University Troubles

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth on June 9, 2021 by telescoper

I noticed an article today in the Grauniad about a wave of redundancies about to hit English universities. Among those affected are the University of East London; Goldsmiths; and the University of London and the universities of Liverpool, Leeds, Leicester, Southampton Solent, Brighton. Dundee is also threatening redundancies (Higher Education is a devolved matter in the United Kingdom). There are probably many other institutions planning similar moves.

The University of Sussex, for example, has embarked on an ominous-sounding “Size and Shape” exercise that will probably lead to course and Departmental closures. “Restructuring” is the word being used. The Vice-chancellor of Sussex has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies, triggering a dispute with the Universities and Colleges Union UCU.

As regular readers will know I worked at the University of Sussex until the Summer of 2016 – was it really 5 years ago? – and when I left I was very optimistic about the future for the School of Mathematical & Physical Sciences of which I was Head. I haven’t really kept up with the details of what has been going on there but I’m not sure my optimism was well placed.

In late 2017 after I had started work here in Maynooth I wrote about my reasons for moving to Ireland. One of them was this:

My short exposure to a role in senior management, as Head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex, convinced me that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a system that I felt had lost all sight of what universities are and what they are for.

I haven’t changed my mind.

Anyway the timing of this attack on university staff – during a global pandemic – is rightly described in the Guardian piece as “despicable”. University staff have worked themselves into the ground by putting in countless hours of unpaid overtime to keep teaching going during the time of Coronavirus restrictions and now many of them are to be rewarded with a hefty kick in the teeth.

It’s notable too that these decisions are going to be made before the outcome of the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) are announced. This makes me doubt that the motivation for these changes has anything to do with academic considerations. It seems much more likely to me that certain university leaders see the pandemic as an excuse to force through change while staff too exhausted to resist, using the opportunity to get rid of expensive courses and/or troublesome departments.

We don’t now whether there will be widespread restructuring of the University system in Ireland but I wouldn’t bet against it. Generations of Irish governments have copied the idiotic English approach to Higher Education. The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins can see what’s coming. In a recent speech he highlighted the threats to academic freedom and breadth of teaching.

Leave a comment »

Full of Pfizz

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19 on June 8, 2021 by telescoper

Well, this morning I took my second trip to City West Convention Centre for my second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It all went off smoothly, except the queues were very much longer than last time so it took me about 90 minutes from start to finish. Most of the extra time was spent queuing outside which wasn’t too bad because it wasn’t raining. Chatting to one of the volunteers on the way I learned that they are doing about 4,500 a day at this centre, which is getting on for 500 an hour.

When I left after my jab I noticed the outdoor queue was much longer than it had been when I joined this morning, so those just starting to wait were probably in for at least two hours before they got jabbed. Still, after everything that we’ve been missing out on for the past year and a bit, what’s a couple of hours?

Other than the increased numbers the experience was similar to my first dose: well-run, efficient and friendly. Thanks again to all concerned!

So that’s me fully vaccinated although disappointingly I don’t seem to be able to receive 5G signals and haven’t received my instructions from Bill Gates yet.

Anyway, now I’m back home about an hour later and have so far no ill-effects. We have an examination board meeting this afternoon so let’s hope I don’t flake out during it.

UPDATE: 8 hours on and I’m definitely feeling a bit tired…zzzz

UPDATE: 24 hours on, I was more-than-usually tired last night and that continues but I experienced no fevers or anything like that. Slight discomfort in the arm where the injection was given.

Leave a comment »

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on June 7, 2021 by telescoper

Time to announce another publication in the Open Journal of Astrophysics. This one was actually published on Friday actually, but I didn’t get time to post about it until just now. It is the fourth paper in Volume 4 (2021) and the 35th paper in all.

The latest publication is entitled The local vertical density distribution of ultracool dwarfs M7 to L2.5 and their luminosity function and the ultracool authors are Steve Warren (Imperial College), Saad Ahmed (Open University) and Richard Laithwaite (Imperial College).

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 one is in the Astrophysics of Galaxies section but it also has overlap with Solar and Stellar Astrophysics.

Over the last few months I have noticed that it has taken a bit longer to get referee reports on papers and also for authors to complete their revisions. I think that’s probably a consequence of the pandemic and people being generally overworked. We do have a number of papers at various stages of the pipeline, so although we’re a bit behind where we were last year in terms of papers published I think may well catch up in the next month or two.

I’ll end with a reminder to prospective authors that the OJA  now has the facility to include supplementary files (e.g. code or data sets) along with the papers we publish. If any existing authors (i.e. of papers we have already published) would like us to add supplementary files retrospectively then please contact us with a request!

Leave a comment »

Lá Saoire i mí Mheitheamh

Posted in Biographical on June 7, 2021 by telescoper

It’s a Bank Holiday Monday here in Ireland which makes for a nice end-of-term break for some of us. Not all staff had exams early enough to finish in time like I did, however, and no doubt some had to spend the weekend marking exam scripts. I am fortunate to have been able to accomplish everything I intended over the weekend – nothing at all – and today I’ll be able to recover from that exertion.

