Listening to this track from Ornette Coleman on my iPod on the way home today reminded me that I haven’t posted anywhere enough by the great man, so I decided to post this as a soon as I got home. Faces and Places was recorded live at the Golden Circle club in Stockholm in 1965, and is part of a famous album that was proclaimed “Record of the Year” the following summer in Downbeat magazine. By the mid-60s Ornette Coleman had already established his reputation as leading light of avant-garde saxophonists and, in his own way, was as great an influence on jazz as Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane had been earlier.
It features a trio of Coleman on alto sax, David Izenzon on bass, and Charles Moffit on bass. It goes like the clappers right from the start, with some terrific work on the drums by Moffit, skittering along on the cymbals with interludes of powerful rapid-fire accents on the skins. Fantastic stuff.
Not long ago a colleague ran into my office all of a flutter and asked me about this new discovery called the “Wang particle” that had been in the media. I’m the one around here who’s supposed to know about particle astrophysics stuff, so I was quite embarrassed that I’d never heard of the Wang particle, although I’ll be delighted if it becomes famous as the name has a great deal of comedy potential.
Anyway, I vowed to find out a little bit about it and finally got around this lunchtime to doing so. It turns out that the story was sparked by press release from the British Science Association which, out of the goodness of my heart, I reproduce below (link added by me).
A new particle, similar to the Higgs Boson, could provide a clue to one of the greatest mysteries of the Universe.
Dr Charles Wang from the University of Aberdeen believes that a new scalar particle is behind the intense supernova explosions that occur when a star implodes. He presented his work to the British Science Association on Tuesday.
Supernova explosions are the most powerful forces in the universe, second only to the Big Bang.
Once frequent, the energy produced in these explosions is responsible for combining particles to produce all the recognisable elements on earth, providing all the known building blocks of life on earth.
There are still many gaps in our understanding of physics and one of the major blanks is how the implosion of a star subsequently produces an intense explosion.
It is known that as elements are created at the centre of a star, a huge amount of energy is released. However, it is believed that the conversion of known elements would never produce enough energy to result in an explosion.
Dr Wang’s theory states that “a scalar particle – one of the most elementary types of particles in the universe and similar to the Higgs Boson – is at work within these stars and responsible for the additional energy which causes the explosion to take place.”
The scalar particle would effectively enable the high transfer of energy during a supernova, allowing shockwaves from the implosion of a star to become re-energised and cause an explosion.
A new collaboration between Dr Wang and CERN could provide the equipment to make this theory a reality and demonstrate the existence of the ‘Wang particle’ – or as Dr Wang himself refers to it the ‘scalar gravitational particle’. It is hoped that using the ISOLDE facility at CERN it may be possible assimilate a nuclear reaction that would determine the process of a starburst.
If demonstrated, the existence of the ‘Wang particle’, like the Higgs Boson, would hold major implications for physics, shedding new light on the theory of everything and affecting our understanding of how different physical phenomena interact.
There’s no link to an academic paper with it, which is a bit disappointing, but an older piece in the CERN Courier does provide a reference to the paper, which is
C H-T Wang et al. 2011 Parametric instability induced scalar gravitational waves from a model pulsating neutron star, Phys. Letts. B 705 148
If you’re prepared to shake hands with the Devil that is Elsevier you can find the paper here.
I have to confess that this is a new one on me. I haven’t gone through the paper in detail yet but, at a quick skim, it seems to be based on a variation of the Brans-Dicke scalar-tensor theory of gravity. It’s probably an interesting paper, and I look forward to reading it in detail on a long flight I’m about to take, but I am a bit mystified as to why it created such a stir in the media. Looks more a result of hype than real significance to me. It certainly isn’t the “new Higgs boson” anyway. Nor is it likely to be relevant in explaining Climate Change. Or am I missing something? Perhaps hot air generated by press releases is responsible for global warming?
Anyone out there an expert on Wang’s work? Care to comment?
Not at all surprisingly, the government has announced that existing research council budgets are to be raided to provide funds (to the tune of £10M) to pay for “Gold” Open Access to scientific research. This is the model of open access in which most authors will have to pay publishers a whopping fee up front in order to disseminate their work. The figures being talked about are in the region of £2000 per paper by way of an “article processing fee”.
