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Break Points

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , on March 11, 2020 by telescoper

It is now Week 6 of the Spring Semester at Maynooth University.  My lectures on Engineering Mathematics take th place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so today I gave the 18th of the semester, which means I am halfway through the module. Next week is a scheduled Study Week so there are no lectures planned after this Friday until 23rd March. Just two days to go before the breaking

It remains to be seen whether teaching does indeed resume on that day. If the coronavirus situation in Ireland gets much worse we may stay closed for a longer period.

There is a subdued mood around campus, and the number of students in my class this afternoon was significantly lower than usual. I don’t know whether that is because of coronavirus or because some students have headed home early for the break or because they didn’t fancy learning about curves and tangent vectors!

Last night the University issued updated guidance. The main thing is that we stay open but the Conferring Ceremonies for postgraduate degrees scheduled for Thursday and Friday next week have been postponed indefinitely.  The students will formally receive their degrees in absentia although they will (hopefully) be able to attend a ceremony to get their certificates in person at some point in the not-too-distant future.

I blogged on Monday about contingency planning and I’ve been spending quite a lot of time this week making the best arrangements possible for students in case we don’t reopen on 23rd March. That includes getting all the notes and examples sheets ready for Engineering Mathematics, which is now done.

My other module is Computational Physics. For that one there’s a small project that the students do (usually) in pairs. I published the list of projects for the students to pick from earlier than originally planned and will hopefully be able to allocate them before the end of this week. That way, if there’s a campus closure they can at least get on with their projects. Fortunately Python is free so they can run code on their laptops. All the other resources for that module will be available online too so disruption shouldn’t be too bad: even if we have to cancel the laboratory sessions the students can still work through the scripts on their own.

What will happen with examinations is not yet clear, but those don’t take place until May so they’re not the immediate priority!

I asked the students in my Engineering Mathematics at the end of this afternoon’s lecture please to keep an eye on their email and social media for announcements about changes in the situation. The positive message for students is that they are actually at very low risk of serious illness themselves (although they should of course take precautions to ensure they don’t infect others).

I feel a bit guilty for thinking about the positive message for staff, but I do have quite a bit of writing-up to do and a nice long campus closure would seem to provide an ideal opportunity to `self-isolate’ and get on with it. For the time being, though, it’s business as usual…

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An Astronomical Anniversary

Posted in Biographical, History, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on March 10, 2020 by telescoper

I was reminded via Twitter that today is the 200th anniversary of the first formal meeting of the Astronomical Society of London which took place on 10th March 1820. This society turned into the Royal Astronomical Society when it was given a Royal Charter in 1831. Here is the first page of the the Minutes of that first meeting:

Those of you who have been paying attention will recall that the decision to form the Society was taken at a dinner in January 1820 and the bicentenary of this event was celebrated in January by the RAS Dining Club (of which I am a member).

Club Dinners usually take place after the Open Meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society on the second Friday of the month. Sadly, however, there won’t be a Club Dinner this Friday as it has been cancelled owing to the Coronavirus emergency. I’ll have to make do with beans on toast again then.

Incidentally, I thought I’d share this list of the first 200(ish) members of the Royal Astronomical Society (PDF) kindly sent to me by former Cardiff colleague Mike Edmunds. There are some illustrious names among the early members, including Laplace and Bessel, as well as some oddities, such as His Excellency Alexis Greig (Vice Admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy) and Edward Riddle, Esq. (First Mathematical Master, the Royal Naval Asylum).

 

 

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A Plan for Sunday

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, Music with tags , , , , on March 8, 2020 by telescoper

Later this afternoon, I shall be going here….

..to hear this…

I took this picture on the way there, with the Sun behind the bell tower…

..and when I’m home afterwards I will write a bit about it here.

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From the Inventor of the H-index

Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on March 5, 2020 by telescoper

My third-year students are busily engaged with a Computational Physics class test so I thought I’d occupy myself for a few minutes by sharing an interesting little paper that appeared on the arXiv a few weeks ago. The paper is by Jorge Hirsch, the inventor of the (in)famous H-index.

