I’m struck by the remarkable similarity between Dr Marek Kukula, “Public Astronomer” at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and Constable Kevin Goody, as played by actor James Dreyfus in the popular situation comedy The Thin Blue Line. I wonder if by any chance they might be related?
Marek Kukula
Kevin Goody
I thought I’d share this, part of the Big Ideas series produced by Cardiff University, because it features our own Haley Gomez:
In the video Haley explains how enormous quantities of dust have been found by astronomers in the School of Physics & Astronomy. We just can’t get the cleaning staff, you see. In fact more recently there have also been discoveries of damp, mould, crumbling ceilings and broken windows.
I don’t want to steal Haley’s thunder in any way, but I should mention that an even more startling discovery has recently been made elsewhere in the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University. In my office, in fact. Not dust, but anti-dust!
I’ve been forcibly evicted from my office this afternoon while a highly-trained operative of Cardiff University’s esteemed Estates Department replaces a broken window. It’s been broken since I moved into the office, about four years ago, by the way, but you can’t rush these things. Anyway, having been forced to change location I took the opportunity to decamp to the upstairs computer room wherein our departmental scanner resides and occupied myself with the task of scanning in yet another of the old examinations I took when I was in school. This one is the Further Mathematics examination, consisting of two papers each of three hours’ duration: Paper 1 is entirely Pure Mathematics; Paper 2 contains a mixture of Pure and Applied Mathematics, and Statistics.
Looking back on the paper now, thirty years after I first saw it, it seems to me that the Applied Mathematics questions (6-11 on Paper 2) actually look quite tough by the standard of 1st year undergraduate examinations in mechanics. However, I’ll leave it to you to comment on whether you think it’s harder, or easier, or about the same, compared to current A-levels in Further Mathematics. I’d also be interested in knowing whether there’s anything on these papers that isn’t on the syllabus nowadays.
The comments box awaits…
Follow @telescoperFlushed with success after winning a prize in the Saturday Independent crossword competition (even if it is yet another dictionary) and flying high at No. 6 in the Azed Annual Honours List I thought I’d have another go at setting a puzzle for my readers. There were some complaints that my last crossword was too difficult, so here is a slightly simpler one for you:
Across Down
1 Current symbol for ego? 1 One visual organ, we hear
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I’ve been meaning to post this pioneering piece of music for some time but never seemed to get around to it until a comment yesterday reminded me that I’m probably not posting enough about Jazz these days. Albert Ayler was one of the true originals of the free jazz movement of the 1960s, and I think the album Spiritual Unity he made with Gary Peacock on bass and Sonny Murray on drums is the first record on which his radical ideas came fully to fruition, which is why I’ve chosen to post a track from it. His saxophone style was totally unique, with a rough broad vibrato and searing hard-edged tone contrasting dramatically with a superb command of the upper register and exhilirating speed of execution. His articulation is blurred in order to give the saxophone a more personal timbre, with inflections similar to a human voice, and he’s able to accomplish dramatic changes in mood, from a wild passion bordering on violence, to a deep sense of pathos or nostalgia. As is the case with other highly independent jazz musicians, such as Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, you only have to hear one note to know immediately who’s playing.
This tune, the shorter of two versions on Spiritual Unity of an original composition by Albert Ayler called Ghosts, is a great example how he could make coherent what at first hearing sounds like disassociated bursts of sound. It involves remarkable improvised melodies based on short thematic lines designed to evoke unsophisticated folk music or nursery tunes. It may sound primitive on the surface, but it’s very complex underneath and creating this extraordinary sound world clearly required great technical mastery from Ayler and his supporting musicians, especially Gary Peacock, who plays wonderfully on this track.
Yet for all its brilliance, this record also hints at the dark clouds that were never far from Ayler’s horizon. Although critically acclaimed, his music never found favour with the public. He battled depression throughout the late 60s and, in 1970, at the age of only 34, he took his own life by jumping off a ferry into New York’s East River.
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According to the WordPress stats, the old blog seems to have been unusually popular this week. I don’t really know why, as I don’t think I’ve posted anything of any great consequence. Perhaps it’s just a random fluctuation. Or maybe they’re calculating things differently. I don’t know. I always find it strange that so many people read my ramblings because I’ve no idea who most of them are, as only a small fraction leave a trace in the form of a comment. Anyway, it’s very flattering. Vanity is, of course, the only reason for writing a blog.
I’m not really in the mood to post very much today, but there have been a couple of things that I thought I’d mention, just for the record. At least occasionally, this blog serves as a sort of diary which might be useful in the future when I need to remember when certain things happened.
Yesterday I noticed that a new comment appeared on a post about my old cat Columbo who died nearly three months ago. That comment got me thinking about the old moggy and I finally plucked up courage to do something I’ve been putting off since he passed away. The vet had given me a yellow plastic “sharps” bucket to dispose of the hypodermic syringes that I used to inject him with insulin. These buckets have to be disposed of carefully, by the vet, as the used needles are contaminated with insulin and so can’t be just thrown out with the rubbish. However, the last time I went to the vet was sufficiently traumatic that I’ve not been able to take this article back there, until today.
