In the Dark

A Census of the Ridiculous

Posted in Bad Statistics, History with tags 2011 Census, health, Religion, Royal Mail, tax on March 12, 2011 by telescoper

My form for the 2011 Census arrived yesterday. Apparently they were all posted out on Monday, so that’s 5 days in the post. Par for the course for the Royal Mail these days. I’m slightly surprised it arrived at all.

There’s a hefty £1000 fine for not completing the Census, so I suppose I’ll fill it in, despite my feeling that it’s both intrusive and unnecessary. What’s worse is that several of the questions are so badly designed that the information resulting will be useless.

For example, according to the census guide:

Very careful consideration is given to the questions included in the census. Questions must meet the needs of a substantial number of users in order that the census is acceptable to the public and yields good quality data. The questions are selected following several rounds of consultation with:

central and local government
academia
health authorities
the business community
groups representing ethnic minorities and others with special interests and concerns

Hang on. The “business community”? Why should they be consulted? What do they want with my personal information? I thought the census data was for planning public services! On the other hand, when everything is privatised maybe all our personal data will be flogged off to the private sector anyway.

The 2011 Census is the first one to include a question on health. According to the saturation advertising about the census, this question will help plan new hospitals and distribute NHS funding. So what is the new question, the answer to which will provide such valuable data? Here it is, together with the possible responses:

13. How is your health in general?

Very good
Good
Fair
Bad
Very Bad

And that’s it for “health”. Does anyone actually believe such a vague question is going to be of any use at all in planning NHS services? I certainly don’t.

And then there’s the famous question about religion.

20. What is your religion?

For a start I don’t think my religion or lack of it should be any concern to the government. To be fair, however, this question is marked as “voluntary” so respondents are allowed not to answer it without getting locked up in the Tower of London. But in any case it’s a leading question and should never have been included in the census in this form anyway. “Do you have a religion and, if so, what is it?” would have been much better.

I could go on, but I’ve got better things to do today.

I’ll just say this last thing about the Census. Most of it clearly has nothing whatever to do with planning public services. In fact the government already holds most of the information about your private circumstances the form demands. The Census is nothing more an opportunity for the government to cross-check tax, benefit or other records in the hope of finding inaccuracies. In other words, Big Brother is watching you.

And the cost of all this snooping? A whopping £500 million, more than double the cost of the 2001 Census, and all of it at a time of huge cuts to public services. You have to laugh, don’t you?

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Why’s the Sun not Green?

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags Astrophysics, black-body radiation, chlorophyll, green, stellar spectra on March 11, 2011 by telescoper

It’s Friday afternoon and time for a mildly frivolous post.

I’ve been recently been teaching first-year astrophysics students (and others) about the radiation emitted by stars, and how stellar spectra can be used to diagnose their physical properties.

Received wisdom is that the continuous spectrum of light emitted by stars like the Sun is roughly of black-body form, with a peak wavelength inversely proportional to the surface temperature of the star. Here are some examples of black-body curves to illustrate the point.

The Sun has a surface temperature of about 6000 K – actually, more like 5800 K but we won’t quibble. The peak wavelength for the Sun’s spectrum therefore corresponds to bluey-green light, which is why the Sun appears … er… yellow.

Anyone care to offer an explanation as to why the Sun isn’t green? Answers on a postcard or, preferably, through the comments box.

And while you’re at it, you might want to comment on why, if the Sun produces so much green light, chlorophyll is actually green?

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Astronomy Look-alikes, No. 53

Posted in Astronomy Lookalikes with tags Gerry Gilmore, Mr Bean on March 11, 2011 by telescoper

I think there’s a similarity in visual appearance between Professor Gerry Gilmore of Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge and the hilarious comic creation Mr Bean, as played by Rowan ~~Robinson~~ Atkinson. I wonder if by any chance they might be related?

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Sentimental Education

Posted in Education, The Universe and Stuff with tags education, Lecturing, Particle Physics, Physics on March 10, 2011 by telescoper

We’ve now reached the half-way point of the Spring Semester, which means that my teaching load has just doubled; I do the “Particle” bit of a third-year module on “Nuclear and Particle Physics”, which means I have 11 lectures from now until the end of the Semester to tell the students everything I know about particle physics. More than enough time.

Anyway, the first lecture today, as it was last year, was all about Natural Units. I always find it fun doing this, partly because the students stare at me as if I’ve taken leave of my senses. Come to think of it, they do that anyway.

The other night I was having a drink with some colleagues after work. Various topics came up, but we spent a bit of time talking about teaching. It appears that I’m in a small minority of my physics colleagues in that I actually like teaching. In fact, the older I’ve got the more I enjoy it. There’s always a limit, of course, and I wouldn’t like to do so much teaching that I couldn’t do other things, especially research, but I wouldn’t like to be in a job that didn’t involve teaching at all. I think most of my colleagues would jump at the chance to abandon teaching altogether. I can’t understand that attitude, mainly because I find it so rewarding myself, but I’m in a minority of one about so many things nowadays that I’ve ceased worrying about it.

I do sometimes wonder why I find teaching so rewarding. Perhaps it’s because I’m already middle-aged and don’t have any kids of my own. Teaching at least gives me a chance to play some sort of a role in someone else’s development as a person. I can’t guarantee that it’s necessarily a positive role, but there you are. Another thing is that sometimes when I travel about at conferences and whatnot I get to meet people I taught years ago. It means a lot when they say they remember the lectures, especially if they’ve now embarked on scientific careers of their own.

