My father worked in physics research (including the first lasers and holograms in Australia) and from 1965 in computer programming.  My mother's academic background was in humanities.  They devoted themselves to raising a large and happy family.  I always felt that any question I asked would be answered – by my parents, by Encyclopedia Britannica or by some other means, such as experiment.  I am way before Sesame St, Lego and Abba!  Super Car, Noddy, Bill and Ben, 78's on the gramophone (and later, the early Beatles 45s and LPs) and in particular Meccano were my scene!  I began working with electronics in 1967 with an old valve radio and then pursued this at the Camberwell Grammar Radio Club.  The first thing I ever modified was in 1962: converting a firecracker into a skyrocket.  It worked perfectly and although it was broad daylight, my brothers and I never saw it fall to Earth.

Since 1985 I have pursued my electronic musical instrument business Real World Interfaces full-time. In 1992 I became involved in consumer advocacy in telecommunications privacy. This lead to writing and consulting in telecommunications. I use the business name First Principles for this work, and hopefully in the future will use it for some other creative, expressive projects – such as music.  There is a CV of my electronic, software, writing, consulting and advocacy work here: cv.html .  In 2011, I earn most of my income from my Devil Fish electronic musical instrument modifications, designing and building electronic equipment for music and (for Whittle Consulting) computer programming and technical writing.

Research Projects

I began an astrophysics project in late 2002: http://astroneu.com - investigating the red shift interaction of light with low-density plasmas. This leads to explanations of various observations in ways which are contrary to the Big Bang Theory.  Since there is no satisfactory conventional explanation for the heating and acceleration of the solar corona and wind, perhaps there is some as-yet unrecognised interaction between light and low-density plasmas which couples the required energy and momentum.  Perhaps this involves redshift of the light.  If so, then the redshift of light from distant galaxies and quasars should no longer be seen as evidence they are moving away from us.  This would call into question the 'photon' theory of light.  Tackling conventional cosmology and quantum mechanics is a fascinating but rather lonely business!

My hypothesis does not work with the conventional 'photon' view of light, in which electromagnetic waves are quantized into discrete packets of energy.  Most people understand electromagnetic waves in this way - I used to.  Now I think some kind of semi-classical theory must be a better explanation: non-quantized 'classical' waves interacting with matter (or at least with closed resonant systems such as atoms and molecules) in ways which we interpret as being quantized.  I think mainstream researchers do not yet fully understand the interaction of light with sparse plasmas, where the particles (electrons, protons and other ions) are so far apart (greater than the coherence length of the light) that each particle slows down the light a little, while the light regains full light speed between the particles.  I believe this plasma is an inhomogeneous medium for the propagation of light.  My theory is not the only one along these lines.  Ari Brynjolfsson's theory of 2004 has broadly similar implications.  

I am also working on a hypothesis regarding the underlying mechanisms of the common (~10% of the population) neurological disorder Restless Legs Syndrome.  There will be a new website for this - aminotheory.com.  I will also put up some observations and theories regarding vibrationally induced tiredness and sleep.

I am very fond of children and never lost my sense of play.  Recently, I was enjoying shining a friend's blue-green argon laser through bubbles I was blowing in soapy water in a shallow dish, with light bouncing in many directions from the various facets of the bubbles, and being diffracted by passing through thin watery films as well.  An onlooker told her friend that I was having my second childhood.  I responded that this was still my first.

Here is a picture from 1993 taken by my friend Pippa Morris in Walhalla – an old gold mining town in Gippsland, 140 km east of Melbourne. I am holding Chloe, daughter of Rob and Ann.  She is an energetic teenager now.

There is a separate page for some ramblings on cosmology and the nature of life: robin-cosmology.html.