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Term goes on…

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on March 2, 2025 by telescoper

Here we are, about to start the fifth week of the Spring semester at Maynooth University. Teaching isn’t going too badly, but I have come to realize that I have a lot of continuous assessment marking to do – classs tests and mini-projects for Computational Physics and assignments for Particle Physics. The numbers of students involved are 32 in the first case and 23 in the second, but I have to do all the corrections myself. Ho hum. Still, I’m enjoying teaching particle physics again after a gap of 15 years or so so I can’t complain about that.

Last week saw some important achievements by research students. Two students in the Department of Physics – one of them supervised by me – submitted their PhD theses last week. Nominations of examiners have to be approved by Faculty and Academic Council but that should be a formality and we then have the viva voce examinations, so the process is not over yet, but the submission of a thesis is a landmark in itself and is to be celebrated.

Something less worthy of celebration is the ongoing chaos at Maynooth over funding for future research students. You may recall that I posted about the terrible decision by the Management of Maynooth University to scrap the John and Pat Hume Doctoral Scholarships and followed this up with another post suggesting the decision might be reversed and another pointing out that it hadn’t been. The Hume scheme has been paused for a “review”. That review was actually completed in January. It is now March and academic staff have still had no word about the status of the Hume Scholarships. Someone is stalling.

I have received a number of enquiries in recent weeks from prospective students about when applications would open as I’m sure is also the case for several of my colleagues. It has been very depressing to have to reply saying that I have no idea. As far as I know the scheme is suspended indefinitely. It’s now effectively too late for this year anyway, as most prospective students will already have lined up offers elsewhere. Only students not able to secure a place elsewhere will be available to apply if and when the scheme does open.

The timing of this is especially sad for the new Department of Physics. Our final-year Theoretical Physics class sizes are larger than ever but the Maynooth is sending them a very clear signal that it doesn’t want any of them to stay here for their PhDs.

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Beautiful Equations

Posted in Biographical, mathematics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on February 25, 2025 by telescoper

I did a lecture today about the Dirac Equation (which is almost 100 years old, having been first presented in 1928). You might think this is a difficult topic to lecture on, but it’s really a piece of cake:

This reminds me that a a while ago I posted about an interesting article on the BBC website that discussed the way mathematicians’ brains appear to perceive “beauty”. A (slightly) more technical version of the story can be found here. According to functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, it seems that beautiful equations excite the same sort of brain activity as beautiful music or art.

The question of why we think equations are beautiful is one that has come up a number of times on this blog. I suspect the answer is a slightly different one for theoretical physicists compared with pure mathematicians. Anyway, I thought it might be fun to invite people offer suggestions through the comments box as to the most beautiful equation along with a brief description of why.

I should set the ball rolling myself, and I will do so with the Dirac Equation:

dirac_equation

This equation is certainly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever come across in theoretical physics, though I don’t find it easy to articulate precisely why. I think it’s partly because it is such a wonderfully compact fusion of two historic achievements in physics – special relativity and quantum mechanics – but also partly because of the great leaps of the imagination that were needed along the journey to derive it and my consequent admiration for the intellectual struggle involved. I feel it is therefore as much an emotional response to the achievement of another human being – such as one feels when hearing great music or looking at great art – as it is a rational response to the mathematical structure involved. But it’s not just that, of course. The Dirac Equation paved the way to many further developments in particle physics. It seems to encapsulate so much about the behaviour of elementary particles in so few symbols. Some of its beauty derives from its compactness- it uses up less chalk in a mathematical physics lecture.

Anyway, feel free to suggest formulae or equations, preferably with a brief explanation of why you think they’re so beautiful.

P.S. Paul Dirac was my (academic) great-grandfather.

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Das Lied von der Erde

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , , , , , on February 22, 2025 by telescoper

And it came to pass that yesterday evening I travelled into Dublin for another concert at the National Concert Hall. The main item on the menu was Das Lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”), an orchestral work for two voices and orchestra by Gustav Mahler. Sometimes described as a song cycle this piece is a symphony in all but name (and number). Mahler was suspicious about counting this work as his 9th Symphony because of the Curse of the Ninth. He did go on to composer another (numbered) Symphony but did not live to hear it performed. He didn’t live to hear Das Lied von der Erde performed either.

Das Lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”) is a long work – performance time is just over an hour – and it is spread over six movements, thematically linked by translations of classical Chinese poems translated into German by Has Bethge. The final movement, by far the longest, incorporates two texts whereas the others include one each.

This is one of my favourite works but I’ve only ever heard it on the radio or on a recording so I was delighted to see it was coming up at the National Concert Hall. I enjoyed last night’s performance enormously. The National Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Jennifer Cottis with soloists Samuel Sakker (tenor) and Karen Cargill (mezzo-soprano). The start of this piece is difficult for the tenor who has to come in at full volume. At first I thought he was going to struggle, but he hit his straps very quickly and delivered a strong performance. Karen Cargill was superb throughout, her voice very well matched to the demands of the music. I have heard her sing Mahler before, incidentally, in Cardiff, and she was great then too. The whole orchestra played beautifully, but I would pick out the woodwind section for special mention.

That wasn’t the entire concert. There was also the Irish premier of a new work work by Ailís Ní Ríain called The Land Grows Weary of its Own, which is a meditation on the effects on bird populations and migration thereof caused by Earth’s changing climate. It’s an interesting piece, with some fascinatingly complex passages, especially for the percussion. The composer was the audience, but unforunately the auditorium was only about half full for the performance. It only lasts about 20 minutes so the interval came quite quickly. Returning after my glass of wine I could see a much fuller Concert Hall so some people obviously skipped the first piece, which is a shame.

Yesterday was a very rainy and blustery day and on the way home I thought about the number of times I’ve walked from Connolly Station to the NCH yet never been rained on. Last night was no different.

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Two Weeks into Term…

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , on February 17, 2025 by telescoper

I thought that this semester would have had an easier start than the last because I am teaching only one new module (and one familiar one) instead of the two new modules I had last semester. Unfortunately I wasn’t very well before the start of this one and have been struggling to recover so this term hasn’t been easy at all and I’ve had a lot to catch up. At least I’ve managed to stay on top of the lectures and lab sessions and everything so far has gone relatively smoothly. I have to admit though that only two weeks in, I already feel extremely tired. I went to bed at 9pm last night and slept straight through to my alarm at 7am. I’m getting old.

Last week we had our Examination Board meeting for Semester 1 in the Department of Physics. I also attended the Examination Board for the Department of Engineering because I was teaching an Engineering Mathematics module last semester. The students in both Departments should receive their provisional examination results this week, although there have been some gremlins in the campus systems which may lead to a delay in the marks being released.

Semester 2 is a bit more complex than Semester 1 because of a number of interruptions for holidays, etc. The first Monday of this term was actually a holiday, but I don’t actually have lectures on Mondays this term so that didn’t matter, nor will Monday 5th May which is also a holiday. I do, however, have a Particle Physics lecture on Fridays so will miss one on because of the national holiday on April 18th for Good Friday and will have to plan accordingly. The following week (Mon-Fri, starting on 21st April) is the Easter Break, and the week from 17th to 21st March is Study Week (starting with the St Patrick’s Day national holiday on Monday 17th). Although the number of teaching weeks is the same as Semester 1, they are spread out over a longer period with two gaps instead of one. One break is coming up about a month from now, and then another a month after that. This schedule is rather kind to those of us Oldies who tire easily!

Although I’ve kept up with the teaching preparation reasonably well, I have let other things slip. In particular, I have a graduate student getting ready to submit their PhD thesis ahead of an imminent deadline. I promised to read it and supply suggestions/corrections which I have yet to. That’s right at the top of my list for this week.

Talking of PhD students, my first ever official PhD student at Maynooth has already already passed his viva voce examination – about a year ago actually – but owing to bureaucratic delays he won’t graduate until this year, at a conferring ceremony in the March study week mentioned above.

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Maynooth University Library Cat System Update

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags on February 10, 2025 by telescoper

I forgot to mention that last week I had to run the first Computational Physics laboratory session of the year. When I was setting things up before the session I saw that we had a different version of the operating system on our cluster from what we had two years ago when I last taught this module. More importantly, all the student accounts had been provided with this desktop background image…

Picture Credit: Dale Lawlor

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A Campus Incident

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, Mental Health with tags , , on February 5, 2025 by telescoper

I received an alarming “All Staff” email yesterday from Maynooth University that contained the following:

 I am writing to inform you of a serious incident on South Campus last night (Monday, February 3rd). An individual entered the campus and engaged in unprovoked physical altercations against a small group of students and staff. Based on our current understanding, this appears to be an isolated incident. The suspect has been arrested, and the Gardaí are investigating.  

That was all it said about the nature of the incident which took place on Monday evening at about 18.50. The University was closed all day Monday for the Bank Holiday and I knew nothing about it until I received the email. I found the lack of information very concerning. More details were available in the local news (e.g. here), however, including the fact that a person had been arrested and charged and was due to appear in the District Court at Naas this morning. The fact that the matter was in front of the courts was no doubt the reason no further information was disclosed to staff.

After the hearing, the case was covered in the usual court reporting (e.g. here) which reveals that the victim of the serious assault was a priest who needed treatment in hospital; three students were also attacked and some property damaged. The accused was charged with four counts of assault causing harm, two counts of criminal damage and one count of burglary; he has a history of psychiatric problems and was remanded without bail for evaluation in the medical wing of Cloverhill prison. It seems the individual concerned may have experienced some kind of psychotic episode.

All we can hope is that the victims recover speedily from their injuries and the shock caused by such an episode. I hope they all receive counselling. This looks like very much like a failure of Ireland’s mental health system to take proper care of the person responsible. In the long term I hope that he gets proper treatment. That way at least some good might come out of this awful incident.

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Back to Teaching

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on February 4, 2025 by telescoper

After yesterday’s holiday it was back to teaching full-time this morning with the first lecture of my module on Particle Physics. I just about managed to get everything ready in time for the teaching session at 1pm which, because it was an introductory lecture with lots of pictures, I decided to do via powerpoint rather than my usual chalk-and-talk. That didn’t get off to a very good start because the podium PC in my room had decided to do a Windows update just before I started and I had to wait for that to finish before I could show my slides. I suppose that happened because this was the first day of teaching after a lengthy break so nobody had used the room recently.

Most of the lecture was devoted to introducing natural units, which I intend to use throughout the module, like I have on previous occasions I have taught this sort of material for reasons I explained here. The last time I taught particle physics was some 15 years ago, so I had to update some things, especially the picture of the components of the standard model to include the Higgs. After extensive research (by which I mean looking at wikipedia) I found the above; the Higgs is on the right. Unfortunately the particle masses – which reveal themselves if you click on the image above – are not given in natural units, but have pesky factors of c-squared in them. You can’t have everything.

The bit I’m looking forward to most is doing the Dirac Equation which, years ago when I was at Sussex, was once the subject of a cake:

That particular cake was a lemon drizzle cake which unfortunately is not one of the flavours represented in the standard model.

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Who will stand up for LGBTQ+ Diversity?

