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Quasimodo Sunday

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , on April 27, 2025 by telescoper

One of the useless facts stored in the increasingly inaccessible recesses of my memory is that the first Sunday after Easter is sometimes called Quasimodo Sunday, not for Hunchback of Notre Dame, but from the start of the traditional introit to the roman liturgy for this day: Quasi modo géniti infántes… (“in the manner of newborn babes”).

This year in Maynooth University Quasimodo Sunday is the last day before the students return after a short Easter break for the remaining two weeks of teaching of the Spring Semester. It’s just less than two weeks of teaching, actually, because Monday 5th May is a public holiday. This will be a very busy period as we have not only to finish teaching our modules, but also to complete grading any remaining assessments ahead of the examinations that start on 16th May. I have just four lectures and two tutorials remaining in Particle Physics but I have one assignment still to correct (which I intend to do this afternoon) and there will be one more due in at the end of term (Friday 9th May). In Computational Physics the only item on the agenda for students is the project work also due in on 9th May, at which point I will have reports from 32 students to grade. Then there’s the examinations…

I also have another important job to do over the next couple of weeks, which I can’t write about here. I had hoped to start on it a few weeks ago but that plan was stymied by a bureaucratic delay, so I actually only got started last Friday. It looks like I’ll have to do it alongside everything else during the next two weeks. I won’t post about it until it’s finished, but I’m optimistic that it will turn out well.

Oh, and I’m giving a Colloquium in the Department of Physics on 9th May too. It’s all go.

The weather was mostly rather grim over the Easter break but has improved today and the forecast for the next few days is good. I propose to mow the lawn before starting on my grading tasks. I have let the grass grow for a while, resulting in a splendid crop of dandelions which, among other things, are good for the bees. Dandelions are generally thought of as weeds but the I find the splashes of yellow colour all around very easy on the eye and do not share the desire that some people have to destroy them on sight. In fact there seem to be more around than I’ve noticed in previous years. I’ll let the ones at the back of my house carry on for a while, but I’m sure others will soon grow in the front after I mow the lawn.

Update: mowing was hard work because the grass was still rather wet.  I gave it a rough cut and will go over it again in a couple of days when what’s left will hopefully be dry.

As well as dandelions, there are quite a few cowslips here and there:

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An Event at the Museum

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on April 25, 2025 by telescoper

I forgot to mention in my post about Brian Schmidt’s lecture that the following day (on Tuesday 15th April) there was an event in the National Museum at Maynooth in which he met some of our graduate students and talked to them about their work.

I wasn’t able to attend owing to teaching commitments but I gather it was a very enjoyable occasion. There is a news item with some nice pictures here.

It’s worth mentioning that the National Museum – part of St Patrick’s Pontifical University which shares the Maynooth campus with Maynooth University – has a very interesting Science collection, including a large group of scientific instruments mostly associated with Nicholas Callan. The museum now has the largest collection of scientific instruments on public display in Ireland, most of which were manufactured in Ireland between 1880 and 1920. It also contains a collection of ecclesiastical artifacts from the past three centuries. It’s quite strange to see the juxtaposition of microscopes, electrical devices and surveying instruments with rosaries and religious vestments! You can find the opening hours of the museum here.

More importantly, outside the Museum, staff took the opportunity of his visit to teach Brian the rudiments of hurling, a sport which transcends both science and religion:

I’m told they didn’t put any windows out.

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Good Friday Morning

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on April 18, 2025 by telescoper

Good Friday has a slightly strange status in Ireland. It is a Bank Holiday, meaning that the banks are shut, but it’s not a statutory public holiday so many people still go to work. This differs from the UK and Northern Ireland for which it is a public holiday, which seems strange when you think about the Republic’s Catholic traditions.

Schools in Ireland are closed today, but that’s because they are on an Easter break anyway. In contrast, Easter Monday (21st April) is both a Bank Holiday and public holiday. Maynooth University is closed today, so I miss a Particle Physics lecture, and next week is the Easter break (including Easter Monday). We return on Monday 28th April for the remaining two weeks of teaching, apart from Monday 5th May which is a Bank Holiday and a public holiday. The last day of teaching is Friday 9th May, which also happens to be the day on which I’m giving a colloquium at Maynooth, and examinations start a week later, on 16th May.

The weather so far is consistent with today being a Bank Holiday:

Bank Holiday weather

I think I’ll wait for a gap in the rain before going out.

Oh.

It looks be spending most of the day indoors! It seems a good day to make a start on my reading list.

