Yesterday I was reading the weekend edition of the Irish Times and came across this article:
It was only afterwards that the name of the author, Hagai El-Ad rang a bell. When I did a search for his name I found his wikipedia page that describes him as an “Israeli LGBT and human rights activist”. When I read further I remembered that I met him years ago at a conference in Casablanca, called From Quantum Fluctuations to Cosmic Structures, when he was a budding physics student with an interest in cosmology, especially in cosmic voids. I was alarmed to realize that conference was in 1996! How can it have been 30 years ago? Hagai El-Ad subsequently co-wrote a paper on the subject of cosmic voids.
I guess he gave up the cosmology to concentrate on more pressing matters, but this goes to show it is a small world (but a big Universe).
Now that Hallowe’en is out of the way, and we’re into November, the next scheduled break is in seven weeks time, for Christmas. The mid-term break fell in such a way that the 12 weeks of teaching split 5-7 instead of the tidier 6-6, which means that we have quite a long run-in. Lectures finish on Friday 18th December 2026. I don’t have any lectures on that day, actually, nor on the day before. I do have a tutorial on Friday 18th but I don’t imagine many students will turn up. I think I’ll try to get through the material before the end of term and then postpone the tutorial until the week before the examinations, which start on 8th January. That way I can spend a bit of time with a certain person before he goes to spend Christmas with his family.
Talking of examinations, I was a bit late getting my Semester 1 papers written but when I finally uploaded them I discovered that at least I wasn’t the last member of staff to complete this task. Every year the deadline for examination papers is pushed earlier and earlier. I don’t know why. Perhaps the people in charge just enjoy bossing the academic staff around.
I’ll be back to the office tomorrow to resume teaching, etc. but it is looking increasingly likely that we will be having more industrial action, as the negotiations between Unions and Government seem to have broken down. I know from talking to colleagues that there was considerable scepticism that the Government side were going to negotiate in good faith. The Minister’s comments to the media certainly don’t suggest that is the case. Anyway, we’re ready to go on strike again if necessary. I think November 1112th is the likely date for another 24-hour stoppage (updated from 11th). I have a medical appointment booked for that day, which will be cancelled if the strike goes ahead but it is routine and can be rescheduled. And if a one-day strike doesn’t work, who knows?
Among the highlights of the next seven weeks will be Euclid DR1 day on which will be published raw data, calibrated images, catalogues, and spectra covering approximately 1,900 square degrees. There won’t be any cosmology results – for those you will have to wait until mid-2027 – but the data set will be a feast in itself and is sure to attract considerable media attention.
I’m also thinking about preparing the Open Journal of Astrophysics for 2027. That will not only mean starting a new volume – Volume 10 – but also bringing in some changes to improve the workflow and improve the visual appearance of our published papers. We’re also going to publish a new policy on the use of AI in our papers. I suspect all journals are experiencing a deluge of AI-generated articles and OJAp is no exception. It’s very tiresome having to deal with all the slop, but it’s not going to go away anytime soon so we’ll just have to deal with it.
P.S. Today is Dia de Todos los Santos in Spain, a day on which people remember deceased family members and friends. The date takes on an especially sad significance this year after the terrible loss of life in a train crash last week.
It’s time for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further seven papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 256 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 704.
I continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also contain a clickable form of the DOI for each paper. Our Mastodon account has regular updates and other announcements from OJAp too, including posts from the OJAp blog.
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "On the relation between magnetic field strength and gas density in the interstellar medium. II. Density uncertainties and diffuse gas constraints" by David Whitworth (ENS Lyon, France) and 6 others based in Austrailia, Canada, USA, Austria, Mexico and Germany.
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "The Lifecycle and Emission Properties of PAHs in Cosmological Hydrodynamic Galaxy Formation Simulations" by Desika Narayanan (U. Florida, USA) and 18 others.
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "HII-CHI-mistry for active galactic nuclei: optical sulphur abundances without empirical ionisation correction factors" by Enrique Pérez-Montero (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain) and 5 others.
