How great it is to see the return of Test Match cricket to England and the comforting familiarity it brings of sitting around not watching any play because of the pouring rain and Stygian gloom.
There may not have been much cricket at Southampton today (lovely or otherwise) but I couldn’t resist sharing this bit of West Indies cricketing nostalgia in calypso form, vintage 1950, by Lord Beginner..
Follow @telescoperThere’s an interesting piece here by the famous Professor Moriarty bemoaning the way universities try to impose corporate branding on materials used by academics, e.g. by forcing us to use `approved’ powerpoint templates.
My main objection to these is that they tend to be very cluttered with logos and other messaging that detract from the presentation of scientific material. My usual approach therefore is to use just the university’s template for the front page, and then revert to a plainer style for the rest of the talk, usually without headers or footers or logos or background. That is of course unless I’m doing talks specifically on University business such as on Open Day talks when I need to explain things like course structure, e.g…
A more fundamental issue, however, is that scientists tend to identify as scientists rather than as marketing representatives for a given university or other institution. Physicists, for example, often work collaboratively in teams across many institutions and consequently see themselves as members of such a team first and employees of a given institution second. When they give talks to schoolkids they are much more likely to be doing so to communicate an enthusiasm for the discipline than their institution (although of course these are not mutually exclusive). It’s unlikely that the quality of the logos will be the factor that determines whether such a talk is successful…
Anyway, I’m interested however to know what the general feeling is about these, so here’s a poll that is neither particularly scientific nor specifically branded:
Follow @telescoperIt’s Consultation Day here in Maynooth, which is when students can get some feedback on the exam results released last week and also discuss what they may need to do in terms of repeating assessments next month.
A few minutes ago I took a short break from dealing with such things to make a cup of coffee and I thought I’d provide an update on the processes going on to allow people to return to work. Signs went up on the outside doors to the Science Building last week.
The furniture in the Foyer area has been rearranged to facilitate social distancing…
The Department of Theoretical Physics will be operating a two-way system, with people sticking to the left of the corridors. People came to yesterday to stick the signs on the floor.
Fortunately the corridors in the Department are just about wide enough to maintain social distancing. If people pass each other coming in different directions their encounter will only be transient anyway, which is of low risk.
The computer room (not shown) will have a one-way system so students and staff will enter through one door and leave through the other. We will also have to take half the machines out of use for social distancing purposes, but that should be manageable.
Elsewhere in the Science building in order to avoid people passing each other on the (rather narrow) stairs there is one set for up and another for down.
Social distancing is being enforced in the other facilities too…
That’ll do for now. Time to get back to work.
Follow @telescoperI heard the sad news this morning that legendary composer Ennio Morricone has passed away at the age of 91. Morricone will be remembered not only for the music he himself created for films but on the huge influence he had on other composers and indeed on cinema generally.
I’ve posted this piece before but I make no apology for posting it again as a tribute to the Maestro. It’s the climactic final shoot-out from Sergio Leone’s iconic Spaghetti Western* The Good The Bad And The Ugly, featuring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, respectively, together with superbly innovative (and very complex) music on the soundtrack from Morricone. It was the guitarist Alessandro Alessandroni (who also did the whistling on the soundtrack) producing that unforgettable twangy sound with a hint of scordatura. I also think this is the first time any film composer had used gunshots as part of the score…
*These films are way better than was generally appreciated at the time of their release.
Update: I just love this response to an efflux of babble…
Twitter reminded me that 30 years ago yesterday (4th July 1990) was the date of the semi final between England and Germany in the 1990 World Cup, an event remembered by most people for Gazza’s tears. Paul Gascoigne cried before England lost (on penalties) because he picked up a yellow card which meant he wouldn’t play in the final even if England got through. As it happened, England lost so none of the England players played in the World Cup Final.
My memories of Italia 90 have somewhat different focus. I travelled to Italy on 1st July 1990 to attend a cosmology conference/workshop in a place called Sesto Pusteria in the region known as Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol (South Tyrol). Sesto is a village, set in the Italian Dolomites, primarily a ski resort in the winter but used for conferences in the summer when there is no snow.
I think it was only my second trip to Italy and I had been learning some Italian on the flight. My plane was supposed to land in Venice whence a bus would take conference guests up to Sesto. Unfortunately my flight was diverted to land at Treviso. I missed the bus and decided to stay overnight in a hotel and travel under my own steam the next day.
I found a hotel in Treviso and that night I watched the quarter final between Cameroon and England on my own on the television in my room.