The June Bank Holiday (Lá Saoire i mí Mheitheamh) in Ireland is actually the equivalent of last week’s late May Bank Holiday in the UK, in that both have their origin in the old festival of Whitsuntide (or Pentecost) which falls on the 7th Sunday after Easter. Because the date of Easter moves around in the calendar so does Whit Sunday, but it is usually in late May or early June. Here in Ireland the Bank Holiday is always on the first Monday in June whereas on the other side of the Irish Sea it is on the last Monday in May.

Although I’m only at beginners’ level in Irish, the phrase Lá Saoire i mí Mheitheamh gives me a chance to bore you about it. It’s actually quite a straightforward phrase until you reach the last word: “Lá” means “day” and “Saoire” means “leave” or “vacation” so “Lá Saoire” means “holiday”; “i” is a prepositional pronoun meaning “in” and “mí” means “month”. So far so good.

The word for June however is Meitheamh (at least when it is in the nominative singular case). As an Indo-European language, Irish is distantly related to Latin which has six grammatical cases for nouns actually seven if you count the rarely used locative case). Irish has only four cases – there’s no ablative and, curiously, no distinction between nominative and accusative. That leaves nominative, dative, genitive, and vocative. The dative – used after simple prepositions – is only rarely distinct from the nominative so basically the ones you have to learn are the genitive and the vocative.

Whereas, in Latin, cases are indicated by changes to the end of a word, in Irish they involve initial mutations. In the example of “mí Mheitheamh” meaning “month of June”, requiring the genitive form of “June”, the initial consonant “M” undergoes lenition (softening) to sound more like a “v”. In old Irish texts this would be indicated by a dot over the M but in modern orthography it is indicated by writing an “h” after the consonant. This is called a séimhiú (pronounced “shay-voo” ). Note the softened m in the middle of that word too but it’s not a mutation – it’s just part of the regular spelling of the word, as is the -mh at the end of Meitheamh. There’s also a softened “t” in the middle of Meitheamh which makes it vrtually disappear in pronunciation. Meitheamh is thus pronounced something like “Meh-hiv” whereas “Mheitheamh” is something like “Veh-hiv”.

Gheobhaidh mé mo chóta…

1 Comment »

Round Britain Quiz

Posted in Uncategorized on June 6, 2021 by telescoper

As it is Bank Holiday Weekend I thought I’d set a little quiz, which you must answer without using a search engine. Which of the following is not a genuine UK place name?

Thornton le Beans
Shatton Moor
Wetwang
Booze
Buttock
Jingling Pot
Shitlington Common
Shingay cum Wendy
Pity Me
Twatt
Sally’s Bottom
Lickar Moor
Nether Wallop
Great Bottom Flash
Wigtwizzle
Hen Poo
Pants

Answers through the comments box please!

2 Comments »

Birthday Treats

Posted in Art, Biographical, Covid-19 on June 5, 2021 by telescoper

As planned I took some time out yesterday, hopped on a train for the first time in 15 months and went into Dublin. I was shocked by some of the scenes I saw when I reached my destination: large crowds with no masks and no social distancing and all kinds of rowdy behaviour. Here’s an example:

I was at the National Gallery of course. I wandered around for a couple of hours and then returned to Maynooth. The gallery is still free for visitors but these days you have to register online beforehand so they can control numbers. I have been there before but didn’t realize until yesterday that there’s an entrance on Clare Street, which is even closer to Pearse Station than the main entrance of Merrion Square, so I’ll be using that from now on. There’s a lot to see in the National Gallery and I hope to spend more time there in future.

After getting home I had Zoom drinks with some old friends from Cardiff, which was very pleasant indeed, and then cooked myself a self-indulgent dinner which I ate with a nice Barolo.

Earlier in the day, I was able to publish another paper in the Open Journal of Astrophysics (of which more anon).

Then, as a lovely present, I received a text telling me of the appointment for my second Pfizer/BioNTech Jab: Tuesday 8th June, exactly 4 weeks after the first. People (and the leaflets I was given on the occasion of Jab Number 1) say that the second dose is more likely to produce side effects than the first but I’m glad that in a few days I’ll be fully vaccinated and can start thinking about the possibility of travelling at some point this summer, regulations permitting.

Anyway, the relaxation isn’t over yet. This is a Bank Holiday Weekend in Ireland so I’ll be doing as little as possible until I return to work on Tuesday for Examination Matters, etc.

P.S. My birthday fundraiser has almost reached its target but is still going so if you feel like contributing you can still do so here.

P.P.S. There were some rowdy scenes in Dublin yesterday evening but not where I was (and I was home before they started).

6 Comments »

Birthday Fundraiser – Pieta House

Posted in Biographical, Mental Health on June 4, 2021 by telescoper

It’s that time of year again so for a change I’ve decided to do a fundraiser for the charity Pieta House, Preventing Suicide and Self Harm. I’ve chosen this charity for my fundraiser this year largely because of Darkness into Light, an annual walking event and fundraiser held, primarily, across the island of Ireland. Participants meet before dawn on a particular Saturday in May and walk to meet the sunrise. I couldn’t participate this year so am trying to make up for it with this!

