Archive for the Uncategorized Category
On Religion
Posted in Uncategorized with tags cats, Religion, The Oldie on February 3, 2016 by telescoperDefining Sexual Harassment
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Sexual Harassment, University of Sussex on January 25, 2016 by telescoperSince I spent this morning at a training session about preventing bullying and harassment in the workplace, and after the latest high-profile sexual harassment case at Caltech I thought it might be useful to share my current employer’s definition of what may constitute sexual harassment in the workplace. In my earlier post on harassment I talked mainly about the processes that take place when it is alleged, but I didn’t include a clear statement of how sexual harassment is defined.
The following is taken from the University of Sussex’s Policy to Prevent Bullying and Harassment at Work (which is in the public domain):
Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination and involves unwanted and unwelcome attention of a sexual nature. This may be physical or verbal or involve the denigration of an individual on sexual grounds or by sexual means. Some examples of sexual harassment are:
- indecent assault
- deliberate physical contact to which the individual has not consented or had the opportunity to object to
- offensive or derogatory language alluding to a person’s private life or sexual behaviour or orientation by innuendo, jokes or remarks
- provocative suggestions
- pressing an individual to accept unwelcome invitations
- the display of suggestive or pornographic material
- unwelcome repeated telephone calls, letters or emails
These examples should not be seen as exhaustive: any unwelcome behaviour of a sexual nature which creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment for the recipient may be regarded as sexual harassment.
Statement on the Litvinenko Case
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Alexander Litvinenko, ly, Norman Dombey on January 22, 2016 by telescoperYesterday while I was at the Winter Graduation ceremony, one of the esteemed Emeritus Professors in the Department of Physics of Astronomy, Norman Dombey, recorded two TV interviews about the Alexander Litvinenko case. Professor Dombey was an expert witness who contributed evidence to an inquiry that concluded that Mr Litvinenko was deliberately poisoned with radioactive Polonium, and that his murder was probably explicitly authorised by Vladimir Putin.
One of the interviews took place outside the Department:
The other was filmed in my office while I was on graduation duty.
In case any KGB agents are in the habit of reading this blog, I wish to point out that the use of my office by Professor Dombey should not be taken as evidence that I endorse the conclusion that Vladimir Putin ordered the assassination of Mr Litvinenko. Even if that is probably the case.
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Winter Graduation
Posted in Uncategorized on January 21, 2016 by telescoper
A very busy week found me on graduation duty today at the Brighton Dome for the Winter Graduation for the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex. In fact students from all the Science schools at Sussex graduated this morning, so it was quite a long ceremony but it was, as usual, made very enjoyable by the presence of the Chancellor, Sanjeev Bhaskar, who was at one point lifted clean off his feet by a strapping graduand. I’ve seen hugs, handshakes and selfish galore on the stage at The Dome. but I don’t think Ive ever seen the Chancellor get picked up before!
In the photograph above Sanjeev is presenting an honorary degree to a distinguished expert in the field of art conservation, Dr David Bomford. You can just see me on the far left.
Many congratulations to all those who graduated today!
Follow @telescoperHow bad is Stormtrooper aim exactly?
Posted in Uncategorized on January 15, 2016 by telescoperHere’s a tongue-in-cheek analysis of the inaccuracy of stormtroopers’ use of firearms in the Star Wars movies.
This is just one manifestation of a general phenomenon – bad guys are always terrible shots! At least in movies…
A Stormtrooper gun. It’s possible they don’t know what these are for. Photo by Roy Kabanlit.
For some unknown reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about Star Wars recently. Going forward, I’ll assume you’ll be familiar with the events and characters of at least the first six films. If not, what have you been doing? Living in a recent, recent time in a galaxy that’s very close to here? Broadly speaking, this post inevitably contains minor spoilers for Episodes II−VI of the Star Wars films. If you haven’t seen them, inexplicably want to find out about Stormtrooper aim and don’t mind knowing some plot details, then feel free to read on.
There are some characteristics of characters or groups of characters within the Star Wars register that are widely held to be fact. This may be despite them not being explicitly stated within the films. Red lightsabers are for the…
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Should the ‘Roast beef of Old England’ be restored as the English anthem?
Posted in Uncategorized on January 15, 2016 by telescoperHere’s an important (?) poll about what an English National Anthem should be, reblogged from Keith Flett’s blog..
I voted for Other (The Blaydon Races) …
Should the ‘Roast Beef of Old England’ be restored as English anthem
Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins may have a point in bringing a bill to the Commons to replace God Save the Queen at sporting events where the England team plays with a specifically English anthem.
The national anthem, God Save the Queen or King, first became common in the 1790s when ‘Church and King’ mobs backed by sailors were keen to oppose radicals who supported the French Revolution.
The traditional English anthem had been the Roast Beef of Old England, and the playing of the new national anthem did not always go down well. A riot took place in Sheffield in 1812 when naval officers insisted it was played at a theatrical performance.
Mr Perkins, not to be confused with Harry Perkins in Chris Mullins a Very British Coup novel, is a supporter of hard right group Progress in…
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On the Theory of Gravitational Wave Rumour Sources
Posted in Astrohype, The Universe and Stuff, Uncategorized with tags gossip, gravitational waves, Rumours on January 12, 2016 by telescoperThere has been a great deal of excitement almost nowhere in the astrophysics community since it was announced recently that rumours of the detection of gravitational waves had yet again begun to circulate, so I thought I would add here a brief discussion of the theoretical background to these phenomena.
The standard theoretical model of such rumours is that they are produced from time to time during the lifetime of a supermassive science project after periods of relative quiescence. It is thought that they are associated with a perceived lack of publicity which might threaten funding and lead to financial collapse of the project. This stimulates a temporary emission of hype produced by vigorous gossip-mongering which acts to inflate the external profile of the project, resisting external pressures and restoring equilibrium. This general phenomenon is not restricted to gravitational wave detection, but also occurs across many other branches of Big Science, especially cosmology and particle physics.
However, observations of the latest outburst suggest support for a rival theory, in which rumours are produced not by the project itself but by some other body or bodies in orbit around it or even perhaps entirely independent of it. Although there is evidence in favour of this theory, it is relatively new and many questions remain to be answered. In particular it is not known what the effect of rumours produced in this way might be on the long-term evolution of the project or on the source itself.
Lawrence Krauss is 61.
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MPS Staff-Student Christmas Social
Posted in Uncategorized on January 7, 2016 by telescoperHere’s a montage of photographs taken during the Christmas Staff-Student social event we held in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex in December 2015. It was a lot of fun, as the pictures make clear!
All Photo Credits: Summer Dean
Follow @telescoperThe Great Curve II: Citation distributions and reverse engineering the JIF
Posted in Uncategorized on January 5, 2016 by telescoperHere’s a lengthy study of Journal Impact Factors. It’s mainly about cell biology journals but I think this across all scientific disciplines. The JIF is so flawed as to be meaningless but this discussion suggests that the situation is even worse than that, with some advertised JIFs being wrong…
There have been calls for journals to publish the distribution of citations to the papers they publish (123). The idea is to turn the focus away from just one number – the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) – and to look at all the data. Some journals have responded by publishing the data that underlie the JIF (EMBO J, Peer J, Royal Soc, Nature Chem). It would be great if more journals did this. Recently, Stuart Cantrill from Nature Chemistry actually went one step further and compared the distribution of cites at his journal with other chemistry journals. I really liked this post and it made me think that I should just go ahead and harvest the data for cell biology journals and post it.
This post is in two parts. First, I’ll show the data for 22 journals. They’re broadly cell biology, but there’s something…
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In the Dark 