It occurred to me that there might be among the readers of this blog people interested in a job opportunity just announced at the Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University, which exists to promote interdisciplinary research spanning applied mathematics, computer science, engineering, and statistics. Applicants from any of those areas are welcome.
There is a lot more detail including instructions on how to apply here. The deadline is at the end of September 2020.
Follow @telescoperEpisode 5, in which I explain using a golf ball just how empty the Universe is. It is so empty, in fact, that even the crowded places are very empty. And as for the empty places, they’re practically nothing.
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by Remedios Varo Uranga (1908-63), painted in 1947, 25.5× 21cm, gouache on cardboard.
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All this business about Donald Trump recommending the drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 reminded me of my first trip to India in the 1990s. I hadn’t travelled very much outside Europe before that and was quite nervous, so I bought a couple of books about travelling in India. Among other things, they both recommended taking precautions against Malaria.
I made an appointment with my GP, who asked exactly where I was going and, after consulting a book, he wrote out two prescriptions, for the drugs paludrine and chloroquine. I was to start taking them a week before travelling and continue for two weekd after returning. The paludrine came in small tablets to be taken every day; chloroquine was in a much bigger tablet taken once a week. The brand name for the latter was Avloclor. I have good reason to remember it.
The paludrine was no trouble but the chloroquine was horrible. For one thing it tasted so foul that even with a huge amount of water it was difficult to prevent unpleasant sensations as it went down. Worse, it has a long list of side effects, the mildest of which include nausea, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, upset stomach, stomach pain, rash, itching, and hair loss. More serious symptoms include heart problems, blurred vision, and suicidal thoughts. The list of warnings that came with the tablets was so long that I started to wonder how bad Malaria can be…
I’m told that anti-Malarial drugs are notoriously unpleasant, especially those given to soldiers stationed in theme tropics who presumably get the cheapest sort.
I didn’t experience any of the more serious issues, thank goodness, but I had a selection from the former list, plus a sprinkling of mouth ulcers. I knew these were caused by the chloroquine as I always got them the day after I took the tablet: they went away after a day or two but came back when I took the next week’s dose. Presumably I just couldn’t down the tablet quickly enough to avoid some of it affecting my mouth.
I was in India for about six weeks and was plagued by this for the whole time. I really enjoyed the spicy food while I was there, but found it quite difficult for a couple of days each week.
Now although chloroquine is related to hydroxychloroquine it isn’t quite the same thing. I gather, however, it does have similar side effects. As far as I’m aware there is no evidence that either of these drugs is effective against Covid-19 so in my opinion you would have to be crackers to run the risk of seriously unpleasant or even worse consequences for no therapeutic gain.
Follow @telescoperEpisode 4, in which I show that spiral galaxies are very grubby – they contain huge amounts of dust. And not only galaxies – astronomical dust is everywhere we look. The Universe may be big, but it sure is dirty..
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In my office today for the first time in a couple of months I stumbled across a folder containing the notes from the summer school for new Astronomy PhD students I attended in Durham in 1985. Yes, that’s thirty five years ago..
Among the lectures was a set given by Richard Ellis on Observational Cosmology from which I’ve taken this little snippet about the Hubble Constant:
It’s not only a trip down memory lane but also up the cosmological distance ladder! You will see that there were two main estimates, one low and one high. Both turned out to be about three sigma away from the currently-favoured value of around 70.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
Does this change your mind about today’s tension between another pair of “low” (67) and “high” (73) values?
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So here we are then. Phase One of the relaxation of Ireland’s Covid-19 restrictions begins today. The focus will be on the extent to which people continue to follow the rules while the modest loosening of restrictions takes place.
Here is the most recent log plot summarising the Covid-19 epidemic in Ireland. I’m keeping track of the numbers here.
Yesterday only 64 new cases were reported, the lowest since mid-March, along with 10 deaths.
Here is a plot of new cases on a linear scale so you can see the decline more easily.
And the mortality figures look like this:
Data and explanatory notes can be found here.
The signs are thus optimistic but I think its very sensible to take this in slow stages. It remains perfectly possible for infection to spread again if the remaining precautions are not taken seriously. By and large, though, people have been sensible so far and I’m hopeful.
I shall shortly be attempting to remember where my office is so I can go in and deal with some online assessments.
I suppose it won’t be long until we start getting instructions on how to prepare for Phase 2.
Update: I made it into the Department where I noticed the evidence of the last time I was there!
As I mentioned in a recent post, Saturday saw the first of our new-fangled examinations online timed assessments in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Maynooth University. Despite all the planning I was quite nervous as the time for that test approached and it wasn’t even one of my examinations on that occasion!
Happily the event went ahead without any significant technical hitches and all students who took the paper managed to upload answers.
The type of mathematical problems we set in the Department of Theoretical Physics means that students will work out their answers by hand on paper which then requires scanning and converting to a PDF. That’s not very hard to do but it’s not as easy as writing an essay on a laptop then uploading a document file which is what some subjects involve.
In this sense, I think we ask a bit more of our students than many other Departments, and I very much appreciate the effort they have made to master an unfamiliar system. That goes for the staff too – this is all new for all of us!
I thought that anything significant was going to go wrong it would do so in the first one, so the fact that nothing broke not only brings relief but also builds confidence for the thirteen further examinations we have over the next two weeks.
Follow @telescoperI’m was mucking out this blog’s blocked comments folder and unsurprisingly found a few from Mr Hine, a regular if sadly deranged correspondent.
One of his blocked comments begins
In the forlorn hope that Mr Hine might some day learn something scientifically correct I thought I’d repost this problem, which is very easy if you have a high school education in physics or applied mathematics but no doubt very difficult if you’re Mr Hine.
Verify that the radius of a circular geostationary orbit around the Earth is about 42,000 km, i.e. find the radius of a circular orbit around the Earth which has a period of 24 hours so that its orbital period matches the Earth’s rotation period, thus ensuring that an object travelling in such an orbit in the same direction as the Earth’s rotation is always above the same point on the Earth’s surface.
(You will need to look up the mass of the Earth.)
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Yesterday (Friday 15th May) the Government of Ireland announced that Phase 1 of the Roadmap for relaxation of its Covid-19 restrictions would commence as planned on Monday 18th May.
This won’t make a huge difference to those people working in third level institutions because it means that anyone who can work from home should continue to do so. As you can see in the graphic above, though, some (limited) access to buildings will be available to allow staff access “to facilitate remote learning”.
Here at Maynooth University our teaching term is over and we’re into the examination period, so there is no actual teaching going on. There are exams, however, and some staff (including myself) will be going onto campus to oversee these, including sitting by their office phones in case of emergency. It is a great relief that we can do this during the examination period as things would have been far more complicated otherwise, especially for those of us who don’t have full internet access at home.
Access for this purpose will be strictly limited and in general the campus is not open. The rules for those coming into campus are quite strict. These are excerpts from the instructions sent out by the University last night:
A more general ‘return-to-work’ will start in Phase 2 (in three weeks’ time) but several things related to health and safety will need to be organised before that. In the meantime I expect the Department of Theoretical Physics will continue to be empty apart from occasional visits by myself and one or two other members of staff.
Anyway, we need to take life one phase at a time. My main priority on Monday will be trying to remember where my office is, as I haven’t been there for nine weeks!
P. S. Schools in Ireland will not reopen until the start of the new school year, in August.
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In the Dark 