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Reminder: What is Quantum Technology? – A Public Lecture by Prof. Sir Peter Knight

Posted in Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on March 10, 2021 by telescoper

I thought I’d post a quick reminder that tomorrow, Thursday March 11th (at 7pm), the Maynooth University Faculty of Science and Engineering will present its first ever Dean’s Lecture.of the Faculty of Science and Engineering. This is a public event, consisting of a talk followed by a Q&A session. I’m told that over 350 people have signed up for this talk but there’s still room for a few more.

The topic of the talk is quantum technology and it is presented by Prof. Sir Peter Knight who is Senior Research Investigator at Imperial College London. He retired in 2010 as Deputy Rector (Research) at Imperial. He was knighted in 2005 for his work in optical physics. Knight was the 2004 President of the Optical Society of America and 2011-2013 President of the Institute of Physics. He is Editor of Contemporary Physics, Chair of the UK National Quantum Technology Programme Strategy Advisory Board, chairs the Quantum Metrology Institute at the National Physical Laboratory, was until 2010 chair of the UK Defence Scientific Advisory Council and remains a UK Government science advisor. His research centres on quantum optics and quantum technology. He has won the Thomas Young Medal and the Glazebrook Medal of the Institute of Physics, the Ives Medal and the Walther Medal and Prize of the OSA, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and the Faraday Prize of the IET.

Here is a description of the talk:

We already live in a quantum-enabled world with devices powered by quantum mechanics affecting our everyday world (lasers, telecoms semiconductor chips, and much more). But we are now poised to exploit a hitherto largely unexplored technology capability enabled by some of the stranger aspects of quantum physics: quantum coherence and entanglement. These new capabilities include novel sensing, timing, imaging, and of course computing. I will describe these new quantum coherence capabilities and plans to develop the next generation of quantum technologies. Quantum Information Science is advancing our understanding of the physical world in remarkable ways. But it is also driving novel and disruptive technologies. I will describe plans for ensuring the advanced quantum science and demonstrator platforms in imaging, sensing, communications, and computing developed over the past five years or so will drive the formation of the quantum technology sector and embed quantum technology in a broad range of industries.

The event is free but you will need to register here.

P.S. I will have a small part in this event – welcoming people to it and generally directing traffic.

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Assembly on the Mountain

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on March 9, 2021 by telescoper

Here’s a video showing the arrival and installation of the Top End Assembly (TEA) of the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the Vera C Rubin Observatory site on top of Cerro Pachón in Chile. The Vera C Rubin Observatory was previously known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope but was subsequently renamed in honour of the late Vera Rubin.

It’s fantastic to see this project progressing to this stage. I have been around long enough to remember when LSST, as it then was, seemed to be in the impossibly distant future (along with e.g. JWST). The fact that it is now really happening makes me feel extremely old! It’s still great to see though.

 

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Hawking and the Mind of God

Posted in Books, Talks and Reviews, Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on March 3, 2021 by telescoper

There’s a new book out about Stephen Hawking which has triggered a certain amount of reaction (see, e.g., here) so I thought I’d mention a book I wrote, largely in response to the pseudo-religious nature of some of Hawking’s later writings.

I have in the past gone on record, both on television and in print, as being not entirely positive about the “cult” that surrounds Stephen Hawking. I think a number of my colleagues have found some of my comments disrespectful and/or churlish. I do nevertheless stand by everything I’ve said. I have enormous respect for Hawking the physicist, as well as deep admiration for his tenacity and fortitude, and have never said otherwise. I don’t, however, agree that Hawking is in the same category of revolutionary thinkers as Newton or Einstein, which is how he is often portrayed.

In fact a poll of 100 theoretical physicists in 1999 came to exactly the same conclusion. The top ten in that list were:

  1. Albert Einstein
  2. Isaac Newton
  3. James Clerk Maxwell
  4. Niels Bohr
  5. Werner Heisenberg
  6. Galileo Galilei
  7. Richard Feynman
  8. Paul Dirac
  9. Erwin Schrödinger
  10. Ernest Rutherford

The idea of a league table like this is of course a bit silly, but it does at least give some insight into the way physicists regard prominent figures in their subject. Hawking came way down the list, in fact, in 300th (equal) place. I don’t think it is disrespectful to Hawking to point this out. I’m not saying he isn’t a brilliant physicist. I’m just saying that there are a great many other brilliant physicists that no one outside physics has ever heard of.

It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if the list had been restricted to living physicists. I’d guess Hawking would be in the top ten, but I’m not at all sure where…

And before I get accused of jealousy about Stephen Hawking’s fame, let me make it absolutely clear that if Hawking was like a top Premiership footballer (which I think is an appropriate analogy), then I am definitely like someone kicking a ball around for a pub team on a Sunday morning (with a hangover). This gulf does not make me envious; it just makes me admire his ability all the more, just as trying to play football makes one realise exactly how good the top players really are.