I put “article processing fee” in quotes there because a fee of that size bears no relation to the actual cost to the publishers of processing an article: articles in most physics journals are typeset by the author, and refereed for free by other academics suggested by the editor (another academic). What it really represents is the amount of money researchers will have to pay to maintain the humongous profit margins currently enjoyed by the academic publishing industry. Currently they rake in the cash through subscription charges after papers have been published in their journals . In future they will get the dosh in advance, which will probably make their business even more lucrative. And who will pay for maintaining their profitability? Researchers, of course. It’s clear who is going to benefit from the provisions of the Finch Report, and it’s not us.
Not surprisingly the publishing racketeers want to try to make us think they provide a worthwhile service for all the money they sting us for. For example, in this month’s Physics World, there’s a response from Steven Hall (Managing Director of IOP Publishing) to a letter from a certain Dr Garrrett. The original letter pointed the facts of the current state of affairs that I have bemoaned on many occasion on this blog:
Currently, researchers have to typeset their own work, sign away the copyright to publishers and referee the work of their peers – all for no remuneration. They then pay large sums in publication fees or library subscriptions to buy that work back in refereed and collated form.
Steven Hall’s response includes the following paragraph:
Researchers do not perform peer review alone: publishers organize and manage it, invest in people and systems to facilitate it, appoint and support editorial boards to oversee it and develop journals to meet the needs of scientific communities.
This is very far from being an accurate or fair representation of the way things work, at least not in physics. Researchers do carry out peer review alone. And unpaid. The main system that facilitates it is email (which, to my knowledge, was not developed by the academic publishing industry). And the journals that IOP develops are less to do with the “needs” of scientific communities than they are with the desires of a profit-making company to exploit said communities for even greater commercial gain.
Don’t you think it’s very strange that in a time of shrinking library budgets the number of journals seems to be growing all the time? Do we really need new ones? Do we even need the old ones? I think not.
And for those of you who think that IOP Publishing, as a part of the Institute of Physics, must be acting in the best interests of physics research, that’s simply not the case. It’s run as a private publishing company that behaves in exactly the same unscrupulous profiteering manner as, e.g. Elsevier. The IOP’s Open Access journals already charge £1700 per paper in article processing fees. They’re also in the habit of peddling meaningless “impact factor” statistics when trying to market their journals, many of which have lamentably poor citation rates despite their extortionate costs. Hence the IOP’s practice of bundling journal subscriptions in order to force institutions who want the good stuff to pay for the dross as well.
Having looked carefully into the costs of on-line digital publishing I have come to the conclusion that a properly-run, not-for-profit journal, created for and run by researchers purely for the open dissemination of the fruits of their research can be made sustainable with an article processing charge of less than £50 per paper, probably a lot less.
There’s only one response possible to those who’ve hijacked the Finch committee to serve their own ends, and that is to cut them out of the process. I think we can do it better (and cheaper) ourselves. And very soon I hope to prove it.
Time rolls on and the end of the summer brings the beginning of the new Opera season in Cardiff, with La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini at Welsh National Opera. It seems like a thousand years since I last went to the Wales Millennium Centre but it was only May. Still, a lot has happened between then and now. It felt good to see the Wales Millennium Centre again, looking resplendent in the sunshine of a September evening. Life’s getting back to normal.
I confess that I still get butterflies in my stomach as I take my seat before a night at the Opera. I guess if that thrill ever disappears I’ll just stop going, but last night reminded me why I love the Opera so much. The performance was absolutely wonderful, perhaps the best I’ve seen at Cardiff since I moved here five years ago.
