After a run of disappointing results, Ireland’s footballers last night scored a memorable victory, beating Portugal 2-0 in a World Cup Qualifying match. I attribute the result to the new Head Coach, pictured below…
And here is a photo of Ireland’s two-goal hero, Troy Parrot, in action.
Returning to my office in the Science Building at Maynooth University I saw a new feature, which I initially thought was a mobile coffee shop, but which turned out to be the Quantum & Answers trailer, a mobile engagement unit, developed by IrelandQCI, and designed to bring quantum technologies to life for the general public in Ireland.
In case you weren’t aware, IrelandQCI, the ‘Building a National Quantum Communication Infrastructure for Ireland’ project incorporates integrating innovative and secure quantum devices and systems into conventional communication infrastructures. This will be done by enhancing the ESB Telecoms’ optical fibre network with an additional layer of security, all based on quantum physics, in particular quantum key distribution (QKD).
You can read more about this initiative here.
It’s on Maynooth University campus for the rest of the day so if you’re around please feel free to visit and talk about quantum encryption and the like.
Update: I popped in to get out of the rain…
Exactly one hundred years ago today, on 12th November 1925, five musicians gathered in the Okeh studios in Chicago to create musical history. The band was Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five and they were about to embark on a series of recording sessions that would result in a rich treasury of 20th century music in the form of 33 sides recorded between November 1925 and December 1927.
The band (pictured above) consisted of Louis Armstrong (on cornet on this track, although he switched to trumpet by the time of the later sessions). Kid Ory played trombone Johnny Dodds Clarinet. Lil Hardin (who was married to Louis Armstrong at the time and credited as Lil Armstrong) played piano and Johnny St Cyr played banjo or guitar. For many people, the collective imagination and sheer drive of Armstrong, Dodds and Ory made them just about the perfect front line. The way they take this one out at the end is a great example.
I won’t even try to write a detailed analysis of this historic record. I’ll just make a couple of points about the Hot Fives.
First, this band never played together as such in live concerts; they were strictly a studio band. In fact, they always sounded like a bunch of friends getting together to have fun making music, which is no doubt because that’s what they were. Most of the records they made were done in a single take, too.
Second, the line-up was unusual because it didn’t have a full rhythm section. At least part of the reason for this was that, at the time, drums were very difficult to record. In Louis Armstrong’s recorded reminiscences he talks about the fact that drums would often make the needle jump when cutting a record if they were were positioned close to the recording equipment. On the other hand if they were too far away to avoid that happening then they often couldn’t be heard at all. The low-frequency response of old fashioned recording systems made bass lines largely inaudible too. Anyway, it was decided that the excellent combination of Lil Hardin’s piano and Johnny St Cyr’s banjo would provide a sufficient framwork. So they were, though later on, in May 1927, a brass bass and drums were added to create the Hot Seven who made a further 11 sides, including the all-time classic Potato Head Blues.
Finally I’ll just remark that according to Satchmo’s memoirs, this track Gut Bucket Blues was the first to be recorded. It does sound like it too, as he introduces the members of the band. I wonder if they knew at this first session what a sensation these records were going to create?
P.S. I know it’s a bit scratchy, but it’s 100 years old. It’s amazing to me that you can hear anything at all.
Earlier today, in Dublin Castle, Catherine Connolly was sworn in as the new President of Ireland. Her inauguration was the 14th to the office of Uachtarán na hÉireann and she is the 10th person to have that title. The ceremony was the first of its kind I have seen and I was impressed by its combination of simplicity and dignity. The previous president, Michael D. Higgins, looked rather emotional as he handed over the reins. I wish him all the best in his retirement. I think he’ll be a hard act to follow, and I wish Catherine Connolly all the best in the role for the next 7 years.
Incidentally, the oath of office reads:
I láthair Dia na nUilechumhacht, táimse, [ainm*], á ghealladh agus á dhearbhú go sollúnta is go fírinneach bheith i mo thaca agus i mo dhídin do Bhunreacht Éireann, agus a dlíthe a chaomhnú, mo dhualgais a chomhlíonadh go dílis coinsiasach de réir an Bhunreachta is an dlí, agus mo lándícheall a dhéanamh ar son leasa is fónaimh mhuintir na hÉireann. Dia do mo stiúradh agus do mo chumhdach
*This “ainm” is the Irish word for “name”; the President-Elect inserts their name here. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the student to translate the rest of the oath into English.
