For reasons not necessary to explain I just found this little video someone made to go with a rendition of Walking to a Farm by Ivor Cutler, who accompanies himself on harmonium, and was quite surprised to see a few images of Jodrell Bank on the way. That tenuous connection with astronomy, and the fact that I’ve been too busy today to think of anything else, convinced me that I should post it on this here blog:
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I’ve just heard the very sad news that the great Italian conductor Claudio Abbado has passed away at the age of 80. No words of mine can pay adequate tribute to his wonderful career. He leaves a rich legacy of recordings which can speak more eloquently than I could ever do and he will live on through them and through the memories of those who attended live performances he conducted. Here is a superb example, a recording of a sublime performance one of the five Rückert-Lieder by Gustav Mahler (“Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen“) featuring the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Abbado’s direction, and the gorgeous voice of mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená. Rest in peace, Maestro Claudio Abbado.
Follow @telescoperSo here I am, then, in Nagoya Airport (also known as Central Japan International Airport). Managed to get here via subway and train on my own and in good time, so I’m sitting having a coffee in the terminal building and wondering whether to buy any over-priced tat in the Duty Free shops.
Nagoya Airport is on an artificial island, actually, which means that I can see water all around from the departure lounge.
It’s been a fascinating and enjoyable trip. I’d like to thank my host, Chiaki Hikage, for all his help and hospitality.
It’s just after 9am here, which means just after midnight back in Blighty. The flight to Frankfurt arrives at 15.30, which means the whole 12 hour trip will be in daylight. Could be a bit strange!
Looking out I see that the incoming flight has just arrived, at the same time as the one that brought me here, and right on schedule. Travelling by a combination of Japanese and German transport definitely seems an efficient choice!
Signing off now. Hopefully my next post will be from Brighton!
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My recent travels have at last given me the chance to finish reading the novel The Falling Sky by Pippa Goldschmidt. I actually started reading this some time ago, but absent-mindedly left the book in Cardiff during one of my occasional visits back to my Welsh residence. I remembered it when I was there over the New Year break and I brought it with me to Japan. I was indisposed with a tummy bug this morning so decided not to chance a trip to Kyoto, especially as I’m flying home tomorrow, but at least I got the chance to finish reading it.
Pippa Goldschmidt is now a professional writer, but she did a PhD in Astronomy and subsequently worked for some time as an astronomical researcher in London, in Imperial College to be precise, when I was working at the (then) Queen Mary & Westfield College. I remember her well from that time, although I hadn’t see her for ages until last year when we met in Edinburgh when I was visiting for a PhD examination.
Here’s the jacket blurb for The Falling Sky, which was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize:
Jeanette is a young, solitary post-doctoral researcher who has dedicated her life to studying astronomy. Struggling to compete in a prestigious university department dominated by egos and incompetents, and caught in a cycle of brief and unsatisfying affairs, she travels to a mountaintop observatory in Chile to focus on her research. There Jeanette stumbles upon evidence that will challenge the fundamentals of the universe, drawing her into conflict with her colleagues and the scientific establishment, but also casting her back to the tragic loss that defined her childhood. As the implications of her discovery gather momentum, and her relationships spiral out of control, Jeanette’s own grip on reality is threatened, finally forcing her to confront the hidden past. This bittersweet debut novel blends black comedy, heartbreaking tragedy, and fascinatingly accessible science, in an intricate and beautiful examination of one woman’s disintegration and journey to redemption.
As the above description suggests, the plot weaves together two strands in the life and thoughts of the principal character, Jeanette. The initial reaction of most readers will be to find one strand immediately familiar and intelligible and the other obscure and difficult to understand. The first, more accessible, level of course comprises the straightforward world of cosmology and extragalactic astronomy, science politics and academic rivalry; the other concerns such unfamiliar and outlandish ideas as “emotions”, “sex” and “relationships”. Goldschmidt largely describes these latter concepts in language accessible to non-specialists such as myself, but I did tend to get lost when she touches upon female genitalia; those passages aren’t really in my comfort zone, and rather impenetrable to me for reasons that I’ve never been able to my finger on. Perhaps some form of glossary, or even a diagram, might be a useful addition to a future edition?
But, seriously, it’s really a very good novel with an interesting narrative structure involving flashbacks and other ingenious literary devices. It also offers many glimpses of a dark and rather quirky sense of humour. Amongst many other things it makes the point – that quite a few scientists themselves seem to deny – that science is something done by human beings, and the way we do our science is consequently greatly affected by our inner life (and vice-versa).
One of the games astronomers will play – and I know quite a few who have played it already – is to try to spot the real astronomers on whom some of the characters are based. I couldn’t possible comment myself, but I’ll offer the possibility below for others to offer suggestions…
Follow @telescoperLots of interesting suggestions here on how to use blogging to help deal with mental health issues…
When we start a blog instead of simply keeping a private diary, it’s because we want to connect with others. When you start to blog, you join a community.
It comes as no surprise that many bloggers are drawn to online communities as a place to work through challenges — to heal and process, find others with similar experiences, and seek (or offer) support. There are lots of supportive communities around WordPress.com: women dealing with breast cancer, people managing diabetes, parents of children with unique needs, and many, many more. Throughout January, we’ll be zooming in on how bloggers use WordPress.com to support their health and wellness.
Today, on the heels of the Blog for Mental Health 2014 kick-off, we’re focusing on mental health. Read on for a look at the many ways WordPress.com bloggers use their sites to improve their own lives, and the lives of others who have…
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Yesterday evening I had a very enjoyable dinner with a seminar speaker and group of students from the Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute at Nagoya University. On the way back to the guest house I’m staying in, at about 9.30pm, we passed a group of young kids in uniform apparently returning from school. I was told that they were students from a Junior High School (chūgaku) who had been studying late in preparation for an entrance examination to the (selective) Senior High Schools (kōtōgakkō). I was a bit surprised to see young teenagers putting in such long hours, but such behaviour seems quite normal here in Japan.
One of the things I have to get to grips with when I get back to the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Sussex on Monday is the annual admissions cycle. I have meetings in my calendar for next week about this, and we are hosting an applicant visit day on Saturday 25th January; we have of course already made offers to a large number of students based on their predicted grades at GCE A-level. This process is fraught with difficulties, not least because there some schools seem to over-predict the grades that their pupils achieve in order to maximise the chance of them getting into University. Predicted grades being rather unreliable, it would of course be fairer on all concerned to use actual grades, i.e. to defer university applications until after the A-level results come out, but that would be far too sensible so obviously will not happen in the United Kingdom. I’m actually quite sceptical of the usefulness of A-levels for preparing students for University in general, but that’s another matter.
Anyway, the mini-rant above isn’t main point of this post, which is instead to issue a warning to those students taking A-levels later this year. It is based on anecdotal evidence, but quite a lot thereof. The point is that universities will often reduce their usual offer at A-level when they find an applicant with very high predicted grades, sometimes even making an unconditional offer (actually the minimum is two E grades) to high-fliers. This happened a lot in the old days when I was applying for a place at university. Though it is less common nowadays the government’s policy of lifting controls on universities’ ability to recruit students with three A-level grades at ABB or better is bound to increase the amount of game-playing as competition between recruiters intensifies.
This creates a number of issues, but the one I want to pick out arises when a student is predicted to get three As at A-level, but his/her first-choice university gives them an unconditional offer. Their first reaction will obviously be “whoopee! I’ll accept that offer and, what’s more, I don’t need to fret too much about my summer examinations..”.
In fact I’ve known plenty of students who came into university with quite modest A-level grades, but did brilliantly well at their studies and ended up with first-class degrees. There can be many explanations behind such cases quite apart from the relaxation effect. Some schools don’t have good specialist science teachers, for example; this can mean that a student’s interest is really only ignited once they get into university.
The problem is, though, that A-levels results are not just for university entry, they’re for life. A student may graduate with a good degree, even a First, but so do many others. When selecting for postgraduate jobs, or even postgraduate study, recruiters often have a large number of people with excellent degrees; that’s an obvious consequence of the expansion of the Higher Education sector in recent years. What happens, therefore, is that employers and PG admissions tutors have to look at other factors; naturally, that includes A-level results but also even GCSEs. You might be surprised to learn that even if you get a first-class degree, your chances of getting a PhD place at a top institution depends on your performance at School but they definitely do. I’m not saying that this should, be the case, just that it in practice it is.
I recall hearing recently from one former student who had a first-class degree in Physics and a PhD from an excellent University, and who was applying for a job in a research institute (not in the university sector). The application form he received asked him to list not only his A-levels but also his GCSE results!
I hope I’ve made my point to any prospective students, but I’ll summarize it in case I haven’t. If you get a generous offer from your chosen university then that’s a good thing, because it means that they want you. You should be happy. But don’t ease off on your studies because if you end up getting poorer A-levels than you deserve, they may one day come back to haunt you.
Follow @telescoperEnjoyable dismantling of yet another dodgy psychological “study” by Dave Steele, who may or may not be a comedian…..
“Successful comedians display symptoms of psychosis, study says” went the headline. “Psychotic traits in comedians” said the title of the study the headline was referring to. “Bang” went the foreheads meeting the desks of many psychologists, psychiatrists and humans who’d thought for five seconds about what this headline could do for science, psychology, psychiatry and mental illness stigma.
The scientific study, which in this case is apparently Latin for “press release based on a journal article”, states that the popular belief that creativity is related to mental illness is borne out in comedians, who showed higher levels of psychotic traits than actors, who both showed higher levels of psychotic traits than “normal” people. The word normal was the article’s rather than mine as obviously actors and comedians (and by association people with traits of mental illness [?!]) aren’t “normal”. At least the authors are thematically consistent with their…
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Just a quick post while I drink my morning coffee. Yesterday afternoon I gave a seminar here in the Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute at Nagoya University. It was actually at 5pm; I almost made a mistake when I saw it on the the high-tech digital display screen shown here (see top right) because I thought that 16 meant 1600 hours:
Although I’ve got used to the time difference pretty well, I am still struggling to work out what day it is. The 16 stands for 16th January of course…
Anyway, it seemed to go fairly well and was pretty well attended by the students and postdocs as well as faculty. The lecture theatre was extremely well equipped with AV equipment and I got distracted quite often playing with the various gadgets. Also there were two projector screens, side by side, so the audience got my slides in stereo, so to speak.
In case you’re interested, here are the slides from my talk – complete with artistic flourishes:
For the cosmologists among you, the main protagonists here are Naoshi Sugiyama, who has a joint appointment here and at the Kavli Institute in Tokyo, Takahiko Matsubara, and Chiaki Hikage. The latter was a postdoc working with me at Nottingham and Cardiff; he then worked in Princeton before returning to Japan; Chiaki has been my host during my stay here.
After my talk, and a question-and-answer session, the staff treated me to dinner. We had some discussion about where to go during which I mentioned that I’d seen a place called Hamakin, which claimed to be a Japanese-Italian restaurant:
I wasn’t convinced by the concept but it turned out that, although it was a new place, Takahiko had been there before and thought it was very good. We ended up there and, much to my surprise, it was excellent. It was a lot more Japanese than Italian, I have to say, but we did try an interesting take on pizza with cod roe as part of the topping. They had an English menu, with some curious choices of English words. I wasn’t really tempted by “Economic Steak”, and “Cod Ovum” suggested, by use of the Latin singular of “egg”, an extremely small portion. I still don’t know what “pastured chicken” is, either.
As a special treat some sake from a bamboo container was served for me in a bamboo cup; the bamboo is supposed to make it taste nicer but I wasn’t able to discern a difference between the special sake and normal sake. I clearly don’t have a sufficiently cultivated palate. Apologies for the pun in the title of the post too!
Today, Friday, is the last working day of my visit so I’d better get on and finish what I’m here to do because there’s another seminar this afternoon which I’d like to attend. Tomorrow, if I can get myself organized, I might take a trip on the bullet train for a day’s sightseeing in Kyoto, which I am told is a must-see city.
Toodle-pip!
Follow @telescoperAs a boyhood fan of influential American horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft (known to his friends as “H.P.”), I was dismayed to discover some time ago a poem which revealed his obnoxiously racist attitudes. I always find it difficult knowing what to do when someone whose artistic work you admire turns out to have a dark side to his or her personality. It’s always hard to separate the creation from the creator. In the case of H.P. Lovecraft I’ve maintained an interest in him and his work, I suppose in an attempt to find some redeeming features.
Anyway, in Lovecraft’s Selected Letters, I came across a passage which is reminiscent of the following quotation from an interview with physicist Steven Weinberg:
I believe that there is no point in the universe that can be discovered by the methods of science. I believe that what we have found so far, an impersonal universe in which it is not particularly directed toward human beings is what we are going to continue to find. And that when we find the ultimate laws of nature they will have a chilling, cold impersonal quality about them.
I don’t think this means [however] there’s no point to life. Usually the remark is quoted just as it stands. But if anyone read the next paragraph, they would see that I went on to say that if there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that — in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we’re starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves. That’s not an entirely despicable role for us to play.
This is the passage in Lovecraft’s Selected Letters
As you are aware, I have never been able to soothe myself with the sugary delusions of religion; for these things stand convicted of the utmost absurdity in light of modern scientific knowledge. With Nietzsche, I have been forced to confess that mankind as a whole has no goal or purpose whatsoever, but is a mere superfluous speck in the unfathomable vortices of infinity and eternity. Accordingly, I have hardly been able to experience anything which one could call real happiness; or to take as vital an interest in human affairs as can one who still retains the hallucination of a “great purpose” in the general plan of terrestrial life. … However, I have never permitted these circumstances to react upon my daily life; for it is obvious that although I have “nothing to live for”, I certainly have just as much as any other of the insignificant bacteria called human beings. I have thus been content to observe the phenomena about me with something like objective interest, and to feel a certain tranquillity which comes from perfect acceptance of my place as an inconsequential atom. In ceasing to care about most things, I have likewise ceased to suffer in many ways. There is a real restfulness in the scientific conviction that nothing matters very much; that the only legitimate aim of humanity is to minimise acute suffering for the majority, and to derive whatever satisfaction is derivable from the exercise of the mind in the pursuit of truth (from Letter to Reinhardt Kleiner (14 September 1919), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 86-87).
I think my own philosophy of life is some sort of juxtaposition of these two…
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