Archive for May, 2012

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Merseyside Astronomy Day

Posted in Books, Talks and Reviews, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on May 11, 2012 by telescoper

I’m just about to head by train off up to Merseyside (which, for those of you unfamiliar with the facts of British geography, is in the Midlands). The reason for this trip is that I’m due to give a talk tomorrow morning (Saturday 12th May) at Merseyside Astronomy Day, the 7th such event. It promises to be a MAD occasion.

My lecture, entitled The Cosmic Web, is an updated version of a talk I’ve given a number of times now; it will focus on the large scale structure of the Universe and the ideas that physicists are weaving together to explain how it came to be the way it is. Over the last few decades astronomers have revealed that our cosmos is not only vast in scale – at least 14 billion light years in radius – but also exceedingly complex, with galaxies and clusters of galaxies linked together in immense chains and sheets, surrounding giant voids of empty space. Cosmologists have developed theoretical explanations for its origin that involve such exotic concepts as ‘dark matter’ and ‘cosmic inflation’, producing a cosmic web of ideas that is in some ways as rich and fascinating as the Universe itself.

Anyway, I’m travelling to Liverpool this afternoon so I can meet the organizers for dinner this evening and stay overnight because there won’t be time to get there by train from Cardiff tomorrow morning. It’s not all that far from Cardiff to Liverpool as the crow flies, but unfortunately I’m not going by crow by train. I am nevertheless looking forward to seeing the venue, Spaceport, which I’ve never seen before.

If perchance any readers of this blog are planning to attend MAD VII please feel free to say hello. No doubt you will also tell me off for referring to Liverpool as the Midlands…

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Ars Nova Copenhagen

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 11, 2012 by telescoper

Yesterday being the day of my last revision lecture I decided to mark the end of the teaching year last night by going to a concert which was part of a series belonging to the 2012 Vale of Glamorgan Music Festival and was held in All Saints’ Church, Penarth. I would like to have been to more of these performances, but unfortunately it’s the busiest period of the academic year and I just couldn’t spare the time.

I made a special effort to make sure I could get to last night’s concert by the choir  Ars Nova Copenhagen partly because of their illustrious reputation as choral singers but also because the programme featured music by Danish composer Per Nørgård, whose music I have only just discovered. Ars Nova Copenhagen consists of twelve singers of extraordinary individual ability and wonderful collective cohesion under the direction of Søren Kinch Hansen. Last night’s performance was truly marvellous.

To the left you can see a picture of the venue, just before the concert started; we had seats in the gallery giving an excellent view of the whole performance. The choir made full use of this space, sometimes dividing into groups and standing in different parts of the church. I’m not all that familiar with the terminology of church architecture, but that includes just in front of the sanctuary (where the altar is), in the choir, and in the aisles either side of the central one. Incidentally, I have been told on more than one occasion that the central passageway through the nave is not, as is often stated,  the aisle; the aisles are the smaller parallel passageways to either of the nave. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong!

Anyway, the programme consisted of a mixture of sacred and secular music (some of the latter actually rather profane), starting with a longish  piece by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen which had the choir not only singing but also tweeting like birds and doing animal impressions. I was initially unsettled by this, but pretty soon decided that I liked it.

There then followed three pieces by the great Estonian composer Arvo Pärt – all of which were lovely, but I particularly enjoyed the piece called Morning Star – and then three beautiful pieces by Per Nørgård bringing the first half of the concert to a close.

Somewhat surprisingly for a concert in a church, there followed an interval at which we had a glass of wine. Then there was a second half which had a rather different, rather eclectic flavour. It started with two new works commissioned especially for this Festival, by Peter Bannister and Gavin Bryars, the latter being a moving setting of Psalm 141. A subset of the male voices of the choir then performed a piece by minimalist composer Steve Reich. Finally we heard a fascinating work by Anne Boyd called As I crossed the bridge of dreams which was bore the hallmarks of an oriental influence.

All in all, it was a fascinating and adventurous evening of music, by a wonderful and versatile group of vocal artists, helped by the intimate yet rich acoustic of All Saints’ Church.

You can’t beat live music. What with the various concert venues and the Opera here in Cardiff there are so many opportunities to hear the real thing that my CD collection is steadily gathering dust.