I got up early the next morning and with the aid of the railway timetable supplied by the hotel reception, I set out on a long journey by train. There might have been a quicker way by bus but I was more comfortable doing it by train and was actually looking forward to a bit of exploration.
The route involved four different trains: Treviso to Mestre, then Mestre to Verona, then Verona to Bolzano, then a local (very slow) train from Bolzano up into the mountains to San Candido. The last leg was a little bus from San Candido to Sesto Pusteria. It took me most of the day to get there but I made it without any real difficulty.
I did notice however that on the way there the style of buildings I could see changed from very Italian to very Austrian.
Anyway I arrived in Sesto Pusteria (which is a small place) and found the name of the hotel I was booked in which was Bellavista. I wandered about looking for it – there was no Google Maps in those days – but failed. I did however find the conference centre where the meeting was located. I went in and asked in broken Italian Prego, Dov’è l’hotel Bellavista?
The answer came back in perfect English with a hint of a German accent. It’s down the road on the right, about 50 metres. It’s easy to find because the outside is all white. I was puzzled because I must have walked right past it. Anyway I walked back to down the road and found a hotel with a white exterior. The sign said Hotel Schönblick…
It turned out that my meagre Italian was of no use at all because the locals all spoke German. The South Tyrol has historically been part of Austria. It was annexed by Italy at the end of the First World War and the present border is just a few km from Sesto Pusteria. Attempts to assign Italian names to things however have been only partly successful.
So I made it to the conference, a day late. There weren’t any mobile phones in those days so I’d been unable to contact the organisers so they were quite relieved when I eventually showed up.
And so I saw both semi finals of Italia 90 at the conference: Italy lost theirs against Argentina and England lost on penalties.
After the workshop I travelled with a colleague by car to Trieste to work on a collaboration. During that I remember watching the 3rd/4th playoff (‘Piccolo Finale’) on a big screen from a bar in a public square in Trieste. Italy won that (deservedly). I think I watched the final too, but can remember little about it.
Last night my attention was drawn to an important article on the ArXiv in the domain of biophysics. The title is Projectile Trajectory of Penguin’s Faeces and Rectal Pressure Revisited*.
Here is the abstract:
We discuss a trajectory of penguins’ faeces after the powerful shooting due to their strong rectal pressure. Practically, it is important to see how far faeceses reach when penguins expel them from higher places. Such information is useful for keepers to avoid the direct hitting of faeceses. We estimate the upper bound for the maximum flight distance by solving the Newton’s equation of motion. Our results indicate that the safety zone should be 1.34 meters away from a penguin trying to poop in typical environments. In the presence of the viscous resistance, the grounding time and the flying distance of faeces can be expressed in terms of Lambert W function. Furthermore, we address the penguin’s rectal pressure within the hydrodynamical approximation combining Bernoulli’s theorem and Hagen-Poiseuille equation for viscosity corrections. We found that the calculated rectal pressure is larger than the estimation in the previous work.
That is amusing enough (though admittedly the English isn’t great) but the diagrams are an absolute joy!
*In case you’re wondering about the “revisited” at the end of the title, the authors of the present work present a critique of earlier work by Meyer-Rochow & Gal (2003) in which “the projectile trajectory of the faeces is not taken into account”. This previous paper was awarded the Ignobel Prize in 2005.
One should not pooh-pooh research on this topic and now that we have got to Number Two I for one hope for the speedy production of further outputs in this area.
Follow @telescoperI saw an interesting news item this morning about excess deaths registered in Ireland between 11th March and 16th June, the period that brackets the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the official numbers, 1709 deaths occurred during that time of people who had tested positive for the Coronavirus. During the same period, however, about about 1100-1200 deaths were registered in excess of the average mortality figures.
One interpretation of this discrepancy is that many of those counted as Covid-19 cases actually died of other causes. Consistent with that interpretation is the fact that over 60% of those deaths were people in care homes, many of whom may have had chronic illness.
Taking 1150 as an estimate of the excess deaths caused by Covid-19 the mortality per million in Ireland drops from 352 to about 237. It must be noted that this figure is still much higher than similar-sized countries such as Denmark and Norway.
The contrast with the United Kingdom is stark. A recent analysis of excess deaths there suggests about 69,000 people have lost their lives directly or indirectly due to Covid-19, which is about 57% higher than the official figure of around 44,000. Taking 69,000 instead of 44,000, the United Kingdom’s mortality rate increases from 647 per million to over a thousand.