A neutral pion can decay into two photons. It is therefore not unreasonable to ask the question whether the reverse process – the creation of a neutral pion by colliding two photons – is physically possible and, if not, why not? It is perhaps less reasonable to ask an AI bot these questions. One of my colleagues did just that and found it said “no”, giving the following three answers to the “why not?” question:
I particularly like the second one.
Would anyone like to offer a correct answer through the comments box?
I couldn’t resist sharing this picture I took after lunch of a Norway Maple in St Joseph’s Square on Maynooth University Campus. I like the gradual transitions of colour from green to yellow and orange and red with height. Most of the other trees have lost most of their leaves already.
So James Watson, a deeply unsavoury individual who co-won a Nobel Prize by stealing Rosalind Franklin’s ground breaking research on DNA, and was an unrepentant racist and misogynist, is dead. Lest it be forgotten, here is a collection of authentic quotes that give an insight into his true character.
Yesterday evening I made my way through a rather rainy Dublin to the National Concert Hall for a very enjoyable concert by the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland conducted this time by André de Ridder. Incidentally, the Orchestra has been searching for a new Principal Conductor for some time and as now made an appointment in the form of Alexander Shelley, but he won’t take up the baton until September 2026 so until then there will continue to be a number of guest conductors and, it has to be said, a rather piecemeal programme.
Last night’s performance followed a very typical programme for a concert of classical music: a short piece as an appetiser (often an overture or similar), an instrumental concerto featuring a guest soloist, then a wine break, followed by a full symphony or some other large work. They don’t all follow that format, but many do. I always like it when at least one of the pieces is something I’ve never heard before. That was the case last night.
We started with the orchestral version of Pavane pour une infante défunte, played very well but, as always seems to be the case, rather too slowly for my tastes. That particular piece was on the menu at NCH in March this year and I made the same complaint then. I like the piece a lot, but I wish orchestras wouldn’t take it at a funeral pace!
Next one up was the world premiere of a brand new composition by Bryce Dessner called Trembling Earth. This is a cello concerto and it was written for Russian cellist Anastasia Kobekina. One never knows what to expect from a world premiere but this turned out to tremendous. It’s not a cello concerto of the traditional style – divided into movements – but is in a series of sections, with the cello introducing each theme which is then taken up by the orchestra followed by another, and so on. The texture varies from tough and sinewy to soft and lyrical and the solo passages require great virtuosity, some thing Anastasia Kobekina definitely has.
The composition was apparently inspired by a set of landscapes by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, so I suppose each section might relate to a particular painting. The sections are very varied, with one based on the theme of Dido’s Lament (When I am laid in Earth...) by Henry Purcell, another with very distinct echoes of Ravel, and another showing more than a nod to Philip Glass in its ostinato sections. At the end of the piece, which is about 25 minutes long, there were immediate cheers and a standing ovation, and the composer came on stage to receive the accolades. “Prediction is very difficult”, said Niels Bohr, “especially about the future”, but I think this work will quickly establish itself in the repertoire. I’d love to hear it again.
The concert would have been worth it just for that one piece, but after the interval we came back for the main course, The Symphony No. 3 in E♭ major (“Eroica”) Ludwig van Beethoven. I’ve blogged about a number of different performances of different Beethoven symphonies over the years, so I’m quite surprised to discover that I’ve never written about this one. It’s hard to know what to say about it really,, except that it’s a magnificent work in its own right as well as being historically important. Before this one, which was published in 1806, symphonies (including not only Beethoven’s First and Second, but those of Mozart, Haydn and others) were much shorter (typically around 20 minutes) and much more constrained in form. This composition – which shares some elements with Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 and was apparently inspired by it – ushered in the era of the epic symphony that culminated with the likes of Mahler and Bruckner. The duration performance we heard last night was about 45 minutes. The first movement, in sonata form, is especially complex.
An interesting point about last night’s performance was the arrangement of the orchestra on stage. From the point of view of the Conductor, the first violins were on the far left (as usual), the cellos and basses were to the front and left, violas to the front and right, and second violins on the far right. I am not sure of the reason for this departure from tradition – second violins are usually adjacent to the firsts, with the cellos and basses on the right – but it was interesting how different it sounded compared to the usual layout.
This superb concert provided a great finish to a very tiring week. Thanks to the NCH for putting on such a wonderful programme. As an added bonus, the rain had stopped by the time it was over so I didn’t get drenched on my way home.
