The inestimable Miss Lemon, who occasionally operates under the pseudonym Dorothy Lamb, has sent me a picture of her latest knitting exploits, i.e. two buses in the livery of the Brighon & Hove Bus Company!
They add a whole new meaning to the term `bendy bus’!
To find out what inspired these contributions please see related the University of Sussex news item here.
Follow @telescoperThere’s a very thoughtful and provocative paper on the arXiv by Gerard tHooft, who (jointly) won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1999. It’s well worth reading, even if you decide you don’t agree with him!
From what is known today about the elementary particles of matter, and the forces that control their behavior, it may be observed that still a host of obstacles must be overcome that are standing in the way of further progress of our understanding. Most researchers conclude that drastically new concepts must be investigated, new starting points are needed, older structures and theories, in spite of their successes, will have to be overthrown, and new, superintelligent questions will have to be asked and investigated. In short, they say that we shall need new physics. Here, we argue in a different manner. Today, no prototype, or toy model, of any so-called Theory of Everything exists, because the demands required of such a theory appear to be conflicting. The demands that we propose include locality, special and general relativity, together with a fundamental finiteness not only of the forces and amplitudes, but also of the set of Nature’s dynamical variables. We claim that the two remaining ingredients that we have today, Quantum Field Theory and General Relativity, indeed are coming a long way towards satisfying such elementary requirements. Putting everything together in a Grand Synthesis is like solving a gigantic puzzle. We argue that we need the correct analytical tools to solve this puzzle. Finally, it seems to be obvious that this solution will give room neither for “Divine Intervention”, nor for “Free Will”, an observation that, all by itself, can be used as a clue. We claim that this reflects on our understanding of the deeper logic underlying quantum mechanics.
The full paper can be downloaded here.
Follow @telescoperThen there was neither Aught nor Nought, no air nor sky beyond.
What covered all? Where rested all? In watery gulf profound?
Nor death was then, nor deathlessness, nor change of night and day.
That One breathed calmly, self-sustained; nought else beyond it lay.
Gloom hid in gloom existed first – one sea, eluding view.
That One, a void in chaos wrapt, by inward fervour grew.
Within it first arose desire, the primal germ of mind,
Which nothing with existence links, as sages searching find.
The kindling ray that shot across the dark and drear abyss-
Was it beneath? or high aloft? What bard can answer this?
There fecundating powers were found, and mighty forces strove-
A self-supporting mass beneath, and energy above.
Who knows, who ever told, from whence this vast creation rose?
No gods had then been born – who then can e’er the truth disclose?
Whence sprang this world, and whether framed by hand divine or no-
Its lord in heaven alone can tell, if even he can show.
Translated by John Muir from the original (anonymous) Sanskrit text of a hymn.
Follow @telescoperSince it was a fine evening I popped in at the SSE SWALEC Stadium in Sophia Gardens on the way home from work to catch the last few overs of Day 1 of the County Championship match between Glamorgan and Gloucestershire.
For a change, and despite losing two quick wickets while I watched, Glamorgan are in a reasonably strong position at 342 for 7 off 96 overs at the end of Day 1, with young Kiran Carlson unbeaten on 137. That’s not bad considering that, having been put in to bat, they had been 63 for 4 at one stage.
It’s been a disappointing season in the County Championship for Glamorgan, who have only won two games out of 12 so far, and there’s not much at stake in this game, but I hope they can get a good result in this, their last game of the season in Cardiff.
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Yet another sign that Autumn is on the way arrived yesterday in the form of my new Royal Astronomical Society diary, which comes with the subscription. This runs from October to October so each year’s new edition usually comes in September. I say `usually’ because mine didn’t come at all last year. It probably got lost in a muddle when I changed address back to Cardiff from Sussex. Each year’s version is usually a different colour from the previous one too. This time it’s a sort of bottle green.
Anyway, although many of my colleagues seem not to use them, I like old-fashioned diaries like this. I do run an electronic calendar for work-related events, meetings etc, but I use the paper one to scribble down extra-curricular activities such as concerts and cricket fixtures, as I find the smartphone version of my electronic calendar a bit fiddly.
