Meanwhile, back in the world of research, I see that Maynooth University has issued a news item about a new paper by colleagues in the Department of Physics, Daxal H. Mehta, John A. Regan and Lewis Prole. The story has also been picked up by the Irish media, e.g. here.
You may find the paper behind a paywall, as it is published in Nature Astronomy, in which case you will just have to make do with the abstract:
And here’s a pretty picture from one of the simulations used in the paper:
In these turbulent times I think it’s a good idea to stay grounded and pay attention to the small things in life that can make a positive difference. On that note I thought I’d share a picture of the new accessible footbridge and lifts at Maynooth railway station:
These works took over a year to complete and were finished before Christmas, but I only just got round to taking a picture. The previous footbridge was rather rickety and had quite steep steps which made it difficult to get across between the platforms. It was also uncovered; the new one provides shelter from the elements. Moreover, without any lifts any person in a wheelchair would have to leave the station, go all the way up to the Mullen Bridge on one side of the track, cross the bridge, go all the way back down and enter the station again on the other side of the tracks.
Usually the trains heading to Dublin leave from the platform on the right (Platform 1) and those from Dublin arrive on the left (Platform 2), but this isn’t always the case. In fact when I’m travelling back on the late train from a concert in Dublin it seems to be random whether it arrives at Platform 1 or 2. It doesn’t make much of a difference for me getting home, though. Platform 2 is marginally closer to my house but the station is only 5 minutes’ walk anyway.
The new bridge took such a long time to construct because foundations needed to be laid for the towers containing the lifts and the station itself widened to accommodate them. Lifts are quite expensive to maintain and one quite often sees on the electronic signs in the station warnings that lifts in various places are out of order. I hope it’s a long time before we see a sign that the lifts at Maynooth aren’t working!
Update: Friday 23rd January, just three days after this post, the lifts at Maynooth station were not working.
The new bridge was built next to the old one, on the side towards the viewer in the photo above, but when the new one was finished the old one was dismantled. I for one am not sorry it has gone. Anyway, the new bridge is a welcome improvement for Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) users. Unfortunately Irish Rail persists in making its only service announcementd via Xitter, for which I can see no justification. Thanks, Irish Rail, for the Accessibility Upgrade at Maynooth, but you need to get off X. Now!
Well, that wasn’t too painful. I’ve completed my marking duties. The fact that it has been pouring with rain most of the day made it easy to concentrate on this task. I was going to have a break for lunch, but I decided to keep on going until I was finished, though I did have to take a break for a telecon this afternoon. I also had to dash out to the shops, primarily to replenish my stock of food for the garden birds but also to get some groceries for myself. Having skipped lunch I bought myself something nice for supper.
Looking at the departmental database I see that I appear to be the first member of staff to have finished and uploaded all their Semester 1 examination marking. Normally I’m just happy if I’m not the last!
It feels good to have finished this task. It’s definitely a weight off my mind. I wouldn’t want to leave any loose ends when Trumpageddon comes.
I can’t say anything about the results of course but the change I made to continuous assessment, from take-home assignments to class tests, does not seem to have had a negative effect on either group of students I have been teaching. The opposite may indeed have been the case, as the class tests perhaps provide better preparation for the final assessment than the previous method. I think some other lecturers might make a similar switch in future. Anyway, I definitely plan to do something similar for my Semester 2 module on Particle Physics.
Now I have a couple of weeks before teaching resumes so I can get on with other things. For the rest of this week my priority is to finish revising a paper that I hoped to do before Christmas. I’ll see how that goes before deciding what to do next.
I’ll also have to prepare teaching for Semester 2. That shouldn’t be too difficult, as I’ve taught both modules before, but I do have to give some thought as to precisely how I’m going to word the instructions on the use of AI for my Computational Physics module. That can wait a little while, though, as it mainly affects the mini-project to be done towards the end of the Semester. In the meantime I’ll be thinking about other things…
I posted a couple of weeks ago about why you and your institution should leave X (the platform formerly known as Twitter). A few days ago the Royal Irish Academy used its BlueSky account to remind users that it issued the following statement last year – even before the launch of Grok’s child pornography engine:
Last year, we made the decision to step away from X.
The Royal Irish Academy is committed to creating, convening, and sharing knowledge for the public good and as an organisation we value Independence; Integrity; Curiosity; Openness and Rigour.
In our view, X no longer aligns with these values
This is a correct decision by the RIA, and although I’m no longer a Fellow of either the Royal Astronomical Society or the Institute of Physics, I am glad they came to the same conclusion. On the other hand, the Royal Society (of which the Royal Irish Academy is the Irish equivalent) continues to endorse X and its machineries of abuse; this is unsurprising because Elon Musk, who owns X and actively promotes the generation of images of child sexual abuse, is a member of that particular club.