It’s Saturday again, so it’s time for the usual update of the week’s new papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published another five papers, which brings the number in Volume 8 (2025) up to 168, and the total so far published by OJAp up to 403.
The first paper this week is “Maximizing Ariel’s Survey Leverage for Population-Level Studies of Exoplanets” by Nicolas B. Cowan and Ben Coull-Neveu (McGill University, Canada). This article was published in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics on Tuesday 4th November 2025; it discusses various different schemes to select the mission reference sample for a notional three year transit spectroscopy survey with the European Space Agency’s Ariel mission
The overlay is here:
You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here.
The Fediverse announcement is here:
The second paper of the week is “A substellar flyby that shaped the orbits of the giant planets” by Garett Brown (U. Toronto at Scarborough, Canada), Renu Malhotra (U. Arizona, USA) and Hanno Rein (U. Toronto at Scarborough, Canada). This article was published on Wednesday 5th November 2025, also in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics. It argues that an ancient close encounter with a substellar object offers a plausible explanation for the origin of the moderate eccentricities and inclinations of the giant planets.
The overlay is here:
You can find the official version of this one on arXiv here. The federated announcement on Mastodon is here:
Next one up is “The Potential Impact of Primordial Black Holes on Exoplanet Systems” by Garett Brown (U. Toronto at Scarborough), Linda He (Harvard U., USA), and James Unwin (U. Illinois Chicago, USA). This one was also published on Wednesday 5th November 2025, but in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. This one is an exploration of the possibility that primordial black holes (PBHs) in our Galaxy, might impact the orbits of exoplanets. The overlay is here:
You can find the official accepted version on arXiv here. The fediverse announcement is here:
The fourth paper to report is “The Unhurried Universe: A Continued Search for Long Term Variability in ASAS-SN” by Sydney Petz, C. S. Kochanek & K. Z. Stanek (Ohio State U., USA), Benjamin J. Shappee (U. Hawaii, USA), Subo Dong (Peking University, China), J. L. Prieto (Universidad Diego Portales, Chile) and Todd A. Thompson (Ohio State U., USA). This one was also published on Wednesday November 5th 2025, but in the folder Solar and Stellar Astrophysics. It describes the discovery and investigation of slowly-varying sources in the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-AN) leading to the identification of 200 new variable stars. The overlay is here:
You can find the official published version on arXiv here. The Fediverse announcement follows:
The fifth and final paper for this week is “Measuring the splashback feature: Dependence on halo properties and history” by Qiaorong S. Yu (Oxford U., UK) and 9 others based in the UK and USA. This was published on Friday 7th November 2025 in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. It discusses how the properties of “splashback” features in halo profiles relate to the halo’s assembly history (e.g. mass accretion rate and most recent merger time). The overlay is here:
The officially accepted version can be found on arXiv here. The Fediverse announcement is here:
That’s all the papers for this week. I’ll do another report next Saturday.
By way of a quick follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s another Euclid Q1 product. This one is an updated version of the famous “Tuning Fork” representation of galaxy morphology:
You can click on the image to make it (much) bigger.
A galaxy’s structure is a sign of its formation history and the environment in which it resides. Since early on, astronomers have ordered galaxies according to their visible structure – as a basis to understanding the underlying physics: This panorama of galaxies’ structure shows the ‘classical’ morphological sequence from ellipticals (E, left) to lenticulars (S0) through spirals (S) to irregulars and dwarfs (right). The fork divides barred and unbarred spiral families: originally only SA (unbarred) and SB (barred) galaxies were arranged in a ‘tuning fork’ layout, the addition of SAB (weakly barred) galaxies as a third branch is making this term increasingly challenging to use. Lowercase letters a to d indicate progressively later spiral stages (tighter to looser arms), the trailing m (e.g., SAm) denotes Magellanic, very-late-type systems (patchy, often one-armed). The Milky Way is classified as an SBc galaxy.
Below the main sequence there are three auxiliary panels showing objects not represented in the fork: (1) spiral galaxies seen edge-on, with varying bulge-to-disk ratios and warps; (2) interacting and merging galaxies illustrating gravitationally driven morphological change; and (3) the morphological diversity of dwarf galaxies.
You can read more about this image and the other Q1 results here. You can also find an interactive version of the plot here.
In the Dark 