I suppose the story of La Bohème will be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in Opera, but I’ll give a quick synopsis anyway. It’s a boy-meets-girl love story, of course. The boy in this case is the poet Rodolfo (Alex Vicens) and the girl, actually named Lucia but known as Mimi (Giselle Allen). The setting is Paris around 1830, and the poet and his painter friend Marcello (David Kempster) are starving and freezing, as it is winter and they have no money. Act I is set on Christmas Eve, but the two friends have nothing to eat and nowhere to go. Fortunately, their musician friend Schaunard (Daniel Grice) turns up with money and provisions. After various comings and goings everyone but Rodolfo leaves to spend Christmas Eve out on the town; Rodolfo has to finish a piece for a journal, and promises to join them when he is done. However, he is interrupted by the arrival of Mimi, who lives nearby and whose candle has gone out. It’s love at first sight…
The later stages of Act I are built around Rodolfo’s aria Che Gelida Manina (“your tiny hand is frozen”) and Mimi’s Mi Chiamano Mimi. These beautiful songs follow one another in quick succession, and are then rounded off with a wonderful duet O Soave Fanciulla in a manner guaranteed to melt the stoniest of hearts. And, before you ask, yes I did cry. Just a little bit. I don’t think anyone noticed.
But it’s not just the ravishing music that makes this passage so special, it’s also Puccini’s gift as a story-teller: after the two arias by Rodolfo and Mimi, the audience knows everything they need to know about these characters. It’s a great example of why I think Puccini is a far greater writer of Opera than, say, Wagner. Puccini understood much better than Wagner how to vary pace and colour without allowing the story to bogged down, and he knew exactly how to use his big tunes to maximum dramatic effect (i.e. without excessive repetition). In fact, La Bohème is in four acts, but its running time is just about 2 hours and 15 minutes, packed full of gorgeous music and compelling drama. It’s a supreme example of Puccini’s artistry as a composer of Opera.
Anyway, back to the plot. Act II finds Rodolfo and Mimi joining in the party started by Marcello and his buddies. There’s a huge contrast here between the dingy garret in which Act I is set, as this is set in the Latin Quarter of gay Paris (with a few drag queens in this production thrown in to make the point). Marcello gets off with the object of his desire, the coquettish Musetta (Kate Valentine), and all seems well with the world as we go into the interval.
In Act III we find things have changed. Rodolfo’s love for Mimi has soured and, overcome by jealousy and suspicion, he has left her. Clearly unwell, Mimi wanders around looking for Rodolfo and he hears her coughing. They clearly still love each other, but find it difficult to live with each other. If Opera were Facebook they would both have “It’s complicated” on their status.
The last act finds us back in the garret, Rodolfo and Mimi having separated. But Mimi has been wandering the streets in the freezing cold and turns up, clearly gravely ill. Rodolfo’s friends quickly pawn some meagre possessions and Marcello and Musetta rush out to buy medicine and summon a doctor. They return with the medicine but, before the doctor arrives, Mimi dies.
Well, what did you expect in an Opera, a happy ending?
People say that this is a romantic opera but it’s a pretty bleak story when you think about it. The lovers’ happiness is brief and it all ends in despair and death in surroundings of poverty and squalor. That’s what Opera Verismois all about.
I don’t give star ratings when I review Opera performances, but if I did this would get the highest grade. All the principals were marvellous. It was refreshing to see Rodolfo played by a tenor who not only looked the part (i.e. youthful and dashing rather than middle-aged and portly) but could also cope with the demands of the role. I thought Alex Vicens’ voice sounded a little thin at the start and was worried that he might have to force it during the big arias, but he warmed up magnificently. Kate Valentine was a very sexy Musetta. The other person who deserves a particular mention is Welsh baritone David Kempster, who was absolutely superb as Marcello. His compelling stage presence matched by an exceptionally fine voice. World class, I’d say…
And a word for the production. Annabel Arden’s design managed to bring fresh elements to what is basically a straightforward interpretation of the Opera. The visual effects, such as the animated snow, were clever but not intrusive. There was no attempt to translate the action into a different period or location nor was there an attempt to preach about disease as a metaphor for moral failings. In this respect it’s very faithful to what I think Puccini’s intentions were, i.e. to let the audience make their own mind up about what message they want to take away. The only slight departure I spotted was that in Act I Mimi actually blows her own candle out deliberately in order to get Rodolfo to light it again. Methinks she’s a bit more forward than usual in this production.
