Marking Bloomsday 2021 with beard power

Posted in Beards, Biographical, Literature on June 16, 2021 by telescoper

Although my primary research interest is in the area of astrophysics and cosmology I think it is important to get involved whenever possible in interdisciplinary scholarship. My latest such contribution was to use the “find” facility on the online version of Ulysses by James Joyce to establish that the word “beard” appears 59 times in that work. A thorough analysis of the role of beards in Ulysses would make an interesting PhD topic, in my opinion.

kmflett's avatarKmflett's Blog

As former Beard of Ireland Peter Coles noted on twitter there are 59 references to beards in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

On Bloomsday 2021 the Beard Liberation Front salutes the hirsute canon of Joyce.

A typical Ulysses reference is below:

Mastiansky and Citron approach in gaberdines wearing long earlocks. They wag their beards at Bloom

(page 438)

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#Bloomsday and Things Joycean

Posted in Literature with tags , , on June 16, 2021 by telescoper

So it’s 16th June, a very special day in Ireland – and especially Dublin – because 16th June 1904 is the date on which the story takes place of Ulysses by James Joyce. Bloomsday – named after the character Leopold Bloom – is an annual celebration not only of all things Joycean but also of Ireland’s wider cultural and literary heritage. Of course it’s mainly virtual this year, as it was last year.

I was toying with the idea of going into Dublin and wandering about some of the locations described in Ulysses, but I have too much work to do. Maybe next year.  Instead I thought I’d prepare dinner this evening in a style that Leopold Bloom would enjoy:

He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with breadcrumbs, fried hen cod’s roe. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

Or perhaps not.

If you haven’t read Ulysses yet then you definitely should. It’s one of the great works of modern literature. And don’t let people put you off by telling you that it’s a difficult read. It really isn’t. It’s a long read that’s for sure -it’s over 900 pages – but the writing is full of colour and energy and it has a  real sense of place. It’s a wonderful book.

(There’s also quite a lot of sex in it….)

I’ve read Ulysses twice, once when I was a teenager and once when I was in my thirties. I then lent my copy to someone and never got it back. The copy shown above is a new one I bought last year with the intention of reading the novel again now that I live in Ireland but I sadly have not had the time yet. I will, though.

I did manage to read all of Finnegans Wake last summer which I think is quite a difficult read so I approached it by rationing myself to ten pages per day and going slowly, often reading it out loud. In many ways it’s really a more like a very long poem than a prose work. It is

Incidentally if you would like to limber up before making an attempt on either  Ulysses or Finnegans Wake I recommend this set of short stories.

But if you don’t fancy reading it you can listen to an epic 29 hour dramatisation of Ulysses on the radio via RTÉ; see here for details.

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Opening Up Again

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff on June 15, 2021 by telescoper

The Irish Government has just produced its plan for A Safe Return to on-site further and higher education and research that outlines what is basically a full return to on-campus activity from September 2021.
I quote from the preamble to the document linked to above:

It is expected that the majority of the people over 18 in Ireland will have been vaccinated by September 2021, and so planning is proceeding on the basis that full resumption of on-site activity is possible, while ensuring that overall numbers attending on-site are monitored and controlled.

In the absence of regular updates about the progress of Ireland’s vaccination programme it is difficult to know whether the first sentence is accurate or not, especially since it appears that two vaccine doses are needed to protect against the Delta-variant. I think most teaching staff will have been immunized by September, but am not so sure about the student population.

I’m also mindful that we were optimistic in advance of the start of last academic year and things didn’t exactly go to plan then. Nevertheless there do seem to be reasonable grounds for believing that we can return to on-campus teaching in September and we will be planning on that basis until there is evidence to the contrary. I just hope we don’t have to do a rapid about-turn like we did last year.

The first step in this process for us here in Maynooth is that from 5th July staff and research students can return to their offices on campus – following the existing protocols on social distancing, sanitation and ventilation – without having to make a special case. Only a few people have been working inside the Department since the start of the year and I’d expect most to begin making their way back.

In fact some members of the Department of Theoretical Physics joined us only this academic year and have never actually been the building (or on campus) at all. I suppose I’ll now have to find office space for them, something that hasn’t been necessary while we have all been working from home!

As a matter of fact, since it’s a nice day and I’ve been on Teams all morning, I might take a walk onto campus myself this afternoon and visit my office in the Department for the first time in a month…

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Challenges for the Standard Cosmological Model

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on June 14, 2021 by telescoper

I recently came across a comprehensive review article on the arXiv and thought some of my regular readers might find it interesting as a description of the current state of play in cosmology. The paper is called Challenges for ΛCDM: An update and is written by Leandros Perivolaropoulos and Foteini Skara.

