Central Line

Bank to Chancery Lane, featuring pineapples and a helicopter

Bank of EnglandAs we follow the line originally known as the Twopenny Tube (hence the system’s nickname), we’ll hear about Mark Twain taking the London Underground ... see where Christopher Wren hid two golden pineapples in plain view (they’re still there) ... discover what was unusual about Oliver Cromwell’s trial at the Old Bailey ... and hear what happened when Robert Maxwell tried to land his helicopter at Holborn Circus.

There's no need to pre-book - just turn up. Meet outside exit 3 of Bank Tube station, by the statue of Wellington. (Click on the link at bottom right for a map.)


Scheduled walks will resume in the spring. In the meantime please contact me to arrange private walks.


Calendar of Walks...

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30 31 1 2 3 4 5

Scheduled walks will resume in the spring. In the meantime please contact me to arrange private walks.

Walk the lines...

Click here for a large map...

Content

Rubik's Cube

A Rubik’s cube has more combinations than light travels inches in a century. This is my favourite illustration of how a very small number of factors can produce an absurdly complicated situation. A silly little toy, with only three squares in each of its three dimensions. How can that get complicated? Well, as anyone who's ever tried to solve one just by guessing will tell you, it gets very complicated. The number of possible combinations is 43,252,003,274,489,856,000. Forget billions - that's 43 quintillion and change. (In fact the cube's manufacturers just said ‘billions' in their advertising, figuring that no one would know what a quintillion was. It's a billion billion.) The number of inches light travels in a century, meanwhile, is a mere 37,165,049,856,000,000,000. Or thereabouts.