I am not myself religious but I do think that there are many things that science does not – and probably will never – explain, such as why there is something rather than nothing. I also believe that science and religious belief are not in principle incompatible – although whether there is a conflict in practice does depend of course on the form of religious belief and how it is observed. God and physics are in my view pretty much orthogonal. To put it another way, if I were religious, there’s nothing in theoretical physics that would change make me want to change my mind. However, I’ll leave it to those many physicists who are learned in matters of theology to take up the (metaphorical) cudgels with Professor Hawking.

Anyway, this is the book I wrote:.

And here is the jacket blurb:

Stephen Hawking has achieved a unique position in contemporary culture, combining eminence in the rarefied world of theoretical physics with the popular fame usually reserved for film stars and rock musicians. Yet Hawking’s technical work is so challenging, both in its conceptual scope and in its mathematical detail, that proper understanding of its significance lies beyond the grasp of all but a few specialists. How, then, did Hawking-the-scientist become Hawking-the-icon? Hawking’s theories often take him into the intellectual territory that has traditionally been the province of religion rather than science. He acknowledges this explicitly in the closing sentence of his bestseller, A Brief History of Time , where he says that his ultimate aim is to know the Mind of God . Hawking and the Mind of God examines the pseudo-religious connotations of some of the key themes in Hawking’s work, and how these shed light not only on the Hawking cult itself, but also on the wider issue of how scientists represent themselves in the media.

I’m sure you’ll understand that there isn’t a hint of opportunism in the way I’m drawing this to your attention because my book is long out of print so you can’t buy it unless you get a copy second-hand…

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Postgraduate Programmes in Theoretical Physics at Maynooth University

Posted in Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on March 2, 2021 by telescoper

We have a (virtual) Postgraduate Open Day coming up on Tuesday 9th March at Maynooth University (for which you can register here). To go with that here is a short video of our new Postgraduate Coordinator Dr John Regan answering some frequently asked questions about the programmes we offer in the Department of Theoretical Physics:

If you have any other questions then you can register for the Open Day where we will have staff on hand to answer them in a live Q&A session.

You could also follow the Department’s Twitter feed here:

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Particle Physics Masterclass at Maynooth

Posted in Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on February 26, 2021 by telescoper

I have already informed you of a Masterclass in Astrophysics & Cosmology at Maynooth that will take place on March 25th 2021. For more information on that event including instructions on how to book see here.

Now it’s time to announce the International Masterclass on Particle Physics. The  Department of Theoretical Physics has hosted such event for secondary school students each Spring, apart from last year when it was cancelled because of Covid-19.  The next event will take place online on 21 and 22 March 2021. You can find more information, including instructions on how to book a place, here.

These Masterclasses give secondary school students the opportunity to discover the world of quarks and leptons for themselves, by performing measurements on real data from CERN, meeting active particle physics researchers and linking up with like-minded students from other countries.  We will join thousands of other secondary school students at more than 100 universities and laboratories around Europe and worldwide in a programme stretching over four weeks.

Physics at the most fundamental level – the smallest and most basic building blocks of matter – is an exotic world.  But a few introductory talks and working with data from CERN will give the students insight into the fundamental particles of matter and the forces between them, as well as what went on during the Big Bang.

On Sunday afternoon, the students are introduced to particle physics, experiments and detectors in lectures given by active particle physics researchers.  On Monday, after a virtual visit to the ALICE detector at CERN, they work on their own with data from ALICE Afterwards they participate in a video conference with students from other countries and moderators at CERN, where they discuss and compare their results.

For more information on the Particle Physics Masterclasses, see the International Masterclasses web site.

I don’t know. You wait ages for a Masterclass in Physics at Maynooth University, and then along come two in quick succession!

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Astrophysics & Cosmology Masterclass at Maynooth

Posted in Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on February 23, 2021 by telescoper

Regular readers of the blog – both of them – may remember that we planned to present a Masterclass in Astrophysics & Cosmology on January 14th 2021 but this had to be postponed due to Covid-19 restrictions. After today’s announcements by the Government of  a phased return to school starting on March 1st we have now decided to proceed with a new date of March 25th 2021.

This will be a half-day virtual event via Zoom. It’s meant for school students in their 5th or 6th year of the Irish system, who should be returning to classrooms on March 15th, but there might be a few of them or their teachers who see this blog so I thought I’d share the news here. You can find more information, including instructions on how to book a place, here.

Here is the updated official poster and the programme:

I’ll be talking about cosmology early on, while John Regan will talk about black holes. After the coffee break one of our PhD students will talk about why they wanted to study astrophysics. Then I’ll say something about our degree programmes for those students who might be interested in studying astrophysics and/or cosmology as part of a science course. We’ll finish with questions either about the science or the study!

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What is Quantum Technology? – A Public Lecture by Prof. Sir Peter Knight

Posted in Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on February 23, 2021 by telescoper

On Thursday March 11th (at 7pm) the Maynooth University Faculty of Science and Engineering will present its first ever Dean’s Lecture. This is a public event, consisting of a talk followed by a Q&A session.