It’s been a very busy week, not only because of the very enjoyable visit by Brian Schmidt, but also because I wanted to clear my coursework grading before the Easter break. I managed to do the last of that yesterday, so I don’t have to do any of that either this weekend or during the Easter break. There are some more assignments due, but I will deal with them when we return after Easter.

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That was the Dean’s Lecture that was..

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on April 15, 2025 by telescoper
Left to Right: John Regan, Neil Trappe, Brian Schmidt and myself

As it was foretold, last night we had a very special event in Maynooth in the form of a public lecture with the title The Universe from Beginning to End by Nobel Laureate Prof. Brian Schmidt. Brian actually arrived on Sunday and is still here today; he will be returning to Australia from Dublin this evening. It was really great of him to take the time to visit us here in Maynooth not just for the lecture but to chat informally with staff and students. He also did some interviews with the media, e.g. here and here.

The talk, which was for a lay audience, was extremely well attended. In fact we had to move it to a larger venue than we originally intended. I don’t know the official attendance figures but I would guess somewhere between 400 and 500 people came. The talk was excellent, and there were lots of very good questions from the audience afterwards which Brian dealt with very engagingly. The talk was recorded and if it becomes available publicly I will provide a link.

At the end I even found myself on the list to have dinner with Brian in a local restaurant. All in all, it was an excellent day.

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Bullying at Cambridge University

Posted in Harassment Bullying etc, Maynooth with tags , , , on April 13, 2025 by telescoper

There’s a long article in today’s Observer about bullying at Cambridge University, which I encourage you to read, as it shows that the scale of the bullying problem in Cambridge is very worrying. I’ll just emphasize a couple of things here.

One is that Cambridge University is due to elect a new Chancellor this year and, as is mentioned in the Observer, Professor Wyn Evans of the Institute of Astronomy is planning to stand as a candidate on an anti-bullying platform. This position is largely ceremonial, and is usually occupied by a politician or external establishment figure of some sort, like the incumbent, (Lord) David Sainsbury. In my view Wyn Evans is to be applauded for putting himself forward to draw attention to Cambridge’s internal problems, and I wish him success.

UPDATE: See the comment below by Wyn for instructions on how to support his nomination; he needs 50 nominations to go forward.

(In case you weren’t aware, Wyn Evans has commented on this blog on a number of occasions, often on astrophysics, but on other matters too; he also contributed this guest post on bullying in academia another about the 21Group here.)

UPDATE: See the comment below by Wyn for instructions on how to support his nomination; he needs 50 nominations to go forward.

The other thing I wanted to draw attention to stems from this excerpt:

Cambridge undertook its staff culture survey in January 2024 and is now facing accusations from academics that it tried to cover up the “grim” results, which have been released through freedom of information (FoI) requests.

Cambridge University is not the only higher education institute to carry out a staff survey, try to bury the results when they were unfavourable to The Management, only to be forced to reveal them by a Freedom of Information request. Exactly the same thing happened here in Maynooth.

Maynooth University’s “Staff Climate and Culture Survey” carried out in 2022 with the promise made to participants that results would be published in early 2023. No such results were ever communicated to staff and all mention of this survey was wiped off the University’s web pages. It was only after a Freedom of Information request was submitted by the Union IFUT that the results were released and even then they were not – and never have been – distributed to all staff. If you had seen the results, as I have, you will see immediately why the University tried to suppress them. The key measures show the management of Maynooth University in a very dim light indeed – far worse than the sector average.

As well as the specific measures against bullying and harassment suggested in the Observer article, universities need to take steps to improve their general transparency and accountability. Only then would they have an incentive to remove known bullies and harassers from office instead of what that they do now – which is to promote them.

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Caisearbhán

Posted in Irish Language, Maynooth on April 11, 2025 by telescoper
The Irish word for dandelion is caisearbhán

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Time Passes

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

I’ve been feeling very tired this week, probably as an after-effect my flying visit to Cardiff at the weekend. I need to learn to adjust the way I plan such trips in view of the fact that I’m getting on a bit. I tried to pack in a lot of visiting and walking about on Saturday which younger me would have managed fine, but I should have taken it easier. I was worn out when I returned to work on Monday and it has taken me several days to get back to normal. I definitely don’t have the energy I used to have. It’s not so much that I mind getting older, it’s just that I have to learn to accept that I need to be a bit less ambitious when I make plans, especially when that involves travelling. I don’t really understand what makes travelling so tiring, as it mostly involves sitting down, but I’ve always found it so, and it’s getting more and more noticeable as time passes.

