A source of high-energy neutrinos!

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on July 12, 2018 by telescoper

Before I go for a lie down here is a video that goes with the discovery of the first astrophysical source of high-energy neutrinos!

You can find the two Science papers relating to the discovery here and here. The first abstract reads:

Previous detections of individual astrophysical sources of neutrinos are limited to the Sun and the supernova 1987A, whereas the origins of the diffuse flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos remain unidentified. On 22 September 2017, we detected a high-energy neutrino, IceCube-170922A, with an energy of ~290 TeV. Its arrival direction was consistent with the location of a known γ-ray blazar, TXS 0506+056, observed to be in a flaring state. An extensive multi-wavelength campaign followed, ranging from radio frequencies to γ-rays. These observations characterize the variability and energetics of the blazar and include the detection of TXS 0506+056 in very-high-energy γ-rays. This observation of a neutrino in spatial coincidence with a γ-ray–emitting blazar during an active phase suggests that blazars may be a source of high-energy neutrino.

The other abstract is:

A high-energy neutrino event detected by IceCube on 22 September 2017 was coincident in direction and time with a gamma-ray flare from the blazar TXS 0506+056. Prompted by this association, we investigated 9.5 years of IceCube neutrino observations to search for excess emission at the position of the blazar. We found an excess of high-energy neutrino events, with respect to atmospheric backgrounds, at that position between September 2014 and March 2015. Allowing for time-variable flux, this constitutes 3.5σ evidence for neutrino emission from the direction of TXS 0506+056, independent of and prior to the 2017 flaring episode. This suggests that blazars are identifiable sources of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux.

It’s all very cool!

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After Extra Time

Posted in Biographical, Football with tags , , , , , , on July 12, 2018 by telescoper

My blogging activities have been a little thin over the last few days as I’ve been in a race against time to submit a grant application. The deadline for that was 4pm today. I was advised to submit it `in good time’, however, and managed to do that. The electronic submission receipt is time-stamped 3:59:47. I guess that’s what they call `Just-in-time Delivery’!

It’s my first attempt at a grant application in the Irish system and I had very little notice of the funding call. It took me quite a while to figure out how to construct a budget using rules that are different from the UK, and that left me relatively little time to write the science case. I cobbled something together but don’t expect it is coherent enough to get funded. On the other hand, I might get some useful feedback on what to do better next time. This approach doesn’t work in the UK system, because for many schemes there you can only apply once every three years.

Anyway, to get a break from grant-writing yesterday evening, I strolled around my local in Maynooth for a pint and to watch a bit of the World Cup Semi-Final between England and Croatia. I got there just in time to see Croatia’s equalizer, which drew huge cheers from the (predominantly Irish) crowd, and decided to stay until the end. Croatia’s second goal got an even bigger cheer, though it wasn’t exactly a surprise even if it did take them until extra time to score it. From what I saw, Croatia thoroughly deserved to win. Congratulations to them.

(In case you’re wondering, yes I did bet on Croatia to go through. But only €50, at 5/2….)

It has been a strange World Cup for England. With Germany, Argentina, Spain, Portugal and Brazil (and Italy not even qualifying) it seemed that the fates had paved a relatively easy route to the final. I do think, however, that people overestimated the quality of the England team: they lost to Belgium’s B-team in their last group game and only just scraped past Colombia in the following round. It’s true that they beat Sweden comfortably in the Quarter Final, but I thought that was more because Sweden were poor than because England were good.

In the end I think Croatia won because England displayed a longstanding weakness of English teams – an inability to maintain possession of the ball in midfield.  Against teams with good attacking players you just can’t afford to keep giving the ball away!  They also seemed to get very rattled when Croatia equalized. On the other hand, this is a very young England side which promises much in the future.  There’s plenty of time before the next World Cup for them to grow proper beards, for example. And one person who definitely deserves praise is manager Gareth Southgate, who has not only shown that he’s a pretty good tactician but also that he’s a very nice bloke, with a fine sense of sportsmanship.

So football’s not coming home after all. But where will it go? I do fancy France to win it, but I hope it’s a good final. I have a feeling that the 3rd/4th playoff between England and Belgium might be a good game too!

 

 

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Three Lions

Posted in Football, History with tags , , , , , , on July 11, 2018 by telescoper

I’ve been struggling and failing to put together lots of bits for a grant application today; the deadline is tomorrow at 4pm so it looks like I’ll be working late tonight (either side of the England-Croatia World Cup semi-final). Anyway, having a short break for a cup of tea I decided to put up a short post about the `Three Lions’ symbol used by the England football team and its supporters.

You can study the evolution of this symbol in detail here but essentially it is based on a design originally brought to England by Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (in France), grant patriarch of the Angevin dynasty and father of Henry Plantagenet (who became Henry II of England). Geoffrey of Anjou’s emblem had six lions rather than three, and his son used designs with either one or two, but King Richard I and King John occasionally used versions with three lions and by the time of Henry III (who lived from 1216 to 1272) the Three Lions appeared on the Royal Coat of Arms pretty much as they are now:

En passant, in heraldic jargon this coat of arms is described Gules, three lions passant guardant Or. The objects shown in the centre of a coat of arms (i.e. the lions in this case) are called `charges’. `Gules’ is basically `red’ and `Or’ is yellow; `passant’ means `moving towards the viewer’s left’ and `guardant’ means `looking at the viewer’ – a lion passant would have its head facing the direction of motion.

Anyway, my point is that this symbol which is now taken to represent England was actually of Angevin origin and is really a French emblem. I don’t know for sure but I don’t think any of the Angevin or Plantagenet Kings mentioned above could even speak English…

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Project Management 101

Posted in Uncategorized on July 11, 2018 by telescoper

With an acknowledgement to Stewart Martin-Haugh via Twitter I thought I’d share this important lesson in project management:

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Quantum Coherence Therapy

Posted in Maynooth on July 10, 2018 by telescoper

I spent an amusing few minutes during lunchtime today looking through a leaflet from a local Maynooth business called Alchemy Holistic Therapies.

Unfortunately their advertised website appears not to be active, but here are a couple of examples of the sort of `therapy’ they offer:

The Quantum Sound Bath sounds a bit noisy to me, but Quantum Coherence Therapy has a good vibe to it. I’m sure it’s all based on proper physics too.

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Law like Love – W.H. Auden

Posted in Poetry with tags , on July 10, 2018 by telescoper

Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.

Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.

Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.

Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I’ve told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.

Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.

Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.

And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.

If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,

No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyway:
Like love I say.

Like love we don’t know where or why,
Like love we can’t compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.

by W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

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The Problem with Odd Moments

Posted in Bad Statistics, Cute Problems, mathematics with tags , , on July 9, 2018 by telescoper

Last week, realizing that it had been a while since I posted anything in the cute problems folder, I did a quick post before going to a meeting. Unfortunately, as a couple of people pointed out almost immediately, there was a problem with the question (a typo in the form of a misplaced bracket). I took the post offline until I could correct it and then promptly forgot about it. I remembered it yesterday so have now corrected it. I also added a useful integral as a hint at the end, because I’m a nice person. I suggest you start by evaluating the expectation value (i.e. the first-order moment). Answers to parts (2) and (3) through the comments box please!

Answers to (2) and (3) via the comments box please!

 

SOLUTION: I’ll leave you to draw your own sketch but, as Anton correctly points out, this is a distribution that is asymmetric about its mean but has all odd-order moments equal (including the skewness) equal to zero. it therefore provides a counter-example to common assertions, e.g. that asymmetric distributions must have non-zero skewness. The function shown in the problem was originally given by Stieltjes, but a general discussion can be be found in E. Churchill (1946) Information given by odd moments, Ann. Math. Statist. 17, 244-6. The paper is available online here.

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Everyman in Cardiff, Azed in Maynooth

Posted in Biographical, Crosswords on July 8, 2018 by telescoper

As soon as I’d finished today’s Everyman Crossword in the Observer (which, together with a cup of coffee, is how I get my brain in gear on Sunday mornings) I walked into town to get the bus to Cardiff Airport. After some confusion (caused by an event called the Velothon) I managed to locate the correct bus stop and I was on my way back to Maynooth. It was very warm today in Cardiff and the airport was very busy, but at least the air conditioning was working so it was quite cool inside the departure lounge.

The flight was half an hour late, and very full, but I got a window seat over the wing. I took the picture as we passed over Cardigan Bay. If you look closely you can see the Llŷn Peninsula off in the distance.

I got back to Maynooth via the Hopper Bus from Dublin Airport at about 4pm, did a bit of shopping, and then had a go at the Observer’s Azed crossword. This is usually a far stiffer challenge than Everyman, and is the puzzle I usually do on Sunday evenings. Today’s wasn’t too tricky though.

I think however, that this is the first time I have done crosswords from the same paper on the same day either side of the Irish sea!

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Leaving Thoughts

Posted in Uncategorized on July 7, 2018 by telescoper

Despite the distraction of today’s World Cup Quarter Final between England and Sweden I’ve actually been working on a grant application this afternoon ahead of travelling back to Ireland tomorrow.

Yesterday I went out for drinks with the good folk of the Data Innovation Research Institute as a sort of informal leaving party. I’d like to thank Claire, Ben, Owain, Ian, Unai and Cyril for a fun night out and for the card and presents!

I’ll be back in Cardiff for graduation the week after next so they haven’t quite got rid of me yet. Most significantly, some of my stuff is still in the office (in boxes) awaiting removal to Ireland. When I arrived in the DII office two years ago there was only me there. It’s great that the team has grown so quickly, but more importantly that it’s such a nice group of people.

Anyway in the absence of time for a proper post I thought I’d fall back on a standard social media standby, in the form of a picture of a cat. The cat pictured above usually patrols the area outside Maynooth University library but was just basking in the Sun when I stopped to say hello on the way to work the other day.

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The Workman’s Friend

Posted in Poetry with tags , on July 6, 2018 by telescoper

When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night –
A pint of plain* is your only man.

When money’s tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt –
A pint of plain is your only man.

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say you need a change,
A pint of plain is your only man.

When food is scarce and your larder bare
And no rashers grease your pan,
When hunger grows as your meals are rare –
A pint of plain is your only man.

In time of trouble and lousey strife,
You have still got a darlint plan
You still can turn to a brighter life –
A pint of plain is your only man.

 

by Flann O’Brien (aka Brian O’Nolan; 1911-1966)

 

*plain here means `stout’ (e..g Guinness).

 

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