The topic of the talk is quantum technology and it is presented by Prof. Sir Peter Knight who is Senior Research Investigator at Imperial College London. He retired in 2010 as Deputy Rector (Research) at Imperial. He was knighted in 2005 for his work in optical physics. Knight was the 2004 President of the Optical Society of America and 2011-2013 President of the Institute of Physics. He is Editor of Contemporary Physics, Chair of the UK National Quantum Technology Programme Strategy Advisory Board, chairs the Quantum Metrology Institute at the National Physical Laboratory, was until 2010 chair of the UK Defence Scientific Advisory Council and remains a UK Government science advisor. His research centres on quantum optics and quantum technology. He has won the Thomas Young Medal and the Glazebrook Medal of the Institute of Physics, the Ives Medal and the Walther Medal and Prize of the OSA, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and the Faraday Prize of the IET.

Here is a description of the talk:

We already live in a quantum-enabled world with devices powered by quantum mechanics affecting our everyday world (lasers, telecoms semiconductor chips, and much more). But we are now poised to exploit a hitherto largely unexplored technology capability enabled by some of the stranger aspects of quantum physics: quantum coherence and entanglement. These new capabilities include novel sensing, timing, imaging, and of course computing. I will describe these new quantum coherence capabilities and plans to develop the next generation of quantum technologies. Quantum Information Science is advancing our understanding of the physical world in remarkable ways. But it is also driving novel and disruptive technologies. I will describe plans for ensuring the advanced quantum science and demonstrator platforms in imaging, sensing, communications, and computing developed over the past five years or so will drive the formation of the quantum technology sector and embed quantum technology in a broad range of industries.

The event is free but you will need to register here.

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R.I.P. Roger Griffin (1935-2021)

Posted in Film, History, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on February 19, 2021 by telescoper

Roger Griffin (picture credit: St John’s College, Cambridge)

Earlier today I heard the sad news of the death at the age of 85 of astronomer Roger Griffin. He passed away on 12th February 2021.

Roger Griffin worked at Cambridge for over six decades, except for one year when he had a post-doctorate position at the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He was the Assistant Director of Research in Astronomy at the University of Cambridge for nine years before he was promoted to a Readership of Observational Astronomy and later a Professorship. He appeared in the film Starmen alongside Donald Lyndon-Bell, Wal Sargent and Neville “Nick” Woolf.

Roger Griffin worked on astronomical spectroscopy and his main scientific claim to fame was that he invented a method of measuring radial velocities of stars in binary systems described in this classic paper published in 1967:

Over the subsequent years he published many radial velocity curves thus obtained in a long series of papers in the Observatory Magazine and the same method was subsequently used for measuring orbits of black holes and detecting extrasolar planets.

Despite the Cambridge connection I never met Roger Griffin personally but people who did talk about him with great affection and he will be greatly missed.

Rest in peace, Roger Griffin (1935-2021)

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Cosmology Talks: Alvaro Pozo on Potential Evidence for Wave Dark Matter

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , , on February 19, 2021 by telescoper

It’s time I shared another one of those interesting cosmology talks on the Youtube channel curated by Shaun Hotchkiss. This channel features technical talks rather than popular expositions so it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but for those seriously interested in cosmology at a research level they should prove interesting. This is quite a recent one, from about a week ago.

In the talk, Alvaro Pozo tells us about a recent paper where he an collaborators detect the transition between a core (flat density profile) and halo (power law density profile) in dwarf galaxies. The full core + halo profile matches very closely what is expected in simulations of wave dark matter (sometimes called “fuzzy” dark matter), by which is meant dark matter consisting of a particle so light that its de Broglie wavelength is long enough to be astrophysically relevant. That is, there is a very flat core, which then drops off suddenly and then flattens off to a decaying power-law profile. The core matches the soliton expected in wave dark matter and the halo matches an outer NFW profile expected outside the soliton. They also detect evidence for tidal stripping of the matter in the galaxies. The galaxies closer to the centre of the Milky Way have their transition point between core and halo happen at smaller densities (despite the core density itself not being systematically smaller). The transition also appears to happen closer to the centre of the galaxy, which matches simulations. Of course the core+halo pattern they have clearly observed might be due to something else, but the match between wave dark matter simulations and observations is impressive. An important  caveat is that the mass for the dark matter that they use is very small and in significant tension with Lyman Alpha constraints for wave-like dark matter. This might indicate that the source of this universal core+halo pattern they’re observing comes from something else, or it might indicate that the wave dark matter is more complicated than represented in the simplest models.

P. S. The papers that accompany this talk can be found here.

P.P.S. If you’re interested in wave dark matter there is a nice recent review article by Lam Hui here.

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New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on February 18, 2021 by telescoper

Time to announce another publication in the Open Journal of Astrophysics. This one was published yesterday, actually, but I didn’t get time to post about it until just now. It is the second paper in Volume 4 (2021).

The latest publication is entitled Characterizing the Sample Selection for Supernova Cosmology and is written by Alex G. Kim on behalf of the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration.  It’s nice to be getting papers from large collaborations like this!

Here is a screen grab of the overlay which includes the abstract:

You can click on the image to make it larger should you wish to do so. You can find the arXiv version of the paper here. This is one for the Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics folder.

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