Here is the abstract:

A magnetic field H is expelled from the interior of a metal becoming superconducting. Everybody thinks the phenomenon is perfectly well understood, particularly scientists with the highest H-index think that. I don’t. I will explain why I believe that without Holes, conceptualized by Heisenberg in 1931 fifty years after Hall had first detected them in some metals, neither magnetic field expulsion nor anything else about superconductivity can be understood. I have been a Heretic in the field of superconductivity for over 30 years, and believe that Hans’ little story about the emperor perfectly captures the essence of the situation. Here is (a highly condensed version of) the wHole story.

You will see that, despite the liberal sprinkling of letters H, the paper isn’t ostensibly about the H-index, but it does contain some interesting comments thereon, including:

I proposed the H-index hoping it would be an objective measure of scientific achievement. By and large, I think this is believed to be the case. But I have now come to believe that it can also fail spectacularly and have severe unintended negative consequences. I can understand how the sorcerer’s apprentice must have felt.

I think the opinion of a scientist about the value of the H-index roughly speaking divides according to whether a said scientist has a big one or a small one. Those lucky enough to have a high H-index probably think it is fine, while those who have a low value can probably find a reason why it is flawed. My own H-index (42 according to Google Scholar) is mediocre, which I reckon is a fair reflection of my status.

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Influenza in England – Updated

Posted in Biographical with tags , on March 3, 2020 by telescoper

With all the concern about coronavirus going around this days I was reading an interesting document from Public Health England about seasonal influenza in the UK. This is not the same thing as Covid-19, and it is important not to confuse the two, but there are interesting parallels. I certainly recommend reading the document, which you can find here (PDF, 57 pages).

Here is a particularly interesting (and scary) table about mortality associated with influenza over the last few years:

(The final year 2018/18 is incomplete, hence the lower figures.)

Three things struck me looking at this:

  1. The death rate from seasonal lnfluenza is much higher than I had imagined;
  2. The death rate is highly variable from year to year;
  3. The death rate is dominated by persons over the age of 65.

About a month ago I wrote a post in which I stated that I’d never had a ‘flu jab. After having people describe to me what `normal’ seasonal influenza is like I am bound to say that I don’t think I’ve ever actually had it. I’ve had the odd cold, and things I thought were ‘flu, but nothing with symptoms approaching the severity that people have told me about.

Anyway, back to Covid-19. Mortality so far seems largely to be confined to the elderly, but other than that its parameters are understood far less well and, above all, there is no vaccine (and won’t be for some time). Although people under the age of 65 have a relatively low risk of dying from coronavirus they can still act as vectors that can come into contact with and expose higher risk groups. Covid-19 may not threaten your own life if you’re a healthy 35 year old, but if you get it you could easily become a threat to older folk, or people with pre-existing medical conditions, around you.

In principle, therefore, reducing the rate of transmission through social contact is eminently sensible, although I remain unconvinced about some of the decisions that have been taken recently.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

 

Update: You might find it interesting to read the joint World Health Organization – China report on Coronavirus you can find here.

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Competition set to bristle in Beard of Ireland 2020 poll

Posted in Beards, Biographical on March 3, 2020 by telescoper

The poll for Beard of Ireland 2020 has opened and the winner will be announced on St Patrick’s Day (March 17th).

Owing to an administrative error I am among those nominated and was even in the lead in early voting (I mean after about 5 votes). Now I have fallen back so I fear I may have peaked too soon!

Anyway, please feel free to vote!

 

P.S. That’s not me in the picture.

kmflett's avatarKmflett's Blog

Beard Liberation Front

Press release 2nd March

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

BEARD OF IRELAND 2020 POLL SEES COMPETITION BRISTLING

2019 winner Lee Reynolds

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that competition for the Irish Beard of the Year 2020 is officially open

The 2017 winner was politician Colum Eastwood who bearded broadcaster William Crawley for the annual Award.

In 2018 the DUP’s Lee Reynolds shaved writer Dominic O’Reilly for the honour with Colum Eastwood in a steady third place.

In 2019 Lee Reynolds retained the title

The 2020 winner will be announced to mark St Patrick Day on 17th March

The BLF says that while traditionally a land of predominantly clean-shaven cultures, Ireland has in recent times become something of a centre for stylish and trendy beards.

Contenders for the title in 2020 include a diverse range of the hirsute- footballers, political activists…

View original post 102 more words

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Booming Stats

Posted in Biographical on February 27, 2020 by telescoper

I really don’t understand the internet at all. After months in the doldrums the traffic to this blog suddenly went into overdrive yesterday as a result of a little post about W.K. Clifford. It’s not often that I get more than 2,000 visitors per day but so far today I have already had 2,500, and it’s not even 6pm!

I have never been able to predict which posts will  generate interest and which won’t, so I gave up trying to do that a long time ago. In any case I’ve written pieces that I thought were much more interesting only to watch them sink without trace. This time I can only assume that Clifford’s magnificent beard is responsible for the factor of ten increase in traffic.

On the subject of not really understanding the internet, I saw the other day I saw an incoming link from Phil Moriarty’s blog and followed it back to see what he disagreed with me about.

It turns out he was answering a question I have often been asked but have never really answered (because I really don’t know): why write a blog? If I ever had a reason then eleven years after I started I’ve definitely forgotten. There probably never was `a’ reason…

Part of it is that I actually quite like writing. Another is that writing about something is often quite a good way of working out what you actually think (this is basically the same as one of Phil’s points). Another is that, perhaps, it is quite useful to pass on little snippets of information that might be useful to various people. Another (that applies especially to music, poetry, etc) is that I like the idea that sharing things here might introduce someone – perhaps a total stranger – to something that they go on to enjoy.

So you see there are lots of reasons to write a blog, but none of them has anything to do with traffic statistics. It’s nice when posts prove popular, of course, but it’s not as if my livelihood depends on how many visitors I get (which is the case for people who write for commercial sites). I wouldn’t enjoy this blogging lark half as much if I felt I had to produce content that I thought would be popular!

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LGBTQ+ STEMinar 2020 – The Conference Photograph!

Posted in Biographical, LGBTQ+ with tags , , , on February 17, 2020 by telescoper

Regular readers of this blog – both of them – will be aware that last month I attended the 2020 LGBTQ+ STEMinar at the University of Birmingham. This was fifth of these and the largest one of these do far, with around 250 participants. Anyway, I’ve just received delivery of the conference photo!

You’ll see me on the extreme left about half way up. Of course there are fewer than 250 in the photograph: not everyone wanted to be in it (for a variety of reasons).

Anyway, the next one of these will be in 2021 in Oxford where, I am told, there is also a university.

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Weekend Weather and Travel Updates

Posted in Biographical, Cardiff with tags , , , on February 16, 2020 by telescoper

I got back from London to Dublin last night, rather later than planned courtesy of Storm Dennis. I made my way to Heathrow more in hope than expectation, as there seemed to be a significant probability that my flight would be cancelled (as several were), but in the end it was only delayed by about an hour. It was a bit wobbly coming in to land, but the weather in Dublin wasn’t all that bad last night so there wasn’t the level of drama I expected. I did miss the last Hopper bus, though, and had to take a taxi to Maynooth.

There was another bit of disruption earlier in the day when I discovered that there were no Piccadilly or District line trains between Hyde Park Corner and Acton Town (in either direction), which makes it impossible to get to Heathrow directly by Tube. That gave me an opportunity to explore the London Underground to find a way through. I had plenty of time so I thought it would be fun. In the end I chose the Central Line to Ealing Broadway then a quick couple of stops on the District Line to Acton Town where there were trains to Mornington Crescent Heathrow Airport.

Dublin is to leeward when bad weather comes in from the Atlantic, so doesn’t get the worst of it. This seems to have been the case for Storm Dennis. Wales hasn’t been so lucky and I’ve spent the morning following messages on social media from friends and former colleagues about flooding along the Rover Taff. At one point there were 85 active flood warnings in Wales:

When I bought my house in Pontcanna I signed up for Flood Alerts, and I got one of them too. Here are some pictures of the area taken this morning:

This grim scene is not far from my house, but it’s not as scary as it looks. The River Taff is flanked by steep embankments as it passes into Cardiff and these provide strong flood defences. There is also a tidal barrage across Cardiff Bay which prevents tidewater coming up the River Taff while floodwater is trying to come down it, which is the usual recipe for a flood. The whole system is designed so that before these are breached, water floods out further North over Pontcanna Fields (a wide flat area that is part of the natural flood plain of the Taff that doesn’t have houses on it). A huge amount of water can be `parked’ in this area until the spate subsides. This happened before when I lived in Cardiff in 2009 and it’s nothing to worry too much about. It’s not good for people wanting to play rugby on the playing fields though!

After the terrible floods of 1979 Cardiff built very strong flood defences, but the same is not true for smaller towns up in the Welsh valleys. It seems that Pontypridd has been particularly badly hit this time. There seems to be no political will to spend money protecting such places, which in my view would be far more worthwhile than building HS2.

This all reminds me of the time when I first moved in to my house in Pontcanna over a decade ago. Late one rainy evening the phone rang and it was an automated flood warning. I responded by doing everything the message told me not to do: I put on my coat and went to the river to see what was happening. It’s only a ten minute walk from my house to the embankment. When I got there, I found a crowd of about a dozen people watching. The river was only about a metre below the level of the embankment as it roared its way down to Cardiff Bay carrying along tree trunks, car tyres and various other items of rubbish. It was quite impressive, but I didn’t watch for long as it was very cold and wet.

I’m told that the worst part of the 1979 flood was not the surface water, but the fact that the drainage system couldn’t cope and sewage backed up into the houses and streets. That must have been horrible as well as causing a serious health hazard.

Update: I heard last night that the level of the Taff on Sunday was 80cm higher than it was during the 1979 floods.

Anyway, I was glad I did get back last night as today I am giving a talk at the Joint Congress of University Astronomical Societies. I’d better get on and write it!

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Bethnal Green Memories

Posted in Biographical with tags , on February 15, 2020 by telescoper

In London yesterday for a couple of things, including the RAS Discussion Meeting in the afternoon, but on my way to that I thought I’d wander through the part of London where I lived many years ago, so got off the tube at Bethnal Green and went for a short walk.

Bethnal Green doesn’t seem to have changed very much and the street I used to live in looks very much the same as it did in the 90s. I couldn’t resist taking a quick snap of the front door that leads to my old flat as I walked past. I wonder who lives there now?

So much has happened since then it’s hard to believe I lived here for the best part of 9 years! I feel a complete stranger in London nowadays. The past is a foreign country.

Visiting places you used to live isn’t really a good idea. It’s likely to make you feel a bit strange. There are always ghosts hidden among the memories. Perhaps that’s why I keep having dreams that feature former residences. Only in the dreams those places are never quite the same as they actually were.

I remember having a weekend break in Newcastle with an old friend just after my Father died in 2007. At one point we walked past my old school and went in the grounds to have a look. That experience affected me rather a lot and I still don’t know why. The past is the past and it’s not comfortable when it intrudes on the present.

Yesterday, as I carried on walking towards Whitechapel, I suddenly remembered that when I moved in to that flat my Mam gave my a microwave oven. Thirty years on, I still have it and it still works well. It’s in the house in Cardiff. I suppose I’ll have to throw it away at some point. But not yet.

When I lived in Bethnal Green if I wanted to go into Town I would take the tube from either Bethnal Green on Whitechapel, depending on where exactly I wanted to go. This time I found that Whitechapel tube station was closed for refurbishment, so I had to walk on to Aldgate East.

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