Anyway, I’m interested to know the extent to which I am an old fogey so here’s a little poll on the subject of diaries:
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Leon Mestel FRS, photographed by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
I heard this weekend the very sad news that on Friday 15th September 2017, we lost one of our great astrophysicists. Professor Leon Mestel FRS, pictured abvove, passsed away, peacefully in his sleep, at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He was 90 years old.
Leon Mestel was a scientist of the highest distinction. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1977, his research interests were very broad, encompassing, but not restricted to, the areas of star formation and structure, especially stellar magnetism and astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics. Among his contributions in other areas were important papers on gravitational collapse and equilibrium in the context of galaxy dynamics, of which the classic `Mestel Disk’ is just one example. He has been awarded both the Eddington Medal (1993) and the Gold Medal (2002) of the Royal Astronomical Society. He had great physical insight which was backed up with prodigious mathematical skill and an encyclopedic knowledge of astrophysics. He also had great powers of concentration and the determination to tackle the kind of extremely challenging problems that scared off lesser intellects. Leon was an ‘old school’ theoretical astrophysicist who was held in very high regard across the astrophysics community, and he will be greatly missed.
Others more expert than me will be able to pay proper tribute to his scientific work, so I’ll restrict myself here to a few personal reminiscences.
Leon Mestel was Professor in the Astronomy Centre at the University of Sussex when I joined it to start my DPhil in 1985. We new postgraduate research research students were required to take four courses on various aspects of astronomy, and pass oral examinations on them, before being allowed to progress beyond the first year. One of these courses was a course on Stellar Structure, taught by Leon Mestel. His lectures were pretty intense – and, I have to say, not made any easier to understand by his truly terrible handwriting on the blackboard! – but I learned a huge amount from them. I still have the lecture notes I took, in fact.
I had a root around in my old files this morning and found this evidence that I once knew something about stars!
All of us found Leon very scary to start with. He was intellectually quite intimidating and seemed to be a rather fierce and irascible character. That opinion changed when, a few weeks into term, he invited us to his house in Lewes for a social evening. We were all a bit nervous on the way there, unsure of what to expect, but as it turns out Leon was a marvellously entertaining and avuncular host. He had a wicked sense of humour and a seemingly inexhaustible stream of jokes, across a spectrum from groan-worthy puns to very risqué stories, including a liberal measure of archetypal Jewish humour. Leon’s father was a Rabbi, actually. That evening broke the ice and we all realised that the was one of the good guys. That he came across as grumpy sometimes was because he was concentrating very hard, but it was rather easy to make him laugh and bring that twinkle to his eye that we will all remember.
His sharp brain and very broad knowledge meant that Leon could spot bullshit at a considerable distance and, while he often seemed to be snoozing through our weekly seminar, he invariably woke up at the end and asked a penetrating question. Since one of his main interests was the role of magnetic fields in astrophysics, a subject that sends many astrophysicists screaming from the room, he would often choose something about magnetism as a question. When I was there his main focus was on the fiendishly difficult problem of building a self-consistent model of the pulsar magnetosphere. He was, however, genuinely interested in all branches of astrophysics and always recognised good work when he saw it, especially from younger scientists.
During my time as a PhD student I had some problems that required me to take quite a lot of time off. Leon was extremely kind and supportive during this period, and he even bent the rules a bit to avoid putting me through the formal process of interrupting my studies. When I was back at work and just about finishing my thesis in 1988 it was Leon who came to see me in person, with a big smile on his face, and offered me a postdoctoral position at Sussex to follow my graduate studies. I nearly fell off my chair with surprise and gratitude.
After I joined the staff later in 1988, it became a bit of a ritual for us to visit the Senior Common Room (which was situated in what is now Bramber House) for lunch, followed by coffee. It turned out that Leon liked to do the Times crossword with his post-lunch coffee. He wasn’t at all averse to a collaborative effort on tricky research problems, and it was thus with crosswords too. We both preferred the Guardian puzzle, actually, but he saved that one for after work and did the Times one because the paper was provided free in the SCR. There was also a Chambers dictionary.