The fourth article of the week, also published on Wednesday 28th October but in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, is “How Common Are Common Envelopes? Quantifying Their Role in Forming Gravitational-Wave Sources” by Floor Broekgaarden (University of California San Diego, USA) and 16 others. This work involves a compilation and systematically comparison of formation-channel predictions from more than 200 isolated-binary population-synthesis simulations, organized within a unified hierarchical system identify the frequency of common-envelope evolution.
The overlay is here:
The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "How Common Are Common Envelopes? Quantifying Their Role in Forming Gravitational-Wave Sources" by Floor Broekgaarden (University of California San Diego, USA) and 16 others.
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "From ASTRID to BRAHMA – The role of overmassive black holes in little red dots in cosmological simulations" by Patrick LaChance (Carnegie Mellon U., USA) and 10 others (all based in the USA).
The penultimate, sixth, paper this week is “No Blue without Red: Evolutionary Properties of Super-Early Galaxies” by A. Ferrara (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy) and 5 others based in Italy and China. This was also published on Friday 30th October in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. This paper presents an interpretive scheme for the properties of extremely early galaxies highlighting the key role of radiation-driven outflows and indicating how JWST/ALMA observations will provide key tests.
The overlay is here:
You can find the final version of this paper on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement here:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "No Blue without Red: Evolutionary Properties of Super-Early Galaxies" by A. Ferrara (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy) and 5 others based in Italy and China
The seventh and last paper to report this week is “Automatic astrometric calibration of low-cost all-sky cameras” by J. R. González Fernández (Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Spain), Laura Hermosa Muñoz (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain) and María Fernández Alonso & Lucía González Cuesta (Allande Stars, Spain). This was published on Friday 30th October in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics. This paper describes an open-source procedure for astrometric calibration that combines a compact fisheye model, an exact rotation to account for camera tilt, and automatic star matching.
The overlay for this one is here:
The officially accepted version is on arXiv here and this is the Mastodon announcement:
New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: Automatic astrometric calibration of low-cost all-sky cameras" by J. R. González Fernández (Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Spain), Laura Hermosa Muñoz (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain) and María Fernández Alonso & Lucía González Cuesta (Allande Stars, Spain)
That concludes this week’s update. There was an interruption in publishing on Thursday 29th October as arXiv did not update on that day owing to its migration into the cloud. Anyway, we have now published over 700 papers in total. So far this year we have published 256, with 10 of the 12 months now complete. A rough estimate would take us to about 307 by the end of the year. We have in fact published more than 300 papers since this time last year. I’ll do another update next week.
I bought the book Netherland, by Joseph O’Neill, ages ago when I was still living in Cardiff, around 2010, but somehow I never got around to reading it until now. It’s an intriguing book, written by an Irishman about a Dutchman who spends his life between London and New York, and who loves cricket. I don’t know why I put off reading it for so long, but I definitely recommend it. It’s full of vivid descriptions of places and acutely observed people.
The jacket blurb for this novel does give the impression that it is some sort of murder mystery involved, and it the story is in a sense stimulated by the discovery of the body in a New York canal found with its hands tied behind its back. This event provokes the narrator and principal protagonist, Hans van den Broek, to reflect on the time he spent in New York in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The man in the canal was Chuck Ramkissoon, a larger-than-life self-styled “businessman” who had befriended Hans in those days. They had met through a common interest in cricket; Chuck had grandiose plans to build a cricket stadium in New York. The narrative unfolds in flashbacks, partly about Hans’s childhood in The Hague, partly in London working in the City, partly about the ups and downs of his marriage to a lawyer called Rachel, and partly about Chuck Ramkissoon. We gradually realize that Chuck is a very shady character, perhaps more of a gangster than a businessman, whose death was probably gang-related.