Posted in Biographical, Euclid, LGBTQ+, Politics with tags , , , on February 3, 2025 by telescoper
Progress Pride flag

The only thing that has surprised me about Donald Trump’s assault on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is the speed with which he has imposed his bigotry on individuals and federal institutions. The first step came within hours of the Felon-in-Chief assuming office with an Executive Order intended to dismantle crucial protections for transgender people and deny the validity of gender identity itself. The new order withdraws a range of executive orders issued by Joe Biden, including those allowing transgender people to serve in the military, advancing the health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth, and interpreting federal sex discrimination protections in domains like education, housing, and immigration to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. And this is just the start, and I don’t think it will be confined to the USA for very long.

The attack on LGBTQ+ rights is part of a wider assault on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies intended to create a level playing field for women and minorities. The intention is to turn the Federal government into a system of oppression operated by people of Trump’s hate-filled mindset that diversity is a threat to white male privilege and must be crushed. He and his crony Elon Musk got where they are not by merit but through inherited wealth. It’s no surprise that they wish to deny others the chance to succeed.

I have addressed the question “why should we care about diversity?” many times on this blog in many contexts, though usually in science and usually in reference to LGBTQ+ rights. The obvious answer _ think – is based on notions of fairness: we should do everything we can to ensure that people have equal opportunity to advance their career in whatever direction appeals to them. But I’m painfully aware that there are some people for whom arguments based on fairness simply don’t wash. Trumpists, for example. For them there’s another argument that should work better. As scientists whose goal is – or should be – the advancement of knowledge, the message is that we should strive as hard as possible to recruit the brightest and most creative brains into our subject. That means ensuring that the pool from which we recruit is as large and as diverse as possible. In large and complex research collaborations, such as the Euclid Consortium (of which I am a member), the range of ideas and perspectives is a real asset when it comes to solving problems. The problem is that this argument doesn’t work either as they are driven purely by mean-spirited ideology and the desire to fill the institutions of state with those of a similar ilk.

The effects of the latest reactionary steps are already starting to show in the area of astronomy. The Diversity and LGBT+ channels on the Vera Rubin-LSST Slack (which is a Federal project, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy) have already been deleted. A similar fate has befallen the Space Telescope Science Institute (funded by NASA). It seems to me unlikely that NASA itself will survive long as Musk will have his eyes on dismantling it and using its resources for his own vanity projects.

Over the past year I have given a few talks about my own career in research as an LGBTQ+ person; see for example here. In giving these talks I tried to strike a relatively positive tone, showing how LGBTQ+ rights have improved over the 40 years or so I’ve been involved in cosmological research since I started my graduate studies in 1985. I have, however, ended with a warning that the forces of reaction were gathering, and all the progress we have made could easily be put into reverse. That is exactly what is happening now in the USA.

The question in my mind is who will stand up for diversity? I can quote examples from my own life that prove that some individual institutions have never really taken LGBTQ+ bullying and discrimination seriously. Others may be genuinely supportive, but perhaps that is wishful thinking. It is notable how enthusiastically some US organizations have preemptivly cooperated with Trump’s edicts, even when paused through legal challenge. I grew up in the 1980s when the climate was filled with homophobic hate. It is naive to imagination that all that hate simply disappeared. We will find out very soon whether our self-styled “allies” have only ever been fair weather friends who will happily abandon us when we become politically inconvenient.

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The Quickening of the Year Again

Posted in Biographical, History, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , , on February 3, 2025 by telescoper

Today would be the first day of teaching in Semester 2 at Maynooth University, were it not for the fact that it is a Bank Holiday in Ireland. The holiday marks Imbolc, an old Celtic festival occurring halfway between the winter solstice and vernal equinox in the Northern hemisphere. In the modern calendar the date is 1st February. In Ireland Imbolc is often referred to as a Lá Fhéile Bríde,  St Brigid’s Day, after St Brigid of Kildare, whose feast day is 1st February. In the old pagan calendar, this day is regarded as the first day of spring, as it is roughly the time when the first spring lambs are born, daffodils, etc, start to appear, and the days get noticeably longer. It corresponds to the Welsh Gŵyl Fair y Canhwyllau and is also sometimes called, rather beautifully, The Quickening of the Year. It’s a time for rebirth and renewal after the darkness of winter.

