Jack Lawrence

Me, October 2025

Last updated: October 2025

Hi. My name is Jack Lawrence.

The Basics:

  • I'm 31
  • I live and work in London
  • I make videos and write about science, philosophy, and anything that catches my interest

If you'd like a smidge more detail, you can find out more here.

This website functions mostly as an archive for now (I used to blog here from around 2016–2022).

If you'd like to contact me directly, feel free to drop me an email at contact@jacklawrence.net or shoot me a DM.

All my socials and links can be found here.

Writing from 2015–2022 — science, philosophy, creativity, health, and whatever else demanded to be put into words.

All writing

About me

Jack Lawrence, June 2016

Me, June 2016. Incidentally there was a freak hailstorm in the middle of summer that day.

Well I was born in…

  • Defying the forces of natural selection, I made it to my late teens.
  • I applied to Oxford University for 2012 admission for Physics and Philosophy as an undergraduate, and was rejected. I did pretty well in my A levels, and decided to take a gap year.
  • I reapplied to Cambridge the next year for Natural Sciences, and was accepted.
  • And so, I studied Natural Sciences at Homerton College, specialising in Physics, with some History and Philosophy of Science thrown in — from 2013–2016.
  • My thesis was on the Everettian interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (aka the multiverse interpretation).
  • I spent much of my time doing side quests. These included lots of improv comedy with the Cambridge Impronauts (a society of which I became president) and some Dancesport (for which, thankfully, no footage is available on the internet).
  • I graduated in 2016.
Jack Lawrence, Improv Comedy 2016

I also did my fair share of Improv Comedy (2016)

  • Finishing physics at Cambridge generally meant you went one of three paths — academia, finance or consultancy. I didn't think I was cut out for the first, and I loathed the idea of the second, and so soon after graduating I found myself on a graduate scheme at a consultancy firm.
  • I lasted a year.
  • It was something of a crash course in nihilism in its own way.
  • My mental health also started going very downhill for a variety of other reasons.
  • Because of this, and some other sources of despair, I decided to run back, screaming, into the arms of academia and more debt.
  • I applied to Oxford again — this time for a graduate version of what I had wanted to do initially.
  • This time, they accepted me.
  • And so, I completed a masters in Philosophy of Physics at Balliol College, Oxford, from 2017 to 2018.
    • I wrote about the metaphysics of time, the one-way speed of light, explanations in science and the H-Theorem.
  • I ended up doing a few side quests there as well, including accidentally starting another improv troupe with some friends called The House of Improv. They, to this day, continue to exist, long after all the original members have left. I'm quite proud of that.
Jack Lawrence and Dad, Oxford Graduation 2018

Me and Dad, Oxford Graduation, 2018

I applied for a PhD programme at the Philosophy of Physics department and was accepted, however I struggled to get funding approved. Further, I had a number of other concerns outside of financial worries, mainly around my mental health.

  • I ended up giving up on academia, and got a real person job.
  • I found my feet a bit in tech and spent most of my spare time doing improv comedy with another improv troupe a friend and I started (named Hivemind) and very occasionally writing on this blog.
  • Then the pandemic happened.
Jack Lawrence, 2021

Me, pretending to write (which remains my favourite pastime) in 2021

  • I couldn't do improv anymore, so I started making videos. I decided to try for one whole year irrespective of impact — I called it A Year Of Bad Art.
  • In the last week of that year, I had a video go viral on TikTok — incidentally, on the philosophy of time. Video here if you're interested.
  • Since then, I kept at it.
  • And here we are.
Jack Lawrence, 2025

Me, pretending to think (another favourite pastime) 2025