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Coronavirus Contingency

Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , on March 9, 2020 by telescoper

Today we heard that the annual St Patrick’s Day Parades due to take place around Ireland next week on 17th March have been cancelled. Although it seems the Government was reluctant to take this decision, it seems to me an entirely sensible precaution.

I also noticed an article this weekend that academic staff at a St Mary Immaculate College in Limerick have been asked to draw up “…contingency plans for delivering module content in the event of there being on-campus restrictions due to the coronavirus.”

I’d be very surprised if there is an educational institute that has not asked staff to undertake contingency planning of this sort. It would indeed be irresponsible to fail to plan for such an eventuality. The fact that such processes are going on is no reason at all for students or staff to feel anxious.

All Heads of Department here at Maynooth (including myself) have been briefed about the University’s contingency planning and have in turn briefed their staff. In general this planning, which is led by the official advice from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), seems sensible and proportionate. It also seems very similar to what is going on in Limerick.

For the time being here in Maynooth teaching carries on as normal, but if the situation deteriorates and the advice from HSE changes then contingency arrangements will be adopted. That may include restricting student access to campus and delivering some teaching online instead of in person. That won’t be ideal but it could be managed and we’ll do it circumstances require it.

We have a Study Week break for the week including St Patrick’s Day so after this Friday students won’t be on campus in large numbers anyway. That gives us a bit of time to assess developments.

In the meantime I’ll just share the official poster again.

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Maynooth’s Creation

Posted in Maynooth, Music, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on March 8, 2020 by telescoper

As it was foretold, this afternoon to the College Chapel at Maynooth, which looks like this inside:

This was in fact the first time I’ve set foot inside the Chapel. The occasion was the annual Spring Concert by Maynooth University Choral Society, accompanied by the Irish Choral Sinfonia, in a performance of Haydn’s great oratorio The Creation.

It’s worth mentioning that Haydn started preparing to write his Creation in 1796, which is just a year after St Patrick’s College in Maynooth was established (as the National Seminary of Ireland). This work was therefore was a good choice for the year in which the College celebrates the 225th year of its own creation.

Although the College Chapel is quite large it provided a very intimate setting for this great masterpiece (in that the audience was very close to the musicians and singers) and provided a very distinctive acoustic. Curiously, this was the first time I had heard this work performed in English.

The solo vocalists – Claudia Boyle (soprano), Andrew Gavin (tenor) and Simon Morgan (bass) – were all excellent, as were the choir and orchestra. All in all it was a hugely enjoyable experience, even if the wooden seats were a bit unforgiving!

After the performance there was a Buffet Supper in Pugin Hall, which I had assumed would just be sandwiches but which turned out to be a very nice meal with wine at which I got chatting to some very friendly people. Admission to the event was by invitation only, but the guest list was not restricted to folk from Maynooth University.

As the token astrophysicist present a few people asked me what was shown in the picture on the cover of the programme. Not being a proper astronomer I didn’t know but I am reliably informed that it is the Eagle Nebula (M16), though it is reversed left to right which I claim as an excuse for not recognising it…

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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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Building Up Maynooth

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on March 6, 2020 by telescoper

I thought I’d share the above picture as part of an occasional series of updates about the new building going up on the North Campus at Maynooth University.

This artist’s impression of what the new building will look like has appeared on the fence surrounding the construction site; you can see cranes and part of the skeleton of the new structure behind the board.

It looks like the Science Building in which I am currently based will be almost completely hidden from the road: it is the building immediately behind the grey rectangular block to the right of the larger brick-coloured edifice which is the main part of the new structure. The road across the middle of the image that divides the North Campus from the South is called Kilcock Road.

Apparently the new building will be opened early in 2021. I look forward to seeing the new development completed!

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Coronavirus Reactions

Posted in Covid-19, Maynooth with tags , , on March 2, 2020 by telescoper

I was having lunch last week when a colleague from another department here stated that he thought that within two weeks that he thought that within a fortnight Maynooth University would be closed down owing to the threat from Covid-19 (the Coronavirus). I’m not sure whether he meant it seriously. At the time I thought that was extremely improbable but this morning we heard that a school in the Dublin area has been closed for two weeks because one of its students has the virus, and now I’m not so sure…

Incidentally, setting aside possible the rights or wrongs decision to close the Dublin school the attempt by the Health Service Executive to keep its name from the public strikes me as utterly daft. Do they seriously think that none of the hundreds of pupils or parents thereof is going to talk about it? I checked on social media this morning and easily found its name. It won’t give people much confidence in the HSE to see them losing sight of reality.

Another reaction to this worldwide health scare became apparent yesterday as the American Physical Society cancelled at very short notice its meeting in Denver due to take place this week. Thousands of delegates were due to attend, and many of them had already arrived when the cancellation announcement was made.