I noticed some scepticism on social media about 1st February being the first day of spring, but it makes sense to me. I feel the same way about May being the start of summer too. From living 7 years in Ireland, I’ve always found May/June the most summery months – as far as that means anything in Ireland!

In the Northern hemisphere, in astronomical terms, the solar year is defined by the two solstices (summer, around June 21st, and winter, around December 21st) and the equinoxes (spring, around March 21st, and Autumn, around September 21st). These four events divide the year into four roughly equal parts of about 13 weeks each. If you divide each of these intervals in two you divide the year into eight pieces of six and a bit weeks each. The dates midway between the astronomical events mentioned above are the cross-quarter days, of which Imbolc is one. Here they are represented on a diagram:

The timings are rough because the dates of the equinoxes and solstices vary from year to year. Imbolc is often taken to be the 2nd of February (Groundhog Day) and Samhain is sometimes taken to be October 31st, Halloween but hopefully you get the point that although the Pagan festivals have been appropriated by the Christian church, they have much older origins.

Until 2023 only three of the four cross-quarter days were associated with public holidays in Ireland; there wasn’t a holiday for Imbolc. In 2022 however, the Government decided to create a new Bank Holiday that corrected this anomaly by introducing a new St Brigid’s Day holiday on the first Monday on or after 1st February (or on Friday if 1st February falls on that day), which also happens to be the first national holiday in Ireland to be named after a woman. The first such holiday was Monday, 6th February 2023 and the second was on Monday 5th February 2024. This is the third.

But I digress.

I am glad to have today’s holiday just before teaching starts. Having completed my examination marking duties promptly I was planning to use last week to get my teaching materials ready. Unfortunately I wasn’t at all well for most of the week – though I recovered by Friday – and am way behind schedule. Fortunately, I’ve taught one of the modules (Computational Physics) many times before so not much preparation is required although it is a bigger class than I’ve had on previous occasions which means extra work in due course grading the CA components. The other module, Particle Physics is new for me at Maynooth, though I have taught it elsewhere. This also has a bigger class than I was expecting for a final-year module and my first lecture on it is tomorrow. I’m going to have to spend most of today quickening the writing of the lecture notes and preparing assignments.

P.S. Not particularly relevantly, Particle Physics is an anagram of Happier Cyclists.

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Storm Éowyn Passes

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , on January 24, 2025 by telescoper

So it’s just after 11am on Friday 24th January 2025 and the Red Alert in my area related to Storm Éowyn has just been downgraded to Orange. It was very windy overnight and this morning, though there was no discernible damage to my house and no interruption to the electricity supply. That has not been the case for many others, though. There are a staggering 715,000 power outages across Ireland this morning. That’s so many that it will probably take many days to fix them all.

Here’s a map showing some of the power outages in my general vicinity:

I’m told that power is off in a few places in Maynooth and various traffic lights are not working; fallen trees are also blocking some roads. It’s still very windy – though the force seems to be abating quite quickly – so I think I’ll leave it a while before going out to see if there is any obvious damage in an around town. Shops and businesses would have been closed during the Red Alert, most planning to open around noon. Obviously that will depend on whether or not they have electricity.

Anyway the storm is now heading North East and its presence will soon be felt in Scotland

Update: 12.08, the weather warning was downgraded to yellow at noon. It’s still very windy though.

Update: 14.11, went for a walk into Maynooth. Traffic lights on Straffan Road out from the Glenroyal up to Main Street. All shops on Main Street closed and apparently without electricity. Traffic lights at the Roost are working as are those on Mill Street. Dunnes stores in Manor Mills is open but the rest of the shops are closed. South Campus was closed but I walked around North Campus; there are lots of branches of various sizes that have sheared off, but no serious damage that I saw. No sign of buses or trains having resumed.

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