It was a lovely morning, actually, as I re-traced Columbo’s last journey. The streets were full of saturday morning shoppers enjoying the fine weather. I walked to the vet in quite high spirits and handed over the container, thanking the staff once again for all they did for Columbo and apologizing for taking so long to return it. It was only when I was coming back home that I felt a bit emotional, remembering what it felt like the last time I made the return journey, without Columbo.
So that’s one thing. The other was a more upbeat event, but also a farewell of some sort. Yesterday I chaired a PhD examination in the School of Physics & Astronomy. We’re quite unusual in Cardiff in that a thesis examination here involves a Chair in addition to the Internal and External Examiners (and the candidate, of course). The Chair is there as a sort of referee, ensuring all proper procedures are followed and that the questioning of the candidate is done fairly. The Chair doesn’t usually get involved in the actual examination, but sometimes intervenes if things are getting bogged down. The candidate yesterday was Lorenzo Moncelsi and it all went off without a hitch. The best bit about chairing a viva voce examination is that you get to tell the candidate the result: “The Examiners have agreed to recommend that you be awarded the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy”. The formal decision to award the degree comes later, via some Registry Committee or other, but it’s a nice feeling to pass on good news like that. In fact, it’s the best part of being an academic, getting to congratulate people on their success whether undergraduate or postgraduate.
Lorenzo is off to Caltech next week to continue his research career with a postdoctoral position and will no doubt in the meantime be continuing the celebration he started last night. Congratulations to Lorenzo, and bon voyage buon viaggio!
UPDATE: Here is a picture taken just after the end of the viva, featuring Supervisor (Enzo Pascale), student, Examiners (Bruce Swinyard and Matt Griffin) and Chair!
I’m sad to have to use the medium of this blog to report the tragic death of the Hubble parameter. It had been declining for some time and, despite appearing to pick up recently, the end was somewhat inevitable. Condolences to the other parameters, especially Ω (who was in a close relationship with H), on this sad loss.
The original photograph (and joke) may be found here.
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Has anyone else noticed the remarkable resemblance between distinguished astrophysicist and space scientist Mike Cruise and Crazy Frog, the computer animated character used to market the ringtones some people have on their mobile hand-held telephonic devices?
Matt Griffin sent this one in, so blame him…
Follow @telescoperMy eye was caught this morning by this dramatic picture on the front page of the Guardian website, linked to a story about the discovery of a very young planet:
I wonder how many people looking at it thought that it was an actual picture of a planet actually forming? In fact the above graphic is just an “artist’s conception” of the view near the planet, which is called LkCa 15b. The real picture is considerably less dramatic:
What you see is (left) a disk of dust and gas surrounding a star cleverly made visible by masking out the light from the star, which is much brighter than the disk. On the right you can see a blow up of the inner region of the system, which appears to show a Jupiter-like planet associated with an irregular blob of material, out of which it probably condensed and from which it may still be accreting.
The size of the picture on the right is worth noting. The angle indicated is 76 milli-arcseconds. This is the angle subtended by the width of a human hair at distance of about 130 metres…
Follow @telescoperA couple of days ago I bought a copy of Private Eye: The First 50 Years by Adam MacQueen, which I’ve been dipping into from time to time. This is in an A-Z format that encourages one to sample rather than read straight through like a history book. I think it’s excellent: not only great fun, with several “laugh-out-loud” passages, but also a very interesting piece of social history.
Last night I came across the book’s account of the famous episode of Arkell versus Pressdram , one of the Eye‘s many brushes with libel law, Pressdram being the name of the company that publishes said organ. I thought I’d post it here for those who haven’t heard of it because I find it quite inspirational. It’s actually been a while since anyone threatened me with a libel action but when that did happen, many moons ago, my response was similar in spirit (though not in form) to the memorable reply given by the Eye in the correspondence below (with, I might add, the same result):
Solicitor’s Letter to Private Eye:
We act for Mr Arkell who is Retail Credit Manager of Granada TV Rental Ltd.
His attention has been drawn to an article appearing in the issue of Private Eye dated 9th April 1971 on page 4. The statements made about Mr Arkell are entirely untrue and clearly highly defamatory.
We are therefore instructed to require from you immediately your proposals for dealing with the matter. Mr Arkell’s first concern is that there should be a full retraction at the earliest possible date in Private Eye and he will also want his costs paid. His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply.
Response from Private Eye:
We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell.
We note that Mr Arkell’s attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.
No further letters were received from Mr Arkell’s solicitors. This legendary exchange of letters has now become a well-known in-joke for solicitors. So if you ever get a letter from a solicitor trying to frighten you with threats of libel, or simply want someone to fuck off for some other reason, I suggest you refer them to the Reply Given in Arkell versus Pressdram.
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In the Dark 