I left Sussex in 1990 and Leon retired in 1992. I didn’t see as much of him after that, except for the occasion when he and my former DPhil supervisor John Barrow organized a meeting in 2004 about Eddington at which I was honoured to be asked to give a talk about the 1919 eclipse expeditions. That was a very nice occasion at which Leon was in sparkling form. Thereafter I saw him occasionally at the RAS Club, but in recent years he didn’t come so often as he found it increasingly difficult to get around.
Leon Mestel was not only a great astrophysicist but also a great character. I’m so very sorry I can’t attend his funeral (which is being held tomorrow), but I send heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.
Rest in Peace Leon Mestel FRS (1917-2017)
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Since autumn is coming, and the football season is well under way, bringing with it that terrifying existential void that opens up on Saturdays between the end of Final Score and the start of Match Of The Day, I thought I would just mention that, after a good win on Saturday against Stoke City, Newcastle United are now in 4th place in the Premiership:
I’ve posted that simply to enjoy it while it lasts. I don’t think they’ll be so high at the end of the season, but they’ve recovered well, winning three consecutive games after losing their first two.
In a strange quirk of something or other, Newcastle United now find themselves immediately above the two teams to which they have lost.
Incidentally, when I was a student at Cambridge, in 1984, Chelsea finished in first place in the old Second Division, securing promotion to the First Division. Newcastle finished third that season and also got promoted. Manchester City finished fourth. How times change.
It’s a funny old game.
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A new sign has arrived at the Data Innovation Research Institute courtesy of our colleagues from Supercomputing Wales, a new initiative that started this spring.
Two people associated with this project are now working from the DII office where I am currently based. It also employs six research software engineers around Cardiff University as well as others elsewhere in Wales.
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When I logged onto WordPress today I received a message that it was the 9th anniversary of my registration with them as a blogger, which is when I took my first step into the blogosphere; that was way back on 15th September 2008. I actually wrote my first post that day too. Unfortunately I didn’t really know what I was doing on my first day at blogging – no change there, then – and I didn’t actually manage to figure out how to publish this earth-shattering piece. It was only after I’d written my second post that I realized that the first one wasn’t actually visible to the general public because I hadn’t pressed the right buttons, so the two appear in the wrong order in my archive.
I’d like to take this opportunity to send my best wishes, and to thank, everyone who reads this blog, however occasionally. According to the WordPress stats, I’ve got readers from all round the world, including one in the Vatican! If you’re interested in statistics then, as of 14.30 BST today, I have published 3,806 blog posts, and have received 3,220,896 hits altogether; I get an average of about 1200 per day, but this varies in a very erratic fashion. The greatest number of hits I have received in a day is 8,864 (at the peak of the BICEP2 controversy). There have been 27,590 comments published on here and 1,705,410 rejected. Most of the rejected comments were from automated spam bots, but a small number have been removed for various violations, usually for abuse of some kind. Yes, I do get to decide what is published. It’s my blog!
While I am on the subject of comments, I’ll just repeat here my comments policy as stated on the home page of this blog:
Feel free to comment on any of the posts on this blog but comments may be moderated; anonymous comments and any considered by me to be abusive will not be accepted. I do not necessarily endorse, support, sanction, encourage, verify or agree with the opinions or statements of any information or other content in the comments on this site and do not in any way guarantee their accuracy or reliability.
It does mean a lot to me to know that there are people who find my ramblings interesting enough to look at, and sometimes even to come back for more, so I’d like to take this opportunity to send my best wishes to all those who follow this blog and especially those who take the trouble to comment on it in such interesting and unpredictable ways!
Incidentally, I noticed that another auspicious anniversary falls today. It is now thirty years to the day since my second refereed paper was published! Here’s the front page:
Reading through it again now it seems incredibly simplistic and dated. It may not exactly be a classic, but it still gets the odd citation!
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It has been brought to my attention that I haven’t posted any cute physics problems recently, so here’s one (which involves applying Kirchoff’s laws) that’s a bit harder than A-level standard which might be of interest to students about to begin a degree in physics this month!
The above image, produced using the advanced computer graphics facilities available at Cardiff University’s Data Innovation Research Institute, represents a cube formed of 12 wires each of which has resistance 1Ω.
What is the electrical resistance between: (i) A and G; (ii) A and H; and (iii) A and D?
As usual, answers through the comments box please!
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In the Dark 