But while these topic are woven into the narrative, Netherland is not really about them. It is really a contemplation of memory and personality and relationships and how these things are changed by events that you can’t control. I dare say many people found themselves and those to whom they were close unaccountably changed by 9/11. The novel probes the narrator’s sense of alienation as he comes to terms with the fact that while in New York he is in a kind of exile from himself. That sense is elevated by the way the narrative jumps backwards and forwards, as if the narrator is searching his memories for things to hold on to.
Most people in this novel, including the narrator, his wife Rachel, Chuck Ramkissoon, and a host of minor characters are basically unknowable and the author’s relationships with them always ambivalent. The only really constant factor are his love for his young son, Jake – the understated expressions of the unconditional affection he feels for his little boy are very moving – and for cricket. What I thought would be a murder mystery, actually turned out to be a kind of love story…
With Halloween approaching I thought I’d post some scary paintings, and then thought I’d post just two and turn the post into a little art quiz. Other than both being scary, and both featuring severed heads, can you spot the connection between them? And please try to answer without using an AI assistant or other form of cheating.
Picture number one, on the left, is The Severed Heads by Théodore Géricault (c. 1810, Oil on Canvas, 61cm x 50cm, National Museum in Stockholm). Picture number two, on the right, is Medusa by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio – Caravaggio to you – (c. 1597, Oil on Canvas, mounted on wood, 60 cm × 55 cm, Uffizi Gallery, Florence).
Well, Halloween is over and nobody guessed the connection, which is this painting:
It is called The Raft of the Medusa and it is by far the most famous painting by Théodore Géricault who painted the first picture above. The Méduse was a French naval Frigate which ran aground off the coast of moder-day Mauritania on 2 July 1816. A few days later as many as 150 people tried to escape on a makeshift raft, but all but 15 died. The painting is enormous – 490cm ×716cm – and can’t be missed if you visit the Louvre in Paris, where it hangs.
So here I am, back in Maynooth. I’d like to thank the members of the Astronomy Research Centre in the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen’s University Belfast for inviting me and for stimulating discussions during and after my talk, and of course for the hospitality, especially the nice lunch and tea & cakes this afternoon.
The hotel I stayed in last night is very close to the campus, in the University quarter, and I got up early enough this morning to have a very substantial breakfast and walk some of it off by going around the campus before my talk. I took few snaps to prove I was there.
As you can see, it has a strong “red-brick” vibe about it and more than a hint of Gothic Revival, although unlike Maynooth’s version of that style, QUB’s has a distinctly Tudor tinge. My talk was in the buidling on the right, with the extravagant doorway/entrance hall, which is obviously of more modern design.
Anyway, a nice time having been had, I made my way back to Belfast Grand Central Station for the train home. This time we had a proper train which was actually big enough to accommodate all the passengers booked on it, and the seat reservations were showing.
All went well until we reached Dundalk (in the Republic) when the train stopped and officers of An Garda Síochána went through the train demanding to see everyone’s passport. I was shocked. I couldn’t help thinking of ICE in America, or even the Gestapo on which they are modelled. Nobody told me that I had to carry a passport on a train between Belfast and Dublin, so I never thought about taking mine with me on this trip. It was only by sheer fluke that it happened to be in the pocket of my jacket, which I had been wearing last time I needed a passport. I started to wonder what would have happened had I not had it with me, and then I thought they would probably have done nothing. After all, I am white…
The Common Travel Area has been steadily eroded over the years. Dublin Airport has long required passengers from the UK to go through immigration control (which it shouldn’t according to the CTA). More recently – since the end of September 2026 – ferry services between Ireland and Britain have started requiring passports to be carried. I never expected, though, that measures would be taken by the Irish side to effectively create a hard border on the island of Ireland. I don’t know when this policy was introduced. At the very least, Iarnród Éireann should warn passengers using the Enterprise service that they now need to take their passports with them. I wasn’t asked to show my passport on the outbound leg. There’s no passport control when flying from Dublin to the UK, either.