I’m bound to say that I find all this to be quite an overreaction to the threat from Covid-19, but I am not an epidemiologist and I suppose the medical people must know what they are doing. It seems the primary objective at present is to limit the spread of the disease, which makes sense particularly as there is as yet to vaccine. Whether measures like those mentioned above will actually achieve that I don’t know. One has to balance that consideration against the risk of causing panic by giving the impression that things are out of control.

We’ll just have to wait and see what happens over the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, as part of my public service responsibility here is the official advert from the Irish Government:

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Maynooth University Library Cat Update

Posted in Maynooth with tags on February 28, 2020 by telescoper

This morning I was proceeding in a Northerly direction when I spied the local celebrity feline on post near the library. As I prepared to take a picture he turned to wash his rear parts. If he sits there when it’s raining or snowing it’s because he wants to be fed, so I duly opened a small serving of luxury cat food. Before I could get it into his bowl, however, he legged it over the wall and and hid in the bushes. Turning round, I saw that a person was approaching with a dog on a lead. As soon as they passed, he was back on the wall scoffing the vitacat salmon terrine.

Yesterday the Library hosted a visit from the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, but he likes dogs rather than cats so I won’t dwell on the matter.

 

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The Journal of Military History and Defence Studies

Posted in History, Maynooth, Open Access with tags , , , on February 13, 2020 by telescoper

I’ve been a bit busy with Computational Physics lectures and labs today so I couldn’t make it to the launch event of a new online Open Access Journal by Maynooth Academic Publishing, who also publish the Open Journal of Astrophysics. The new publication is the Journal of Military History and Defence Studies and its website is here.

Here is the description of the journal:

The Journal of Military History and Defence Studies is a bi-annual peer-reviewed open access online journal that publishers original research and contributions in military history and defence studies. In addition to publishing work by established authors and scholars, the journal has the particular aim of making available to a wide audience the best work completed by postgraduate students studying within these fields at Maynooth University, the Irish Military College and other similar institutions. The journal also aims to publish special editions that make available original research presented at conferences, research seminars etc. As the title suggests, the journal focuses on military history and defence studies, taking a broad view of these subject areas to include the history of war and of militaries, and also of the impact of these on wider society, in addition to the study of war, strategy, security and military organisation today and into the future.

You will see from the website that, as well as catering for a different discipline, this one has a look and feel that is quite different from that of the Open Journal of Astrophysics , but the ultimate aim of both journals is the same, to make high quality research available free of charge to the largest possible audience.

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Polling Day Eve

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, Politics, Rugby with tags , , , , on February 7, 2020 by telescoper

It’s Friday 7th February 2020, the day before Ireland goes to the polls in a General Election. I’m actually quite excited.

My polling card arrived a couple of days ago:

You don’t need to take this card with you when you vote, although it does speed things up a bit. The card is useful, however, because it tells you where the polling station is. In this case it’s the same place as in the European and Local Elections last summer.

A few days ago I came home from work and found this. It’s the only such card I’ve had from any individual or party during the three weeks of the campaign.

It’s a pity I wasn’t in when Bernard Durkan called around. I’m not going to vote for him, but I should like to have seen the look on his face when I told him who I’m actually going to vote for!

It remains to be seen whether the switch to a Saturday polling day will change the volume or composition of the turnout. It seems likely to me that the more important factor might be the weather: Storm Ciara is due to arrive on Saturday, bringing high winds and heavy rain. The local forecast in Maynooth for Saturday seems OK in the morning, however, so I’ll get my voting done then, but the storm seems set to hit Dublin just as the Six Nations rugby between Ireland and Wales gets under way, which might make things interesting.

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The Reverend Professor Callan

Posted in Biographical, History, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on February 5, 2020 by telescoper

I’ve had a busy day doing various things that took me to various places on the Maynooth University campus, culminating in my first visit to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics (which is based in Logic House) to give a colloquium. On my travels I passed this sign, which I hadn’t noticed before:

Since I’ve been too busy to write a post today I thought I’d rehash an old one about the person named in the plaque, which is above Callan Hall (on the South Campus)

Father Nicholas Callan (or, more formally, The Reverend Professor Nicholas Joseph Callan) was born in County Louth in 1799 went to the seminary of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, in 1816 to train as a priest. During his time as a seminarian Callan studied ‘Natural Philosophy’ and became interested in experiments involving electricity. In 1823 Callan was ordained as a priest, and went to Rome in 1826 to obtain his doctorate in Divinity. At the time Italy was a centre for research into electricity and here Callan became familiar with the work of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta who had developed the world’s first battery. Callan returned to Maynooth where he was made chair of Natural Philosophy, a post he would hold until his death in 1864.

Callan is most famous for inventing the induction coil (in 1836). By connecting two copper wire coils to a battery and electromagnet and then interrupting the current he was able to generate much larger voltages than could be obtained from batteries alone. His 1837 version that used a clock mechanism to interrupt the current 20 times a second is estimated to have produced 60,000 volts – the largest artificially generated charge at that time. It is said that his induction coil could produce sparks 15″ long, which must have been fun to watch.