Here is the abstract:

A number of challenges of the standard ΛCDM model has been emerging during the past few years as the accuracy of cosmological observations improves. In this review we discuss in a unified manner many existing signals in cosmological and astrophysical data that appear to be in some tension (2σ or larger) with the standard ΛCDM model as defined by the Planck18 parameter values. In addition to the major well studied 5σ challenge of ΛCDM (the Hubble H0 crisis) and other well known tensions (the growth tension and the lensing amplitude AL anomaly), we discuss a wide range of other less discussed less-standard signals which appear at a lower statistical significance level than the H0 tension (also known as ‘curiosities’ in the data) which may also constitute hints towards new physics. For example such signals include cosmic dipoles (the fine structure constant α, velocity and quasar dipoles), CMB asymmetries, BAO Lyα tension, age of the Universe issues, the Lithium problem, small scale curiosities like the core-cusp and missing satellite problems, quasars Hubble diagram, oscillating short range gravity signals etc. The goal of this pedagogical review is to collectively present the current status of these signals and their level of significance, with emphasis to the Hubble crisis and refer to recent resources where more details can be found for each signal. We also briefly discuss possible theoretical approaches that can potentially explain the non-standard nature of some of these signals.

Among the useful things in it you will find this summary of the current ‘tension’ over the Hubble constant that I’ve posted about numerous times (e.g. here):

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DES in the Eye

Posted in The Universe and Stuff on June 13, 2021 by telescoper

I see that the press interest in the recent Dark Energy Survey results (to which I referred in a post here) has extended to a cartoon in the latest Private Eye…

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On Valerian

Posted in Uncategorized on June 12, 2021 by telescoper

Pottering about in the garden this morning I remember that on my little birthday trip last week I noticed a huge amount of the above plant growing on various railway embankments between Maynooth and Dublin.

It’s red valerian (aka spur valerian, kiss-me-quick, fox’s brush, devil’s beard & Jupiter’s beard among other names). I’d like to have some on my garden, actually. It’s very attractive and is probably sufficiently hardy to survive my lack of gardening skills.

Incidentally, is is not the same species as the true valerian shown above (also known as all-heal and setwall) which is also very nice, but has lighter flowers, a very pale pink or white. You will sometimes find this interspersed with red valerian when growing wild. It grows to quite a height and is not particularly fragrant so is probably not one for the garden but is a common wild flower.

Incidentally, in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express the victim is sedated prior to his murder using valerian, which can be taken as a tonic in the form of a dilute infusion (hence the name “all-heal”), but a powerful hypnotic in concentrated doses. It’s one of many common wild flowers that has medicinal properties but can be toxic if taken excessively.

It’s perhaps also worth mentioning that cats adore valerian in the same way they do catnip.

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Boards of Examination

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , on June 11, 2021 by telescoper

We’ve at last staggered to the end of a week dominated by Examination matters. For myself that consisted of preliminary Examination Boards for Theoretical Physics and Engineering (for which we teach modules in Engineering Mathematics) followed by Final Examination Boards in both subjects with External Examiners present. Those final meetings both took place today so it’s been a particularly busy end of the week.

That’s not quite the end of the examinations business for the academic year, however, as we have the Final Final Examination Board in about ten days’ time. That is when marks from all Departments come together to determine the final results for students who are taking degrees in combinations of subjects. We have quite a number doing Joint Honours with Mathematics, for example. It does add an extra level to the process, but I think that’s a price worth paying for the flexibility we offer to students.

This final Examination Board takes place on 23rd June and students will get their marks a couple of days later on 25th June. Even that won’t be the end, because some students will be taking repeat examinations in August, but at least it signals a gap in the assessment cycle during which we can hopefully think of other things for a while.

Obviously I’m not going to comment on the marks for individual students but nobody will be surprised to hear that the Covid-19 pandemic has obviously had a big impact on some. It also had an impact on our External Examiner for Theoretical Physics who actually caught Covid-19 recently and became quite ill. Thankfully she is now feeling better and well enough to join us remotely today.

The Repeat Examination period takes place in August and will again be conducted remotely but hopefully the 1st Semester examinations next year will be under more normal circumstances. It’s not so much that I’m worried that our online examinations are somehow inappropriate, it’s just that it does take far longer to mark them than paper examinations and this year it has been extremely tight getting everything ready for the deadline by which marks must be committed to our central system (which is Monday 14th June).

Anyway, we’ve now done the job so I have an opportunity to thank all the staff in Theoretical Physics for their hard work and diligence!

Now it’s definitely wine o’clock.

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The Euclid Consortium Conference Photo!

Posted in Covid-19, The Universe and Stuff on June 11, 2021 by telescoper

The Coronavirus pandemic has not only changed the nature of conferences but also changed the nature of conference photographs. Here’s the group picture of the Euclid Consortium Conference that took place via Zoom at the end of May. I’m actually in it, though I wasn’t paying attention at the time and am therefore not looking at the camera. Moreover, there are some other people who are in it several times!

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Partial Eclipse Picture!

Posted in The Universe and Stuff on June 10, 2021 by telescoper

I’ve a very busy morning this morning but I’ve just got time to share this stunning picture of the partial solar eclipse happening between about 10.00am and 12.20pm across Ireland, as seen from Maynooth.

I’ll post more exciting images if and when the sky ceases to be eclipsed by clouds.

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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.

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