The search for migrants having been completed, the Gardaí alighted from the train and we carried on to Dublin, with a delay which meant I missed my connection to Maynooth. That wasn’t a significant problem, however, because I got on the next train, which was bound for Sligo and which gets to Maynooth significantly faster than the usual commuter trains, so it wasn’t too inconvenient.
The last time I attempted to travel to Belfast to give a seminar, in 2019, it didn’t go very well. This time it went better, in the sense that I’ve actually arrived in Belfast. The Enterprise service between Dublin and Belfast has doubled in frequency since 2019 and the price is still modest, just €17.50 each way, including a seat reservation, which is the full fare standard price. Unfortunately the train that arrived in Dublin to take us to Belfast was much smaller than the regular one – only four carriages, presumably owing to a fault on one of the usual trains, so it was crammed – and there were no seat reservations on it. I did find a seat but many people didn’t and had to stand. The train started to empty at Dundalk and by Newry most people could sit down. Other than that, it was fine.
The trip from Dublin Connolly to Belfast Grand Central took about 2 hours and 10 minutes, by the way, which. You would be hard pressed to make a two-hour journey by train in England for the equivalent price.
I’ve successfully visited Belfast a few times over the past few years, actually, but not for work reasons.
It’s quite chilly in Belfast tonight, a good few degrees colder than Dublin, but my hotel room is warm, and being on my own I think I’ll just stay in and finish the book I’m reading. I’ll get up early, hopefully to publish a few OJAp papers, have a cooked breakfast and then venture forth to find Queen’s University Belfast, which I failed to visit in 2019:
I bookmarked a story in the Times Higher a couple of weeks ago, with the intention of doing a post about it, and then promptly forgot. Such is the effect of old age. Anyway the story is about the the fact that Lancaster University is undertaking a disciplinary investigation into one of its staff, Mike Ryder, who wrote a blog post of his own with the title Why are universities so bad at marketing? I’ve linked to it in order to boost its readership. He’s also done a video with the same title:
The point of me repeating this here is twofold.
The first is to point out that investigating an academic for daring to express an opinion is disgraceful, contrary to the principles of academic freedom, and symptomatic of the authoritarian attitude that pervades the modern university system.
The second point concerns my own institution, Maynooth University in Ireland. I know I have, in the past been critical of many aspects of this University’s governance, but in this respect I give credit where it is due. Maynooth does not indulge in pointless marketing. In fact, as far as I can tell, it does not indulge in any marketing whatsoever. I’m sure I speak for a majority of the staff when I say that we are all proud to work in an institution that does not sully its hands with such vulgar activities.
Today being the last Monday of October, it’s a Bank Holiday here in Ireland – Lá Saoire i Mí Dheireadh Fómhair (literally, the Holiday at the End of the Month of October) so I had the morning off; I have a telecon this afternoon. This week is Study Week too so there are no lectures or tutorials until next Monday, when we resume for the seven remaing weeks of the Semester.
I’ll be travelling tomorrow to give a seminar at Queen’s University Belfast. My talk will have the title Open Access Publishing in Astrophysics and the Open Journal of Astrophysics, an updated version of a talk I’ve given in a number of places. over the past few years. I was looking at NASA/ADS just now to get the latest statistics and discovered that articles in the Open Journal of Astrophysics have now received over 10,000 citations at an average of 14.9 per paper. The average has been consistent since the first few years of publishing, which is interesting for the reason that our publishing rate is rising steadily so that most of our publications are very recent.
Anyway, I’m quite looking forward to the trip. The worst of the awful weather of the past few days seems to have passed and I hope I can make it to and from Belfast by train without the intervention of floods or fallen trees.
Another name for the present Bank Holiday is Lá Saoire Oíche Shamhna (Halloween Holiday), although Halloween itself does not occur until Saturday. I’ll be travelling again at the weekend, but this time purely for pleasure.
At this time of year many of the buildings of the historic South Campus are ablaze with Red Virginia Creeper:
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