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Muggles

Posted in Jazz with tags , on May 10, 2012 by telescoper

A bit fed up today, and too tired to post anything substantive, so I thought I’d cheer myself up this lunchtime the old-fashioned way with a bit of Louis Armstrong. This was recorded in 1928 by Satchmo with the later incarnation of the Hot Five, which naturally numbered six people in total. The title, Muggles, has nothing to with Harry Potter but is a slang word popular in 1920s Chicago that refers to a certain smoking material of an illicit nature, to which Mr Armstrong was rather partial all his life and which no doubt contributed to the relaxed atmosphere pervading this recording session..

 

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Dielectric Breakdown

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on May 9, 2012 by telescoper

This is the season when our  second-year students are picking the projects they want to do in their third year, as are those third-year students intending to carry on for Year 4 of the MPhys programme. I’ve been chatting to quite a few students about this particular project so thought I’d do a quick post here.


One of the third-year projects I’ve got in the current catalogue for next year concerns a computer model of dielectric breakdown based on the idea of diffusion-limited aggregation. This is  a neat model that allows the students to simulate pretty patterns like the one shown on the left.

The mathematics of it was first presented in Niemeyer, L., Pietronero, L., Wiesmann, H., “Fractal dimension of dielectric breakdown,” Physical Review Letters 52 (1984), 1033-1036.

Dielectric breakdown happens when a sufficiently large voltage is applied across a material that doesn’t normally conduct electricity, the classic example being a lightning strike. Here’s another example, which I find particularly electrifying…

Classical physics can be fun, you know!

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Song on a May Morning

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on May 9, 2012 by telescoper

Now the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire!
Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

by John Milton (1608-1674).

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The case for JUICE

Posted in Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on May 8, 2012 by telescoper

Here’s a nice blog peace giving the case for JUICE (The Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer recently selected by the European Space Agency for its next L-class mission).

Duncan Forgan's avatarWell-Bred Insolence

There’s been a lot of chatter in astronomy circles about the negative consequences of ESA’s latest L-class (i.e. large) space mission selection.  JUICE (The JUpiter Icy moon Explorer) was selected over two rival missions – the New Gravitational wave Observatory (NGO), and the Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA).  In the current age of global austerity, one group’s win is several groups’ losses, and understandably the X-Ray and gravitational wave communities are upset at the choice.  Indeed, reading the comments section on astro blogs might make planetary scientists go a little pale. Not least the fact that ATHENA supporters have already delivered a 1450 signature petition demanding a rethink.  The fact that the decision making process has been somewhat cloudy doesn’t help matters.

It does indeed suck that this is a zero-sum game (in fact, probably…

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Experiment Marathon, Reykjavik 2008

Posted in Art, Books, Talks and Reviews, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on May 8, 2012 by telescoper

A while ago I blogged about an event I attended, called  Experimental Marathon, which was held in Reykjavik Art Museum in May 2008. I was reminded about this for various reasons recently and managed to dig up a couple of pictures of my presentation, which appeared in the glossy book of the event that was produced later on.

As you can probably infer, I gave a talk which was basically about the cosmic microwave background. My “experiment” was a television set that wasn’t tuned properly producing a screenful of static. I pointed out that some (actually not that much) of the buzz was coming from the beginning of the universe. Pretty unoriginal and gimmicky, I know, but it seemed to go down quite well with the audience and I had some nice questions and comments at the end of my 20 minutes.

During the three days of the event I also got to meet quite a few artists, scientists and other luminaries whose names are on the list here.:

You can find one of the numerous reviews of this event here, which also includes quite a few pictures of various experiments including one that some might consider to be NSFW …

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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Posted in Television with tags , , , , on May 7, 2012 by telescoper

Well it’s a Bank Holiday (hooray!) so naturally it’s raining (boo!). Nice to have a lie-in on a Monday morning for a change, but will probably spend the afternoon working anyway. We’ve just finished formal teaching term, and now we have a “Guided Study Week” of revision lectures etc before examinations start next week.

