipedia]

Bestselling author Professor Ian Stewart explores the history and mathematics of uncertainty. Touching on gambling, probability, statistics, financial and weather forecasts, censuses, medical studies, chaos, quantum physics, and climate, he makes one thing clear: a reasonable probability is the only certainty.

It was the greatest scandal of the Jacobean age. In 1616, Frances Howard and her husband, the Earl of Somerset, were found guilty of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Already vilified as a consequence of the annulment of her first marriage. Frances Howard was branded 'a lewd woman', 'a wife, a witch, a murderess and a whore', and has gone down in history as the epitome of female villainy. But has she been misrepresented? In a fascinating examination both of the historical evidence and of the cultural assumptions which conditioned the perception of Frances Howard, David Lindley presents important new insights into the case against her. In doing so he challenges, radically, the assumptions which have constructed Howard as a deviant woman, raising questions not just about how women were perceived in the seventeenth century, but how society still judges women today. Not just a historical biography, The Trials of Frances Howard is also a close examination of the relationship between history and literature, the place of women in society and the way in which judgements of the law are bound up with politics and ideology.

"Death proves them all but toyes": Nashe's unidealising show / Elizabeth Cook -- "In those figures which they seeme": Samuel Daniel's Tethys' festival / John Pitcher -- Music, masque and meaning in The tempest / David Lindley -- Sounding to present occasions: Jonson's masques of 1620-5 / Sara Pearl -- To that secure fix'd state': the function of the Caroline masque form / Jennifer Chibnall -- The reformation of the masque / David Norbrook -- The present aid of this occasion': the setting of Comus / John Creaser -- Location and meaning in masque, morality, and royal entertainment / Helen Cooper -- The French element in Inigo Jones's masque designs* / John Peacock -- Dryden's Albion and Albanius: the apotheosis of Charles II / Paul Hammond.