Callan’s biggest induction coil, unfinished at the time of his death, can be found in the National Science Museum of Ireland (which is in Maynooth). This was one of the largest in the world at the time. The iron core is 109 cm long. The secondary windings are 53 cm in diameter and consist of about 50 km of iron wire insulated with beeswax. They were made in three separate rings separated by air gaps, so wires carrying large voltage differences would not lie adjacent to each other, reducing the risk of the insulation breaking down. At the left end is a vibrating mercury ‘contact breaker’ in the primary circuit, actuated by the magnetic field in the primary, which interrupted the primary current to generate potentials of over 200,000 volts.

Sadly Callan’s work was forgotten for quite a period after his death – experimental electromagnetism was not a priority for St Patrick’s College at this time – for which reason the invention of the induction coil has often been attributed to Heinrich Ruhmkorff who made his first device (independently) about 15 years after Callan. More recently, however, Callan’s achievements have been more widely recognized and in 2000 the Irish government issued a stamp in his honour.

The Callan Building

Nicholas Callan was laid to rest in the College Cemetery at Maynooth in 1864. The Callan Building (above) on the North Campus of the present-day Maynooth University is named in his honour, as of course is Callan Hall which I mentioned at the start.

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Spring Semester Starts

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , on February 3, 2020 by telescoper

It’s February 3rd 2020, which means that today is two days after Imbolc, a Gaelic festival marking the point halfway between the winter solstice and vernal equinox. The 1st Day of February is also the Feast day of St Brigid of Kildare (c. 451-525), one of Ireland’s patron saints along with Saints Patrick and Colm Cille. One of her miraculous powers was the ability to change water into ale, which perhaps explains her enduring popularity among the Irish.

In Ireland this day is sometimes regarded as the first day of spring, as it is roughly the time when the first spring lambs are born. It corresponds to the Welsh Gŵyl Fair y Canhwyllau and is also known as the `Cross Quarter Day’ or (my favourite) `The Quickening of the Year’.

Today is, appropriately enough in the light of all this, the start of the Spring Semester of teaching at Maynooth University, the third Spring Semester I will have experienced here. The weather has even played along; it has definitely been spring-like. The Campus, whicgh has beenhas been very quiet for the last week or so since the examinations finished, is full of students again.

This Semester, as was the case last year, I am teaching Engineering Mathematics II and Computational Physics I. The former, what you would probably call a `service course’, covers a mixture of things, mainly Linear Algebra but with some other bits thrown in for fun, such as Laplace transforms. Interestingly I find the Mathematical Physics students do not encounter Laplace Transforms in the first year, but perhaps engineers use them more often than physicists do? I think I’ve written only one paper that made use of a Laplace transform. Anyway, I have to start with this topic as the students need some knowledge of it for some other module they’re taking this semester. I reckon six lectures will be enough to give them what they need. That’s two weeks of lectures, there being three lectures a week for this module.

Once again my teaching timetable for this module is quite nice. I have lectures on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then the students have a choice of tutorial (on either Thursday or Friday). That means I can get through a decent amount of material each week before each tutorial. I don’t do the tutorials, by the way: that’s left to one of our PhD students, who gets paid for doing that and correcting the weekly coursework. There are about 50 students on this module, divided into two courses: Electronic Engineering and Robotics and Intelligent Devices. We don’t have Civil or Mechanical or Chemical Engineering, etc at Maynooth, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, my first lecture was this afternoon at 2pm and had a good turnout. It was so sunny outside that we had to close all the blinds. That’s quite an unusual event for a February lecture!

My first Computational Physics lecture is on Thursday, after which it will be back to the Department for some frantic behind-the-scenes activity ahead of the afternoon lab session, which is in a computer room near my office. Students attend one two-hour lab session in addition to the lecture, on either Thursday or Tuesday. The first lecture being on Thursday the first lab session will be Thursday afternoon, with the same material being covered the following Tuesday.

While my teaching duties are the same this year as they were in the corresponding semester last year, there is a significant difference this year in that I am now also Head of Department. Either side of my first lecture I had to attend a meeting of the Faculty Executive for Science & Engineering, a meeting on `Project LEGO’ (which, sadly, did not involve any actual Lego but was instead about the proposed redesign of the University’s website) and a meeting of Academic Council. I have also been trying to sort out tutors and tutorials for the forthcoming Semester: these don’t start until next week so there’s time, but it’s quite a challenge to get everyone sorted out. A few timetable clashes have also come to light. So, in summary, I’m a bit worn out after today and will shortly go home to vegetate.

At least I didn’t have to find time for the regular Monday afternoon Euclid telecon in which I usually participate. There wasn’t one today because the working group of which I am part is actually meeting in person for a few days… in Paris! I couldn’t go because of all the above!

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