Term time is passing too. This morning I gave my last 9am Computational Physics lecture of the Semester. This is only Week 9 of 12 teaching weeks, but lectures finish early for this module because for the last few weeks of term the students are working, in teams, on their projects which form an important part of the module. A week today we take a break for Easter (Good Friday being 18th April this year). There will then be a very welcome week off before we return for the last leg of term and, of course, the examinations followed by the marking thereof.

After this morning’s lecture, on the way back to the Department, I was talking to some students about the forthcoming May examinations. I was a bit taken aback to realize that I did my finals precisely 40 years ago. I went on from my undergraduate degree at Cambridge to a PhD DPhil at Sussex. It took me three years to complete that and become a postdoc. Now there’s only a three-year period between now and my retirement.

This week I had my Developmental Review, the first one I’ve ever had at Maynooth. In other places this is called an Annual Appraisal or some such name. I conducted quite a lot of these when I was at Sussex, and was on the receiving end at Cardiff a few times too, but the Developmental Review scheme has only just been implemented in Maynooth University and in any case I am now just an appraisee (reviewee), not an appraiser (reviewer). The idea of these reviews is that the reviewee agrees some goals in a meeting with the reviewer and in two years’ time we meet again and see how well I have managed. In my experience can be a useful process for people who want to advance their careers by getting promoted. In my case those I have neither the desire nor the possibly to get promoted so it’s all a bit futile. I’ll be retiring in the not-too-distant future anyway. There are one or two things I want to finish before I retire so I wrote them on the form. All staff have to go through the process, so that box is now ticked and I can now move on until my next review (which will definitely be the last!)

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Maynooth University Library Cat Update

Posted in Maynooth with tags , on April 2, 2025 by telescoper
Cat and shadow…

I’ve never thought before that a cat could be used as a sundial…

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The Universe from Beginning to End

Posted in Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on April 2, 2025 by telescoper

It’s not every day that you get the chance to attend a lecture by a Nobel Laureate, but 14th April 2025 will be such a day in Maynooth because the annual Dean’s Lecture for the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Maynooth University will be given by Professor Brian Schmidt who was one of the three winners of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics.

The description of his lecture is as follows:

Astronomers have pieced together the story of our Universe that begins more than 13 Billion years ago in a Big Bang. In the 2025 Dean’s Lecture, Nobel Prize Winner Prof Brian Schmidt will describe the journey that science has thus far taken to understand our Universe, describing what we know about the Cosmos and how we know it, as well as reflecting on some of the mysteries that remain. A chance to learn a bit about everything from Dark Energy to Black Holes, and an opportunity for the audience to ask questions at the end of the lecture.

The lecture is intended to be accessible to a wide audience and will be in person. It is free to attend but you need to register because space in the lecture venue is limited. To register and also find out more about the event please visit Eventbrite below:

Register on Eventbrite

I am delighted that Brian is taking time out of his busy schedule to visit us in Maynooth and am looking forward not only to his lecture but also for the chance for him to meet and talk to our students.

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Last Chance to apply for the Professorial Position in Observational Astrophysics or Cosmology at Maynooth University!

Posted in Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on March 31, 2025 by telescoper

A couple of months ago I announced here a vacancy for a Professor of Observational Astrophysics or Cosmology at Maynooth. The position is on the AAS Jobs Register here. The deadline is 31st March 2025 which is today so if you were thinking of applying then this is your last chance! Applications close at 23.30 Irish Time; the clocks went forward yesterday so it’s actually 00.30 tomorrow CEST so you still have time. The application portal is here.

The strategic case for this Chair revolves around broader developments in the area of astrophysics and cosmology at Maynooth. Currently there are two groups active in research in these areas, one in the former Department of Experimental Physics (which is largely focussed on astronomical instrumentation) and the other, in the former Department of Theoretical Physics, which is theoretical and computational. We want to promote closer collaboration between these research strands. The idea with the new position is that the holder will nucleate and lead a research programme in the area between these existing groups as well as getting involved in outreach and public engagement.

It is intended that the position to appeal not only to people undertaking observational programmes using ground-based facilities (e.g. those provided by ESO, which Ireland recently joined), or those exploiting data from space-based experiments, such as Euclid, as well as people working on multi-messenger astrophysics, gravitational waves, and so on.

P. S. For those of you reading this from outside Ireland the job is tenured and includes a defined benefit pension way better than the equivalent UK system.

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