All academic institutions should close their accounts on X. There is no acceptable justification to contribute to a network that promotes racism, transphobia, misogyny and the manufacture and distribution of child pornography. I would have thought this was obvious, but it seems not to be. My employer, Maynooth University, has not yet made any statement about the situation with X, and continues to post there.
As I wrote in a recent post
If you don’t leave a social media platform when you find out that it endorses and encourages abusive exploitation of children then you are supporting that behaviour and helping to promote it. There is no grey area here in this. If you don’t draw the line here, where will you draw it? Staying on X is morally indefensible. It is the Epstein Island of social media.
I should also point out that Grok is breaking the law in Ireland (which is where the EU operations of Twitter are based). Even that doesn’t seem to matter to those who continue to use the platform.
On Maynooth University’s Equality and Diversity page you will find this:
The Maynooth University Equality and Diversity Policy has been developed therefore, to realise these core values of equality, inclusiveness, social justice, dignity and respect.
I’d like to know how remaining on X aligns with these core values, and by what process Maynooth University came to a different conclusion on this than the Royal Irish Academy and other organizations mentioned above. One might well be tempted to infer that the above statement, like so many others produced by University Management, is mere bullshit. Perhaps “The Leadership” is waiting to see what other higher education institutions do before making a decision. But that wouldn’t be leadership at all, would it?
By way of a postscript to this let me share this petition which aims to discourage the sharing of content on X and replacement with Mastodon.
https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/take-x-icons-off-websites-and-emails-and-replace-with-mastodon-icons
I make no apology for encouraging the use of Mastodon. BlueSky is better than X but Mastodon is much better than BlueSky in terms of both its functionality and its governance. It doesn’t have as much reach as other platforms, though, which is why I want to promote it. If I had my way, Maynooth would set up its own Mastodon instance, as the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies has done, for example.
I removed the X icons from this blog some time ago. I can’t stop people sharing content from this blog on X, but I certainly don’t want to encourage it.
The last day of a week dominated by examination marking found me briefly back on campus to return the batch of scripts I have finished corrrecting and collect the next set (which, happily, is much smaller):
There are 14 scripts in the pile for my second paper, for my 4th year Mathematical Physics module on Differential Equations and Complex Analysis, around one-third of those for my Engineering Mathematics module Differentiaol Equations and Transform Methods. Based on the total number of examinations I have to mark I am therefore now 50% complete, but based on the number of scripts I’m about 75% through. I should be able to finish the latest batch in a day, but there’s no desperate rush so I’ll do them on Monday. I’m not going to start them now as I am off a concert – my first of 2026 – this evening and I prefer not to work at weekends unless I absolutely have to.
I finished the first set of marking yesterday, and spent most of this morning uploading and checking the scores and the conflation of exam marks with coursework scores. Satisfied that all is OK, I returned the scripts to the office for storage until our Examination Board meeting in about 10 days. I wasn’t on campus long, but there was a fire alarm in the Science Building while I was there. As usual, it turned out to be a false alarm.
Anyway, I should be finished with examination matters by Monday evening, which gives me four days next week to get on with other things. I’m looking forward to the change.
Lecturers at Maynooth University are supposed to be available on the telephone to deal with queries from students concerning their examinations. And so it came to pass that yesterday I was “on call”. Since I live in Maynooth, I decided to come into campus in case of a query so I could go to the examination venue l to deal with it if required. In the event, however, the examination passed off without incident and nobody called.
I wasn’t twiddling my thumbs all morning though. It seemed a good opportunity to go through the accumulated coursework for this module, applying various exemptions for medical or other reasons, so that when I’ve marked the scripts I can immediately combine the results with the CA component.
The examination venue, incidentally, was not on campus but in the Glenroyal Hotel in Maynooth. The Sports Hall on campus is usually one of the places for examinations to be sat, but it is not available this year due to refurbishment. The other day I was in one of the shops in the shopping centre next to the hotel and there were some complaints about the lack of available car parking spaces owing to so many students parking there for their exams. Anyway, the exam scripts found their way to my office this morning and here I am again, back home with a stack of an examination scripts to mark. The picture shows about 40 papers from my module on Differential Equations and Transform Methods. I want to get them out of the way as quickly as possible as I have another paper coming up on Thursday and have a lot of other things to do before term starts at the beginning of February. All the usual displacement activities having been exahusted, I’ve already made a start. With a bit of luck I’ll complete this task by Thursday.