I haven’t really been following the reporting in the United Kingdom very closely, because I don’t live there anymore, but the data on new cases found by testing is hopelessly confusing. This, together, with the apparent under-reporting of deaths, may be the reason behind the lax adherence to public health measures over the other side of the Irish Sea.
There is also the fact that daily Covid-19 briefings here in Ireland are led by medical experts, with the politicians taking a back seat (and often not involved at all). These are much more likely to be trusted than politicians, especially those involved in the current Tory government.
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As Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan has been constantly in the public eye during the Covid-19 outbreak. At the daily press briefings he has impressed with his authoritative and frank delivery. During this time he has come across not only as a leading health expert, but as a good honest man and a dedicated public servant. His personal qualities have done much to win the confidence of the public in the battle against the Coronavirus.
Today I learnt that throughout this period Dr Holohan had also been caring for his wife, who is very ill with cancer, and their two young children. I have no idea how he managed to carry out his public role, which must have been onerous in itself, so professionally while carrying such a heavy additional burden in private.
Now his wife has gone into palliative care, and he has taken the decision to stand down from his job in order to be with her and their family.
All I can do is add a small voice to the many others saying a heartfelt “thank you” to Dr Tony Holohan for service far beyond the call of duty, and send my best wishes for the challenges ahead.
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By way of a diversion this lunchtime after a morning of Microsoft Teams, I thought I’d comment briefly on another kind of team, by looking at the state of play in the Premier League.
Liverpool of course deservedly won the title last weekend when Manchester city lost to Chelsea. To have won the Premiership with seven games left to play is a remarkable achievement. All credit to their excellent manager Jürgen Klopp, who actually seems a thoroughly decent fellow as well. Although based in the English Midlands, Liverpool have a strong following here in Ireland so there were many celebrations here when the Premiership race was sealed.
The absence of any football for many weeks at least removed one usual cause of springtime stress, namely Newcastle United’s struggle to avoid relegation. Since the return, however, Steve Bruce’s team have done pretty well, with seven points out of a possible nine, though they did get knocked out of the FA Cup. Last night they beat struggling Bournemouth 4-1 away from home which leaves them on 42 points with six games left to play. They’re not mathematically safe from relegation but it’s very difficult to see any of the bottom three teams getting more than 15 points from their remaining games so I think relegation is extremely improbable. Norwich look relegation certainties, but who will go down with them? Based on last night’s poor performance at home, I’d say probably Bournemouth and one other.
The Bookies odds at the moment are:
Watford or West Ham might be worth a bet. There are still six games to be played, after all.
I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the games since the season restarted. Playing in an empty stadium makes football very strange to watch, and the artificial crowd noises make it even stranger. It problem reduces home advantage not having supporters in the ground, but I haven’t looked at the statistical evidence whether or not this is the case..
It’s worth mentioning the situation in League 1:
Here the season has been declared closed. Wycombe Wanderers finish in third on the basis of points per game despite having fewer points than the team in fourth. Wycombe’s 35th game would have been against Coventry…
I’ll just mention in passing that Sunderland will not be promoted. Tragic.
Follow @telescoperAfter a busy morning I’ve got time for an update or two about the Open Journal of Astrophysics.
As well as the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) many papers in astrophysics are also indexed by INSPIRE HEP the analogous information management system for high energy physics. Here is the logo for the latter:
Being indexed in INSPIRE is particularly relevant for authors of papers in astroparticle physics and cosmology, but papers in other areas of astrophysics are also listed on INSPIRE HEP. I am given to understand that, e.g., postdoc selection committees often look at INSPIRE for bibliometric information about applications so this is potentially important for early career researchers.
I am very grateful to staff at Inspire for ensuring that all our papers are now fully indexed in INSPIRE HEP as refereed articles with metadata fully consistent with NASA/ADS. The back catalogue having been dealt with manually we can now set up a feed to ensure that future papers are indexed automatically by NASA/ADS and Inspire HEP.
It is worth noting that because our papers are only published online we do not use the standard referencing style of volumes and pages. We have volumes: Volume 3 is 2020, Volume 2 is 2019, and everything before that is Volume 1. Each paper published in a given year is allocated an numerical id which is just an integer.
For an example of this style, see here.
The main thing for proper cross-referencing and citation is the Digital Object Identifier, which is displayed on the overlay for each paper.
The final thing I wanted to say is that I’m now reliably informed that the correct name to be use for the form of Open Access Publishing offered by the Open Journal of Astrophysics is not Green (which has come to mean author self-archiving of papers) but Diamond Open Access, which means that neither authors nor readers are charged.
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In the Dark 