The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing dear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
by Emily Brontë (1818-1848)
Follow @telescoperIt’s cold again, and it’s just started snowing, so here’s some wintry music. I know that the recording of Winterreise by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears is by no means everyone’s favourite version, but I like it a lot. There’s the added bonus in this video of a glimpse of the art of Caspar David Friedrich.
P.S. Das Wirtshaus means “The Inn”, but in the poem by Müller that forms the lyric for this song, the inn is actually a graveyard…
Follow @telescoperWe’re currently enduring a spell of cold weather here in Cardiff, although I think it might be rather milder here then elsewhere in the UK. My garden thermometer showed a mere -5 C when I looked at it at 7.15 this morning. The other day we had a meeting of half-a-dozen people in one of our large teaching rooms and it was absolutely freezing. I don’t know what was wrong with the heating. Yesterday I actually did a lecture in the same room, but with 80-odd “warm bodies” (or “students” as they are sometimes known) in there, it was bearable.
The cold here of course is nothing compared with that endured by Captain Scott‘s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, but I mention it here for a number of reasons. First, the centenary of the death of Scott and his companions is coming up next month; the tragedy unfolded in March 1912. There’s actually a very special concert coming up next week, featuring Vaughan Williams’ wonderful music written for the classic film Scott of the Antarctic (which, incidentally, you can actually watch in full on Youtube). I’m definitely going along, and will probably review the performance next week, but quite a number of my colleagues are also going, for reasons which will become obvious..
The concert is special because of the very strong connections between the Scott Expedition and the City of Cardiff. Much of the financial support needed to fund the trek to the South Pole was raised from Cardiff businessmen and Scott’s ship, the Terra Nova, actually set sail from Cardiff (in June 1910) on its journey, first to New Zealand and thence to Antarctica.
Incidentally, an article in this morning’s Western Mail relates to a historic painting of the departure of the Terra Nova which is about to be auctioned:
Cardiff Bay has certainly changed a great deal since 1910, but quite a lot is recognizable, especially the Pierhead Building, which can be seen to the right. The actual docks, the locations of which are revealed by the lines of masts of tall ships, are now mainly filled in. But there is at least one other reminder of this occasion to be found at Cardiff Bay, a large waterfront bar itself called Terra Nova…
There’s also a deep connection with the South Pole, and the Antarctic generally, for many members of the Astronomy Instrumentation Group here in the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University, quite a few of whom have actually been to the South Pole in connection with various experiments, including Quad, Boomerang and BLAST, because of the unique observing conditions there.
Follow @telescoperOne must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955).
Follow @telescoperI started teaching Nuclear and Particle Physics to the 3rd year Physics students today. I decided to warm up with a few basics about elementary particles and their properties – all pretty standard stuff and no hairy mathematics. Cue pretty picture:
This doesn’t show the whole picture, of course, because for every particle there is an antiparticle, so there are antiquarks and antileptons. The existence of these was first suggested by Paul Dirac in 1928 based on his investigations into relativistic quantum theory, basically because invariance of special relativity is compatible with the existence of both positive and negative energy states, i.e.
has two sets of solutions, one with 
The alternative, and even wackier, explanation of antimatter I usually mention in these lectures derives, I think, from Feynam who noted that in quantum (wave) mechanics the time evolution of particles involves things like
which have the property that changing 
This is a useful convention from the point-of-view of using such diagrams in calculations, but it allows one also to raise the wacky bar to a higher level still, to a suggestion that, coincidentally, was doing the rounds very recently – namely whether it is possible that there may really be only one electron in the entire Universe:
….I received a telephone call one day at the graduate college at Princeton from Professor Wheeler, in which he said, “Feynman, I know why all electrons have the same charge and the same mass” “Why?” “Because, they are all the same electron!” And, then he explained on the telephone, “suppose that the world lines which we were ordinarily considering before in time and space—instead of only going up in time were a tremendous knot, and then, when we cut through the knot, by the plane corresponding to a fixed time, we would see many, many world lines and that would represent many electrons, except for one thing. If in one section this is an ordinary electron world line, in the section in which it reversed itself and is coming back from the future we have the wrong sign to the proper time—to the proper four velocities—and that’s equivalent to changing the sign of the charge, and, therefore, that part of a path would act like a positron.”—Feynman, Richard, Nobel Lecture December 11, 1965
In other words, a single electron can appear in many different places simultaneously if it is allowed to travel backwards and forwards in time…
I think this is a brilliant idea, especially if you like science fiction stories, but there’s a tiny problem with it in terms of science fact. In order for it to work there should be as many positrons in the Universe as there are electrons. Where are they?
It’s a cold and gloomy morning as befitting the first of February, so I thought you might appreciate a touch of the warmth of the South of France. This is Germont’s Aria Di Provenza il mar, il suol from La Traviata by Giuseppi Verdi. The recording – made, incredibly, in 1907 – provides a rare chance to hear the magnificent baritone of the legendary Titta Ruffo whose nickname, appropriately enough, was Voce del Lione “Voice of the Lion”. Despite the limitations of the recording, which required the aria to be cut down to fit within 3 minutes, this is still a stunning performance which makes most modern-day baritones sound like a wet weekend. If you listen carefully right at the end you’ll hear someone say “bravo”…
Follow @telescoperI’ve spent nearly all day getting my notes ready to start teaching Accidental Raunchy Slippers Nuclear and Particle Physics tomorrow to the massed ranks of Third-Year Physics students here in the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University. I’ve drawn so many Feynman diagrams in the last couple of days that I’ve started to see them everywhere I look, even in entirely unexpected contexts, as in this example from the excellent PHD Comics…
In order to develop further the problem-solving skills of students in the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University, it has been decided to list the entries in the Spring Semester module catalogue in the form of anagrams.
For example, here is the list for third year students doing basic courses in physics SHY PICS
PX3206 A CHEMIST’S TACTICAL SIN
PX3211 VASTLY DIMMED CAPACITANCE HASH
PX3226 MEDIC’S CROUTONS
PX3233 CRISPY HASSLE
PX3235 AN ANARCHY, SO MINDLESS NOTES
PX3237 ACCIDENTAL RAUNCHY SLIPPERS
while those taking courses involving ROMAN TOYS also have
PX3231 POSY ALCOHOLIC’S GYM
PX3212 SLITHERY SCALPS
Students doing SCUM I also get to do
PX3214 SHUTS NOISY DENS
and DECIMAL students have
PX3234 A RUNT CALLED SODIUM
Students also have to do their JET CROP, of course…
Oh, and I forgot that 3rd year students can also take
PX4215 PITY CHERISHES SAGGY HORN
I hope this clarifies the situation.
Follow @telescoperMy views about the academic journal racket are on record. Of all the profiteering outfits out there, the commercial publisher Elsevier is one of the worst offenders, for the following reasons:
I believe the business practices of Elsevier are detrimental to the open exchange of information on which scientific progress depends, so I have added my name to the list here of academics who refuse to publish in, referee for, or do editorial work on behalf of any Elsevier journal. If you wish to add your name to the list you can do so here.
A list of journals published by Elsevier can be found here.
Follow @telescoperI was beginning to think I’m the only person in the Universe who doesn’t like chocolate, so I’m grateful to this blogger for showing me I’m not alone!
Yesterday Cadbury were “promoting” their revolting “Creme Eggs” on Twitter. These are particularly vile: sickly sugar-soaked globules of a mixture of pus and mucus, encased in solidified baby poo. Eat one and puke.
I don’t like them, you see.