This was the first performance of this run of La Bohème. If you love Opera and can get to Cardiff, then do go and see it. It’s very special.
By way of a postscript I couldn’t resist posting this, which I found on Youtube this morning. It’s a vintage recording of O Soave Fanciulla dating back to 1956 and featuring the great Jussi Björling as Rodolfo. He may be a bit old for the part, but listen to that voice! The greatest tenor of his generation, without question. And Renata Tebaldi as Mimi too…
Posted in Uncategorized on September 8, 2012 by telescoper
There’s a poll on this blog post about attitudes to the REF, as well as some rumours about nefarious things going on in preparation for it. Please visit and vote as it has had few responses so far.
Anyone know whether the rumours about an Astronomy Group are true, and, if so, which it is?
I’ve had a number of discussions recently about the Research Excellence Framework (REF2014). I’ve yet to find anyone who has a positive view of REF2014. I’m certainly against REF2014 and think it is having a negative impact on how universities behave and think it is primarily driven by a desire to measure and quantify, even if it ultimately damages what is being assessed. However, I thought I would run a quick poll to get the views of others. Given how many typically read my posts, this will almost certainly not produce a statistically significant result.
Well, summer must be nearly over. Tonight is the Last Night of the Pimms Proms. More importantly, it’s the first night of the new season at Welsh National Opera, which I’ll be attending. Of which more anon. However, I thought I’d warm up by posting this marvellous clip which looks behind the scenes at a famous recording of the rarely performed English version of the classic aria Dovrei essere così fortunato from the Opera Una Ragazza Australiana con le Natiche Belle conducted by Carl Davis. Enjoy.
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever-changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
“I didn’t say, and I’ve been misquoted universally, that [technology] rots the brain and it’s bad, I’ve never given value judgements, ever,” Professor Susan Greenfield, 2011.
I’m writing this, my first ever blog entry, after having attended the talk that Professor Susan Greenfield gave as part of the 2012 British Science Festival in Aberdeen, entitled The 21st Century Mind. The topic that she was speaking about, the influence that our increasing use of computer technology might be having on the development and physiology of our brains, is one that she has presented in numerous television, radio and newspaper interviews and articles.
Her opinion (and it is just that) is that our use of screen-based media, such as social networking and video games, is having a detrimental effect on our behaviour. This is obviously a controversial area and also one that the popular press (especially the Daily Mail) is fond…
So here I am, brain the size of a planet, stuck in a corridor in Polaris House in Swindon for while the rest of the Astronomy Grants Panel of the Science and Technology Facilities Council considers applications on which I have a conflict of interest. We’ve had two very busy days so far, hence no time to post yesterday, but we’re on track to get through the order of business by the end of today as scheduled. Now I’m at a bit of a loose end I’ve been catching up on emails and other stuff I have had to ignore for the past couple of days.
And now there’s even time for a brief blogette.
It’s a stressful business being on these panels, not just because it’s a lot of work but that everyone involved knows how important the outcome is, for science in general and in terms of the consequences of success or failure in obtaining funding for individual researchers. Under the current system of “Consolidated Grants”, anyone unsuccessful in this round will effectively be locked out of STFC funding for 3 years. That seems very harsh to me. However, we have to work with the system we’ve got and make the best we can of it.
Anyway, bearing in mind that this is a personal blog and not an official mouthpiece for the AGP, if anyone out there has any comments about the system please feel free to vent your spleen via the comments box. As long as you keep it reasonably polite.
Anyways, while I’m thinking STFC stuff let me put my community service hat on and remind astronomers that the Astronomy Advisory Panel (yes, there is one) is consulting, and the deadline for folks to fill in the consultation questionnaire is tomorrow (Wednesday 5th September 2012). Please upload your input forthwith.
As a prompt, you might like to have a look at this figure that shows the breakdown of STFC expenditure generally, and specifically within the astronomy programme.
Do these pie charts provide you with food for thought?
The views presented here are personal and not necessarily those of my employer (or anyone else for that matter).
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 vexatious and/or abusive and/or defamatory 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.
In the Dark 