I’ve often discussed the process of marking examinations with my colleagues and they all have different techniques. What I do is mark one question at a time rather than one script at a time. What I mean by that is that I go through every script marking all the attempts at Question 1, then I start again and do Question 2, etc. I find that this is much quicker and more efficient than marking all the questions in each script then moving onto the next script. The reason for this is that I can upload into my mind the model answer for Question 1 so that it stays there while I mark dozens of attempts at it so I don’t have to keep referring to the marking scheme. Other advantages are that it’s easier to be consistent in giving partial credit when you’re doing the same question over and over again, and that also you spot what the common mistakes are more easily.
Anyway, I’ve decided to take a break for today. I’ll start again tomorrow.
The January examination period at Maynooth starts tomorrow (Friday 9th January), so I thought I’d do a quick post on the topic of examinations. First of all let me wish the very best of luck to everyone at Maynooth or elsewhere taking examinations in the next few weeks. I hope at least that the exam halls are nice and warm! Actually, owing to the Sport Hall being unavailable for this examination period owing to building work, some exams will be off campus; my first exam paper is actually being sat in the GlenRoyal hotel.
Here’s a video produced by Maynooth University to remind those taking exams of some general points about preparation and, most importantly, to look after themselves before during the examination period. It’s directed at Maynooth students but students from elsewhere may find useful tips in it.
I completed the last of my revision sessions today but, as the first examination for which I have responsibility is not until Monday 12th, I’ll have to wait to find out how any of my own students have done but let me take this opportunity to pass on a few of my own tips more aimed at students in Physics:
Readers of this blog are welcome to add other tips through the comments box below!
Maynooth University Library Cat has endured the very cold weather we have had recently, but when I met him this lunchtime he was rather hungry. So much so that he scratched my hand in his eagerness to get at the food I put out for him…
P.S. There seems to be a bit of a thaw today.
So here I am, back on campus at Maynooth University, for the first time in 2026. I took a longer route than usual to my office this morning as I thought the South Campus would look pretty with all the frost around, as indeed it was:
The temperature was well below freezing last night. Today was refuse collection day and I happened to see the crew empty my bins first thing. They struggled to do so as the lids were frozen down. I think there might be a bit of a thaw during the day, but the forecast is that the temperature will barely make it above zero and there’ll be more frost tonight. No snow is forecast for Maynooth.
I topped up the bird feeders in my garden before I left for work. On Saturday I bought a new feeder designed for smaller and nimbler birds; since then there have been several blue tits and various finches using it. I’ve got nothing against the larger birds, but they do tend to hog the other feeders. I suppose it won’t be long until crows try to wreck the new one, but for the time being it’s intact.
Anyway, I have to prepare a revision lecture for this afternoon so ahead of that I need to do a bit of revision myself…
Not entirely surprisingly, we have not published any papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics since the last update on 27th December 2025. Of course many authors have been on holiday and there were no arXiv announcements on either Tuesday 30th December or Thursday 1st January anyway. Although we had a few papers accepted before the break, none of them appeared this past week. I dare say some of them will appear next week. We will be starting Volume 9 in 2026, as soon as there is a paper to publish in it.
There being no papers to report, instead of doing one of the regular Saturday updates, I’d like to take the opportunity afforded by this pause to thank everyone who has supported the Open Journal of Astrophysics this year – Editors, Reviewers, Authors and the excellent Library staff at Maynooth University Library – and who have made it such a bumper year. I’d also like to repeat a call for volunteers to join the Editorial Board. In 2023 we published just 50 papers, and in 2025 the figure was 213, so we have more than quadrupled in two years. How many will we publish in 2026?
Here is a graphic showing the number of new papers submitted to the Open Journal of Astrophysics since January 2020:
As the legend explains, this is only the first submission of a paper – resubmissions of revised papers are not included. You can see the thicket is getting denser all the time!
The increasing number of articles is of course very welcome indeed, but it is increasing the load on our Editorial Board many of whom are also very busy with other things. We have expanded the Board recently, but we’re always for volunteers to join the team, in any area of astrophysics. As a reminder, here are the areas we cover, corresponding to the sections of astro-ph on the arXiv:
We are looking for experienced scientists in any of these areas, and it would indeed be useful to have people who can cover a range of subjects (as some of our existing editors do). Since we don’t charge authors or readers we can not offer payment to Editors but it is nevertheless a way of providing a service to the community. If you’re interested, please get in touch either through the Open Journal website here, through a message on Mastodon here or BlueSky here.
In the Dark 