By way of a diversion I thought I’d mention that on my recent trip to South Africa I got a chance the see the film version of  John le Carré’s superb novel Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy. It was much as I’d expected, actually. Well acted and directed  in itself, but rather difficult to enjoy if you’ve either read the book or seen the seven-part 1979 BBC TV dramatisation which, centred around a flawlessly understated performance by Alec Guinness as George Smiley, is surely one of the finest TV drama series ever made, although the sequel Smiley’s People is perhaps even better.

The point is that the original plot by John le Carré is just too complicated to fit in the usual duration of a feature film, so if one knows the full story one can’t fail but be conscious of the alterations and huge chunks completely missing from the movie. Nevertheless, given the constraints, it’s a good film in its own right. I’m glad I watched it, though that was mainly because it reminded me how good the TV version was.

Incidentally, parts of the film were apparently shot at Imperial College. I didn’t actually spot this when watching it, but was told about it afterwards.

Anyway I found this clip on Youtube of the very start of the TV series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy , a scene placed before the opening titles rolled. Although it doesn’t correspond to anything in the book, I think it epitomizes what was so good about the television version. It features the four characters who belong to the Witchraft “Magic Circle” responsible for running Source Merlin, a Soviet agent who is supposed to be working as double-agent for British Intelligence (called “The Circus” because of its headquarters in Cambridge Circus). Of course it turns out everything is actually the other way round, and Source Merlin is Moscow Centre’s contact with a mole inside the Circus (codename “Gerald”) who is handing over British secrets. Gerald must be one of the four who have regular contact with Source Merlin, but which one?

I think this scene is brilliant because nobody says a word for most of it, but it immediately establishes the different characters of the respective protagonists. The pompous and punctilious pipe-smoking Percy Alleline (“Tinker”) brings a huge dossier of papers to the meeting, evidently enjoying his role as Head Boy. Flamboyant Bill Haydon (“Tailor”) displays his studied eccentricity by bringing only a cup of tea, with the saucer on top, and a biscuit. Haydon’s expression as Percy starts the meeting is priceless. Dishevelled chain-smoking Roy Bland (“Soldier”) seems entirely preoccupied with other things. Snappily dressed Toby Esterhase (“Poor Man”) betrays his status as a junior member of the club by arriving early – no doubt to impress – and closing the door that Haydon carelessly left open.

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Local Politics

Posted in Politics with tags , , , , , on May 6, 2012 by telescoper

By way of reminding myself for future reference I thought I’d do a quick post about the results of Thursday’s local elections.

I live in the Riverside ward within the area administered by Cardiff City Council. When I moved here in 2008 there were three Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalist) councillors. That was just after an election in which the Welsh Labour party had done badly, and also to some extent reflected the particular nature of the Pontcanna area which is within Riverside ward, in that it has a sizeable Welsh-speaking population many of whom work for the  media, especially the BBC.

Last year we had a by-election, won by Iona Gordon for Labour, so going into this year’s elections there were two Plaid councillors and one Labour. The result of the 2012 vote was very bad for Plaid, who lost their two remaining candidates to Labour. So in four years I’ve gone from living in a Plaid Cymru stronghold to a Labour stronghold.

The pattern in Riverside ward was repeated across Cardiff, so that Labour achieved a sizeable overall majority, with the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru all losing seats:

Before the elections the Council was run by a LibDem/Plaid Coalition and such was the swing against these parties that Council Leader Rodney Berman lost his seat, although in apparent desperation to cling onto his salary he demanded two recounts before giving up. Afterwards he spoke to the press claiming that the result in Cardiff was down to Westminster politics rather than local issues.

I don’t think so.

I certainly voted on local issues and so did many of the people I talked to. The former administration of the Council was awful in many respects, including proven maladministration over the decision to build a waste incinerator. I’m not the only person to have remarked on the plethora of pointless roadworks going on in the city, including narrowing the busiest thoroughfares, and of course the ongoing over-development of Bute Park.

No, Mr Berman. You were voted out because you did a lousy job.

There’s no guarantee, of course, that Labour will do any better but I very much doubt they can do any worse. I hope I’m not proved wrong.

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Another take on Academic Publishing..

Posted in Open Access with tags on May 6, 2012 by telescoper

Here’s another take on the Academic Publication racket that I found through a trackback to one of my posts. It misses the point in a number of places, but is well worth a read.

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