Should you be minded to make a donation, however small, you can do so here.

1 Comment »

Leaving Late Again

Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , on June 3, 2021 by telescoper

Yesterday we were told that, as was the case last year, this year’s Leaving Certificate results will be delayed until September (3rd, to be precise). The first round of CAO offers will be made a few days later, on September 7th. All this is about three weeks later than the usual (pre-Covid) cycle of examinations and results. Last year the announcement of a delay was made in mid-July, but now it’s been done in early June.

I’m actually a bit baffled as to why it is going to take so long this year, given that it’s not a new situation with respect to Covid-19 and there will be fewer examinations to mark than in previous years. Universities are able to turn around marks for thousands of students in just a couple of weeks so why the heck will it take so long to get the Leaving Certificate results out? There will be fewer exams to mark than in pre-Covid era too, as some subject marks will be based on coursework.

Here at Maynooth University the start of the academic year 2021/22 is due to take place on Monday 20th September, with Welcome Week starting on 13th September.   Getting everything ready in time for teaching will be a huge challenge because we will only find out very late in the day how many students we have to accommodate in first-year lectures. It is unlikely that timetable will be possible so we face the prospect of having to scrap the orientation events that usually take place in Welcome Week, delaying the start of term, shortening the teaching semester (again) or scrapping the mid-term Study Break.

We’re not able to make many plans in advance because we don’t have much idea in what form teaching will resume because that depends on public health guidelines. Last year, most lecture rooms had their capacity reduced by more than half. Lecturers need to know how many students they have in order to decide how to use the available lecture slots and how to strike a balance between live and online delivery. It’s an even worse situation for laboratory subjects.

The Minister responsible is saying he expects campuses to be more-or-less fully open in September but I’m not convinced that we’re out of the woods yet. Let’s hope that I’m wrong.

If any prospective student is getting worried reading this, I can promise you that we will be doing the best we can to provide the best education we can in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in this September. So please bear with us. We didn’t want any of this any more than you did, but we just have to make the best of it!

UPDATE: We have now been informed that returning students will start as planned on 20th September, while lectures for new students will start a week later, on 27th September, with the previous week being used for some orientation events.

Leave a comment »

Buttercups and Columbines

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Maynooth with tags , , on June 2, 2021 by telescoper

I suppose Ranunculus and Aquilegia are technically both weeds but they are adding a bit of colour to my garden at the moment and seem to be thriving in their spot next to the wall so I’ll leave them undisturbed.

I suppose it was inevitable that, the day I finished correcting my examination scripts, the glorious weather would end and it would start raining. Still, the rain is good for the garden. There’s always a burst of new growth after each shower. I wonder what will come up next?

The weather improve for the coming weekend which will be nice. It’s a Bank Holiday next Monday and a significant date for me personally on Friday so I’m hoping to take a break during which some gardening will be on the agenda (weather permitting).

I was also thinking about going into Dublin at some point for the first time in over a year, just for a walk around and maybe to visit the National Gallery again. The stories in the press of big crowds of people drinking outdoors last weekend have put me off a bit, but I dare say I can avoid the likely problem areas. Having been stuck in one place for 15 months (apart from a trip to get vaccinated) I feel I should make the effort to begin some sort of renormalisation.

With the exams over, students are asking what is going to happen with teaching in September. The answer is still that I have no idea, though if there’s a spike in infections due to recent events it will be even less likely that we will be back to normal for the new academic year.

Leave a comment »

Who is a proper physicist?

Posted in History, The Universe and Stuff on June 1, 2021 by telescoper

There is a rather provocative paper on the arXiv by Jeroen van Dongen with the title String theory, Einstein, and the identity of physics: Theory assessment in absence of the empirical. I thought I’d share it here because it sort of follows on from yesterday’s post.

The abstract is:

String theorists are certain that they are practicing physicists. Yet, some of their recent critics deny this. This paper argues that this conflict is really about who holds authority in making rational judgment in theoretical physics. At bottom, the conflict centers on the question: who is a proper physicist? To illustrate and understand the differing opinions about proper practice and identity, we discuss different appreciations of epistemic virtues and explanation among string theorists and their critics, and how these have been sourced in accounts of Einstein’s biography. Just as Einstein is claimed by both sides, historiography offers examples of both successful and unsuccessful non-empirical science. History of science also teaches that times of conflict are often times of innovation, in which novel scholarly identities may come into being. At the same time, since the contributions of Thomas Kuhn historians have developed a critical attitude towards formal attempts and methodological recipes for epistemic demarcation and justification of scientific practice. These are now, however, being considered in the debate on non-empirical physics.

You can find a PDF of the full paper here.

As always, proper comments are welcome through the box below.

P. S. The answer to the question posed in the title is of course that a proper physicist is a physicist who’s at rest in the laboratory frame.

6 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »