We’re nearly at the end of a long week and I’ve got neither the time nor the energy for a lengthy post, so here’s a bit of a pick-me-up in the form of a classic bit of Fats Waller. Thomas Wright Waller was born in 1904 and died (of pneumonia) on a train travelling across the United States in 1943. Although he’s usually thought of as an entertainer who specialized in comic versions of popular songs, he was undoubtedly a brilliant jazz musician and an especially accomplished exponent of Harlem Stride piano. Anyway, I heard a bit of this track on a TV advert last night and it seemed both fun and topical so I thought I’d share it and see if people enjoy it as much as I did; in the famous words of Mr Waller “One never knows, do one?”….
Follow @telescoperSpring Cleaning
Posted in Jazz with tags Fats Waller, Spring Cleaning on April 26, 2013 by telescoperBreaking down a breakdown
Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags Dean Burnett, Nervous Breakdown, neuroscience, Panic Disorder, Physics, reductionism on April 25, 2013 by telescoperA blog piece by Dean Burnett I read on on the Grauniad website yesterday set me thinking about whether I should post a personal comment in reaction to it. I never know what is the appropriate way to draw the line between the private and the public on In the Dark but since having a blog is clearly an exercise in self-indulgence anyway I thought I’d go ahead and write a piece.
Dean’s piece is about nervous breakdowns, but it’s really about why “nervous breakdown” is not a very good name for what it purports to describe. Regular readers of this blog (both of them) will know that I went through one last year, and one thing I do remember is the disapproval that the term “nervous breakdown” provoked when I used it during my subsequent course of therapy. Apparently it’s a bit frowned-upon among professionals in the field.
Here is Dean (who is a neuroscientist in his day job) on the subject:
The term nervous breakdown is actually surprisingly old, and stems from a time when both “nervous” and “breakdown” arguably had different meanings to their modern ones. It seems the “breakdown” element refers to a breakdown in the same way that cars or other machines can break down. And nervous just refers to the nervous tissue. So originally it meant a fault or error in the nervous tissue that controls the body. And suddenly my interpretation doesn’t seem so literal.
But this doesn’t mean it’s an invalid term, it’s just more of a rule-of-thumb or generalisation used to refer to what happens when someone becomes psychologically unable to function as normal. In the simplest sense it could be said that, mentally speaking, a nervous breakdown occurs when an individual finds that the number of things that they are able to cope with is lower than the number of things that they have to cope with.
That seems to me to sum up very sensibly why the term is not very useful for an expert: it’s too vague, in that there are so many quite different things that might cause a person to become “psychologically unable to function as normal”. But it also explains quite well why its usage persists in popular language, in that the state of being “”psychologically unable to function as normal” is not as uncommon you might think. Anyway, if someone says they’ve had a nervous breakdown it gives at least a general idea of what they’ve experienced, although the specifics vary widely from individual to individual.
I hope you’ll bear with me if I illustrate this with some personal observations in the light of my own experiences.
I’ve suffered from a form of panic disorder for many years. Actually even that term has a very broad definition, so that different individuals experience different forms of panic attacks and they can also take very different forms for the same individual. For me, a “typical” panic episode begins with a fairly generalized feeling of apprehension or dread. Sometimes that’s as far as it goes. However, more often, there follows a period of increasingly heightened awareness of things moving in my peripheral vision that I can’t keep track of. This leads to a sense of being surrounded by threats of various kinds and panic ensues. Usually, at that point, I run.
A typical panic episode lasts only a few minutes, but that’s not the end of it. For a considerable period (hours) afterwards I find myself in a state of hypervigilance during which I’m such a bundle of nerves that the slightest sound or movement can trigger a repeat.
I tend to think of these episodes as being a bit like earthquakes. The milder ones happen fairly frequently, but they’re quite easy to cope with. I have altered my behaviour to avoid places likely to trigger them (see below) and to be aware of appropriate exit strategies. The more severe episodes are much harder to deal with, though, and when one starts there’s nothing I can do apart from try to find somewhere that feels safe, wait for it to pass and then just get through the aftermath, hoping for no aftershocks.
In Dean’s piece he writes about the different stressors that can trigger a breakdown. In my case it was a bit more complicated than that. Thinking about the milder attacks I find it very difficult to identify specific triggers – they seem to occur more-or-less randomly. However, I can cope with this low-level “noise” pretty well. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it, at least. The more severe attacks seem more likely to be triggered by specific places, especially if they’re crowded with people moving around – although I don’t always have a problem in places like that. To give an example, crossing the main concourse at Victoria Station is, for me, like descending into the abyss; I simply can’t do it, and have to go outside the station to get between the trains and the underground station. Paddington Station, on the other hand, is fine. Weird.
I think the probability of one of these episodes is also influenced by background levels of stress arising from other independent things. Anyway, last year I got into a state in which I was experiencing multiple episodes per day. I couldn’t sleep or eat for over a week, and couldn’t leave the house for fear of experiencing another major problem. I think “nervous breakdown” is a pretty apt description for that period, but my breakdown was caused not by a new problem, but the amplification of an old problem to completely intolerable levels.
The reason for writing about the anatomy of my breakdown in this context is twofold. One part is just to reinforce Dean’s point that a “nervous breakdown” can be triggered by many different circumstances and conditions. Mine is probably an unusual example, but I think everybody else’s is too.
The other reason is to confess how frustrating it is to be a physicist who has experienced a thing like that. It seems natural that having experienced such an episode I should want or need to try to make sense of it, but I’ve struggled to do that. The way we’re used to thinking about things in physics is to make simple models that capture the relatively simple cause-and-effect relationships between relatively few variables, usually based on the objective analysis of data controlled experiments and/or systematic observations. This all involves trying to break down a phenomenon into its component parts so as to look at their separate action and thus establish the simple rules (if there are any) that govern the overall behaviour.
The trouble with this analytic approach is that the human brain and its interactions with the external world are far too complicated and non-linear to be approached in the simple-minded way we physicists usually do things. Even if you accept that the brain is basically a collection of atoms communicating with each other using electrical impulses, that doesn’t mean that it’s useful to try to describe its action using atomic physics and electromagnetic theory.
On top of all that, there’s the issue that neuroscience is a subject I know very little about at a technical level. There’s only room in my feeble little brain for my own specialism, so I lack the knowledge needed even to understand the literature.
So although I got over my breakdown, it has left me with a huge number of questions I don’t even know how to begin to answer. What is happening in my brain when a panic episode begins? What is going on with my peripheral vision when it goes awry like it does? Why do some particular places or circumstances trigger an attack but other, apparently similar, ones don’t?
I don’t suppose anyone out to answer these questions, but if any neuroscientists out there happen to read this piece I would be grateful if they could recommend appropriate literature, as long as it’s simple enough for an astrophysicist to read…
Follow @telescoperHFLS3: the earliest Starburst yet!
Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags galaxy evolution, Hermes Survey, Herschel Atlas, Herschel Space Observatory, Starburst Galaxy on April 24, 2013 by telescoperOnce again I’ve spent all day engaged in the enjoyable but exhausting task of interview for new faculty positions, which means that I haven’t really got time for a proper blog today. What I can do, however, is shamelessly rip off a nice press release produced by the good folks here at the University of Sussex about a discovery that has been attracting a lot of press coverage since it was published last week in Nature; the paper is also available on the arXiv. If you’ve followed this blog for a while you will know than when I was at Cardiff I got interested in a large project called the Herschel Atlas survey, which is a large area galaxy survey carried out using the Herschel Space Observatory. This result is not from Herschel ATLAS but from a complementary deeper survey called Hermes, also performed using the Herschel Space Observatory and it is of a very distant and very bright starburst galaxy (a type of galaxy which, as its name suggests, in which stars are forming at a much higher rate than a “normal” galaxy).
Incidentally, although Herschel is now extremely short of the Helium it needs to keep itself cool, it is still making observations running on empty, as it were.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got time to write. The rest is just copied from the press release I mentioned…
–o–
University of Sussex astronomers using the Herschel Space Observatory are part of an international team that has discovered a distant star-forming galaxy that challenges the current theories of galaxy evolution.
Seen when the Universe was less than a billion years old (880 million years) the galaxy, known only as “HFLS3”, is forming stars at a much faster rate than should be possible according to existing predictions. In the infant Universe, galaxies should have been forming stars at a much slower rate than is observed in HFLS3.
HFLS3 is so distant that the light we see from it has taken 13 billion years to get to Earth.
The Herschel observatory1 has been surveying the distant cosmos and finding hundreds of thousands of distant galaxies. Images produced by Herschel show how fast these distant galaxies are forming stars.
By determining the ages of the galaxies, astronomers have been building up a cosmic timeline of star formation, searching for when the first massive galaxies started churning out stars.
University of Sussex PhD student Peter Hurley, Dr Isaac Roseboom, Dr Anthony Smith, Dr Lingyu Wang and Professor Seb Oliver, who leads the HerMES2 survey that found the galaxy, analysed data from Herschel and built the HFLS3 galaxy as a computer model to discover what conditions are like in the galaxy.
Peter says: “The stars being born in HFLS3 heat up the surrounding material within the galaxy. This material contains gas molecules such as carbon monoxide and water, which emit their own unique signatures when heated. By comparing the telescope observations with models, we can gain a better understanding of the conditions within this extreme galaxy.”
The galaxy “HFLS3” was first seen as a small red dot in the Herschel images, and its colour is what first intrigued the team because red galaxies might be very distant.
The galaxy HFLS3 as revealed by Herschel and further ground-based telescope observations. Images: ESA/Herschel/HerMES/IRAM/GTC/W.M. Keck Observatory
Further investigations using optical and near-infrared telescopes the Gran Telescopio Canarias in the Canary Islands and the Keck Telescope in Hawaii helped to rule out any other effects that might cause the HFLS3 galaxy to look so bright.
It was observations with radio and millimetre-wave telescopes, such as the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in the French Alps, which determined that this tiny galaxy, only around one twentieth the size of our Milky Way, is seen at such an immense distance. These additional observations also showed that HFLS3 is incredibly rich in carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, forming compounds such as carbon monoxide, water and ammonia. These compounds reveal the physical processes at work in this distant galaxy.
Combined with the Herschel observations, these measurements allow the astronomers to deduce that this tiny star factory is producing stars around two thousand times faster than our own Milky Way, making it a type of galaxy known as a “starburst”. Environments like this do not exist on galaxy-wide scales in the Universe today.
Professor Oliver says: “We’ve shown that Herschel data can find these extreme examples. “The next step is to sift through the Herschel data more carefully, and try to deduce just how common such galaxies were in the early Universe. I am also very pleased that a Sussex PhD student has been able to make an important contribution to this work.”
Jamie Bock (Caltech, USA), who co-leads the HerMES survey with Professor Oliver, says: “This galaxy is just one spectacular example, but it’s telling us that early star formation like this is possible,” explains Jamie Bock, Caltech, and one of the leaders.
Dominik Riechers (Cornell University, USA), who led the HFLS3 study, says: “Looking for the first examples of these massive star factories is like searching for a needle in a haystack. We were hoping to find a galaxy at such vast distances, but we could not expect that they even existed that early on in the Universe.”
Follow @telescoperNeutrino Physics in a Small Universe
Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags Institute of Physics, Jeff Hartnell, neutrinos, Nova, Nova experiment, Particle Physics, University of Nottingham, University of Sussex on April 23, 2013 by telescoperI’ve only just got time for a quick lunchtime post before I head off to attend an afternoon of Mathematics presentations, but it’s a one of those nice bits of news that I like to mention on here from time to time.
It is my pleasure to pass on the wonderful news that one of my colleagues in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences here at the University of Sussex, Dr Jeff Hartnell,. has been awarded the High Energy Particle Physics prize of the Institute of Physics, which means that his name has now been added to the illustrious list of previous winners. The prize is awarded annually by the HEPP Group, a subject group in the Nuclear and Particle Physics Division of the IOP, to a researcher in the UK who has made an outstanding contribution to their field of study early in their career (within 12 years of being awarded their first degree).
There’s a very nice piece about this award here which reveals, amongst other things, that many moons ago at Nottingham I was Jeff’s undergraduate tutor! In fact Jeff also attended a third-year course on Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics I taught in those days. That he survived those experience and went on to be a world-leading physicist speaks volumes! Not only that, it’s also evidence that the world of physics is smaller than we sometimes suppose. I’ve crossed paths with a number of my new colleagues at various times in the past, but it’s particularly rewarding to see someone you taught as an undergraduate go on to a highly successful career as a scientist. Jeff was awarded a prestigious ERC grant this year too!
Jeff is currently in the USA helping to set up the largest-ever experiment in neutrinos to be built there, called NOvA. You can click on the preceding links for more technical details, and I also found this interesting video showing the NOvA detector being assembled. Particle physics experiments are never small, are they?
p.s. Why do they insist on writing “metric ton” instead of “tonne”?
Follow @telescoperDown with Fanatics!
Posted in Poetry with tags Down with Fanatics, Poetry, Roger Woddis on April 22, 2013 by telescoperIf I had my way with violent men
I’d simmer them in oil,
I’d fill a pot with bitumen
And bring them to the boil.
I execrate the terrorist
And those who harbour him,
And if I weren’t a moralist
I’d tear them limb from limb.
Fanatics are an evil breed
Whom decent men should shun;
I’d like to flog them till they bleed,
Yes, every mother’s son,
I’d like to tie them to a board
And let them taste the cat,
While giving praise, oh thank the Lord,
That I am not like that.
For we should love the human kind,
As Jesus taught us to,
And those who don’t should be struck blind
And beaten black and blue;
I’d like to roast them in a grill
And listen to them shriek,
Then break them on the wheel until
They turned the other cheek.
by Roger Woddis (1917-1993)
Follow @telescoperOperation Wheeler
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Brighton, March for England, Operation Wheeler. on April 21, 2013 by telescoperIt has been a bit scary in Brighton today. The so-called March for England, took place this afternoon organized by the neo-Nazi English Defence League (no link to their website from me, you’ll observe). There was a massive police presence in town, at first concentrated on the seafront where the march was routed.
There were localized brawls between marchers and counter-demonstrators from the outset, and after the march ended various splinter groups from both dispersed around the city trying to cause disruption. The town has been at a standstill since about 2.30 as police sealed off isolated disturbances and protected bystanders. I was with a group of people near the Sea Life centre when half a dozen EDL thugs began hurling abuse and moving towards us in a very threatening way. The police intervened promptly and the agressors moved off. They may have subsequently joined a melee that then developed in the Old Steine and was attended by riot police but which did not last very long.
The number of marchers was about 150 (my estimate) with a similar number of counter-demonstrators; they were probably outnumbered by the Police, who had brought in reinforcements from elsewhere to assist with Operation Wheeler, their name for today’s huge activity. I saw vans from Hertfordshire, Norfolk and the City of London.
Anyway, with no serious injuries reported, I’d say Operation Wheeler was a success. I’ve heard that 13 arrests were made, for a variety of offences. I think the police did a very good job in extremely difficult circumstances.
Why have this march in Brighton? I don’t know, but judging by what I heard, the typical EDL marcher is not very fond of gay people and they probably came here because of Brighton’s large gay community and embrace of other forms of diversity. Racism, homophobia and other forms of prejudice seem often to be acquired as a package. To be honest, I think the EDL just came looking for trouble and didn’t really care that much where it was to be found.
Though the only violent acts I saw were carried out by EDL supporters there were extremists on the other side also spoiling for a fight. I think it would have been far more effective if the counter-protest had been totally peaceful. If thugs come looking for trouble, the worse thing to do is meet them at their level because that’s exactly what they want. The way to defeat people like the EDL is to behave better than they do which, based on today’s evidence, is by no means difficult..
The seafront remained closed for some time after the march had finished…
You can’t see very well in this image, but in the background a group of EDL supporters are being detained by the police.
These police horses are right next to “Legends”. There was a nice bit of banter going on between them and the largely gay clientele drinking out front.
Police standing by, just in case, as business returns to normal
Police vans from Norfolk and the City of London. I can’t be sure, but I think the seagull was local.
Old Steine, around 4pm. Ongoing disturbances in the background contained by police; nothing too serious by the look of it.
Counting for the REF
Posted in Open Access, Science Politics with tags funding, HEFCE, Physics, Research Excellence Framework, research impact, Science Politics, SCOPUS on April 20, 2013 by telescoperIt’s a lovely day in Brighton and I’m once again on campus for an Admissions Event at Sussex University, this time for the Mathematics Department in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. After all the terrible weather we’ve had since I arrived in February, it’s a delight and a relief to see the campus at its best for today’s crowds. Anyway, now that I’ve finished my talk and the subsequent chats with prospective students and their guests I thought I’d do a quick blogette before heading back home and preparing for this evenings Physics & Astronomy Ball. It’s all go around here.
What I want to do first of all is to draw attention to a very nice blog post by a certain Professor Moriarty who, in case you did not realise it, dragged himself away from his hiding place beneath the Reichenbach Falls and started a new life as Professor of Physics at Nottingham University. Phil Moriarty’s piece basically argues that the only way to really judge the quality of a scientific publication is not by looking at where it is published, but by peer review (i.e. by getting knowledgeable people to read it). This isn’t a controversial point of view, but it does run counter to the current mania for dubious bibliometric indicators, such as journal impact factors and citation counts.
The forthcoming Research Excellence Framework involves an assessment of the research that has been carried out in UK universities over the past five years or so, and a major part of the REF will be the assessment of up to four “outputs” submitted by research-active members of staff over the relevant period (from 2008 to 2013). reading Phil’s piece might persuade you to be happy that the assessment of the research outputs involved in the REF will be primarily based on peer review. If you are then I suggest you read on because, as I have blogged about before, although peer review is fine in principle, the way that it will be implemented as part of the REF has me deeply worried.
The first problem arises from the scale of the task facing members of the panel undertaking this assessment. Each research active member of staff is requested to submit four research publications (“outputs”) to the panel, and we are told that each of these will be read by at least two panel members. The panel comprises 20 members.
As a rough guess let’s assume that the UK has about 40 Physics departments, and the average number of research-active staff in each is probably about 40. That gives about 1600 individuals for the REF. Actually the number of category A staff submitted to the 2008 RAE was 1,685.57 FTE (Full-Time Equivalent), pretty close to this figure. At 4 outputs per person that gives 6400 papers to be read. We’re told that each will be read by at least two members of the panel, so that gives an overall job size of 12800 paper-readings. There is some uncertainty in these figures because (a) there is plenty of evidence that departments are going to be more selective in who is entered than was the case in 2008 and (b) some departments have increased their staff numbers significantly since 2008. These two factors work in opposite directions so not knowing the size of either it seems sensible to go with the numbers from the previous round for the purposes of my argument.
There are 20 members of the panel so 6400 papers submitted means that, between 29th November 2013 (the deadline for submissions) and the announcement of the results in December 2014 each member of the panel will have to have read 640 research papers. That’s an average of about two a day…
It is therefore blindingly obvious that whatever the panel does do will not be a thorough peer review of each paper, equivalent to refereeing it for publication in a journal. The panel members simply won’t have the time to do what the REF administrators claim they will do. We will be lucky if they manage a quick skim of each paper before moving on. In other words, it’s a sham.
Now we are also told the panel will use their expert judgment to decide which outputs belong to the following categories:
- 4* World Leading
- 3* Internationally Excellent
- 2* Internationally Recognized
- 1* Nationally Recognized
- U Unclassified
There is an expectation that the so-called QR funding allocated as a result of the 2013 REF will be heavily weighted towards 4*, with perhaps a small allocation to 3* and probably nothing at all for lower grades. The word on the street is that the weighting for 4* will be 9 and that for 3* only 1. “Internationally recognized” will be regarded as worthless in the view of HEFCE. Will the papers belonging to the category “Not really understood by the panel member” suffer the same fate?
The panel members will apparently know enough about every single one of the papers they are going to read in order to place them into one of the above categories, especially the crucial ones “world-leading” or “internationally excellent”, both of which are obviously defined in a completely transparent and objective manner. Not. The steep increase in weighting between 3* and 4* means that this judgment could mean a drop of funding that could spell closure for a department.
We are told that after forming this judgement based on their expertise the panel members will “check” the citation information for the papers. This will be done using the SCOPUS service provided (no doubt at considerable cost) by Elsevier, which by sheer coincidence also happens to be a purveyor of ridiculously overpriced academic journals. No doubt Elsevier are on a nice little earner peddling meaningless data for the HECFE bean-counters, but I have no confidence that they will add any value to the assessment process.
There have been high-profile statements to the effect that the REF will take no account of where the relevant “outputs” are published, including a pronouncement by David Willetts. On the face of it, that would suggest that a paper published in the spirit of Open Access in a free archive would not be disadvantaged. However, I very much doubt that will be the case.
I think if you look at the volume of work facing the REF panel members it’s pretty clear that citation statistics will be much more important for the Physics panel than we’ve been led to believe. The panel simply won’t have the time or the breadth of understanding to do an in-depth assessment of every paper, so will inevitably in many cases be led by bibliometric information. The fact that SCOPUS doesn’t cover the arXiv means that citation information will be entirely missing from papers just published there.
The involvement of a company like Elsevier in this system just demonstrates the extent to which the machinery of research assessment is driven by the academic publishing industry. The REF is now pretty much the only reason why we have to use traditional journals. It would be better for research, better for public accountability and better economically if we all published our research free of charge in open archives. It wouldn’t be good for academic publishing houses, however, so they’re naturally very keen to keep things just the way they are. The saddest thing is that we’re all so cowed by the system that we see no alternative but to participate in this scam.
Incidentally we were told before the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise that citation data would emphatically not be used; we were also told afterwards that citation data had been used by the Physics panel. That’s just one of the reasons why I’m very sceptical about the veracity of some of the pronouncements coming out from the REF establishment. Who knows what they actually do behind closed doors? All the documentation is shredded after the results are published. Who can trust such a system?
To put it bluntly, the apparatus of research assessment has done what most bureaucracies eventually do; it has become entirely self-serving. It is imposing increasingly ridiculous administrative burdens on researchers, inventing increasingly arbitrary assessment criteria and wasting increasing amounts of money on red tape which should actually be going to fund research.
And that’s all just about “outputs”. I haven’t even started on “impact”….
Follow @telescoperRemembering David Axon
Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags David Axon, Royal Astronomical Society, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Sussex on April 19, 2013 by telescoperOver the past couple of days there has been a special Memorial Event to remember David Axon, my predecessor as Head of the School of Mathematics and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex, who passed away suddenly on 5th April 2012. The memorial event has consisted of a two-day specialist discussion meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society about David’s primary research interest – Massive Black Holes in Galaxies – here on the Sussex campus and will end this afternoon with a Memorial Service in the Meeting House Chapel, which will include music and poetry.
Professor David John Axon (1951-2012)
Although I knew David Axon through his published work I didn’t know him very well at all personally. In fact we only met a couple of times. The first of those occasions was when we’d both applied for a certain job. He was interviewed before me and came into the room in which I was waiting when he had finished. You would never expect such a situation to be comfortable, but it turned out to be so because David was very friendly and direct. Those are precisely the qualities that I’ve heard described over the last few days by many people who knew him far better than I did. People say these qualities reflect his Northern heritage. I won’t argue with that, except to point out that he was born in Doncaster, i.e. in the Midlands….
As David’s successor here at Sussex all I can do is say that he clearly left the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences in excellent shape, which is testament to the energy and ability he brought to the job that I now hold. He set a very high standard. Equally clearly, David Axon is sorely missed, by staff and students alike, not just in MPS but throughout the University.
Such occasions are inevitably a bit sad, but this occasion is, as it should be, very much the celebration of a life and I’m sure David will live on in the memories of those who knew him closely, as it will for one person who met him only briefly. Remembering David Axon is something many people will do for a very long time.
Follow @telescoperTechnical Support
Posted in Education with tags Cardiff University, Higher Educatuion Academy, STEM Technician of the Year, Steven Baker on April 18, 2013 by telescoperWe’re approaching the end of term here at the University of Sussex and there are lots of things that need to get finished before then, so it’s a very busy day. Just time for a quick post to pass on some great news and a comment.
One of my colleagues when I worked in the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University, Steven Baker, has won an award for being the best STEM Technician in the category of Physical Sciences in the whole country! This is an new award set up by the Higher Education Academy, so Steven is the inaugural winner of it. Although I suspect he won’t enjoy being the centre of attenti0n very much I’m very pleased that he won this award. Among many other things he was central in setting up the gear that enabled current 4th-year Cardiff MPhys students to have a much wider selection of modules, by accessing lectures from Swansea University by video link.
I’m also delighted that this award has been set up generally because I feel very strongly that the contribution made by support staff in university departments. No Physics department can run with out a dedicated crew of technicians who apply their expertise in both teaching and research laboratories, but there are many more people – clerical staff, computer officers, etc – without whom many of our activities would grind to a halt. None of these support staff gets the recognition they deserve; they are often poorly paid and lack an appropriate career structure that reflects the importance of the work they do.
So Steven’s award is an occasion not just for him to celebrate, but also to remind us academics that we couldn’t do what we do without people like him doing all the difficult stuff!
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In the Dark 