One of the problems of the government’s push for greater concentration of research funds and the simultaneous slashing of teaching budgets is that the quality of University teaching is bound to suffer. If research funding is allocated only to self-styled research “superstars” then Universities will obviously spare them from other duties. Teaching loads for ordinary foot soldiers will increase, with obvious consequences in decreasing enthusiasm among lecturing staff.

It’s already the case that teaching is grossly undervalued, and it’s probably worse in physics departments than anywhere else because, without research funding, most would simply go bust. Teaching funding is nowhere near sufficient to cover the real cost of a physics degree and in any case we can’t deliver advanced physics training without access to the research labs.

On top of this there’s the way teaching is entirely disregarded in promotion cases. On paper, promotion to Professor requires demonstrated commitment to teaching. In reality, all that committees care about is how much research income the candidate brings in. Excellence in teaching counts very little, if anything at all, in the assessment of a promotion case. I think this situation must change, especially with tuition fees set to rise to unprecedented levels, but all the forces currently at play are acting in precisely the wrong direction.

If we concentrate physics research funding any further then we’ll have a small number of rich institutions stuffed full of research professors whom the undergraduates never see. The less successful academics in these departments will be put on teaching-only contracts, not because they like teaching but because their alternative is Her Majesty’s Dole. Meanwhile, less favoured research labs – i.e. those who don’t get lucky in the REF – won’t be able to sustain world-class research or teaching activities and will be forced to shut up shop. Further research concentration is bad news all round for the higher education system.

But I digress.

One of the other things we talked about in the pub was the National Lottery. As regular readers of this blog might know, I put the princely sum of £1 on the lottery every Saturday. Some think this is strange, but I see it partly as one of those little rituals we all invent for ourselves and partly as a small price to pay for a little frisson of excitement when the numbers are drawn.

But I do sometimes wonder what on Earth I would do if I won a multi-million pound jackpot prize. Would I quit my job? Would I quit teaching? Actually, I’m not sure I would do either of those. If I could ditch the admin stuff, I would of course do so. I don’t have a car and have no interest in getting one, especially a fancy one. I don’t need a bigger house, or a yacht. In fact, frankly, there’s nothing that I would really want to buy that I couldn’t buy already. It’s not that I have a huge salary, just that I’m not exactly very materialistic.

So even if I were rich I’d probably carry on doing pretty much what I do now. And that thought brings home just how lucky we are, those of us working in academia. For all the frustrations, the fact remains that we are fortunate to be getting paid for things that we enjoy doing.

Or am I just a sentimental old fool?

Anyway, I feel a poll coming on…

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Batting for Astronomy

Posted in Science Politics with tags astronomy, cuts, funding, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Keith Mason, Roger Davies, STFC on March 9, 2011 by telescoper

I was too busy teaching this morning to watch streaming video of the meeting of the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee I referred to in a previous post, but then, being a confirmed Luddite, I rarely manage to get such things to work properly anyway. Or is it just that Parliament TV isn’t very good? Anyway, I did get the chance to do a fast-forward skim through the coverage, and also saw a few comments on Twitter.

By all accounts the two big hitters for astronomy, Professor Roger Davies and Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell both played good innings, watchful in defence, parrying the odd tricky delivery, but also scoring impressively when the opportunity arose. Dame Jocelyn, for example, got in a nice comment to the effect that the shortfall in observatory funding was equivalent to one banker’s bonus.

Any other reactions are welcomed through the comments box.

The e-astronomer (whose pseudonym is Andy Lawrence) has already blogged about the event, including a delightfully pithy summary of the written evidence submitted beforehand . But then Andy’s never reluctant to take the pith when the opportunity arises…

The thing that depresses me most is the contrast between the forthright and well-considered performances of leading figures from the astronomy establishment with the bumbling efforts of the Chief Executive of STFC, Keith Mason. As Andy Lawrence points out, some of the latter’s responses to questions at the last session of the inquiry were downright misleading, giving the impression that he didn’t know what he was talking about. And that’s the more generous interpretation. Combine the poor grasp of detail with his generally unenthusiastic demeanour, and it becomes easy to see that one of the main reasons for the ongoing crisis at STFC is its Chief Executive.

I’ve been told off repeatedly in private for posting items on here that are severely critical of Professor Mason, sometimes on the grounds that my comments are ad hominem, a phrase so frequently misused on the net that it is in danger of losing its proper meaning. It’s not an “ad hominem” attack to state that a person is demonstrably useless at their job. I stand my ground. He should have gone years ago.

Unfortunately we still have to wait another year or so before a replacement Chief Executive will be installed at STFC. Good people elsewhere – both inside and outside science – have lost or are losing their jobs, because of the recession and cutbacks, through no fault of their own. Reality is much less harsh if you’re at the top.

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Aurora Borealis

Posted in Poetry, The Universe and Stuff with tags Aurora Borealis, Herman Melville on March 8, 2011 by telescoper

What power disbands the Northern Lights
After their steely play?
The lonely watcher feels an awe
Of Nature’s sway,
As when appearing,
He marked their flashed uprearing
In the cold gloom–
Retreatings and advancings,
(Like dallyings of doom),
Transitions and enhancings,
And bloody ray.

The phantom-host has faded quite,
Splendor and Terror gone
Portent or promise–and gives way
To pale, meek Dawn;
The coming, going,
Alike in wonder showing–
Alike the God,
Decreeing and commanding
The million blades that glowed,
The muster and disbanding–
Midnight and Morn.

by Herman Melville (1819-1891)

I Mean You

Posted in Jazz with tags I Mean You, Stan Tracey, Thelonious Monk on March 8, 2011 by telescoper

Another Thelonious Monk tune, this time I Mean You, played by the superb British pianist Stan Tracey, who will be 75 later this year. He’s not very well known outside the UK, but I think he’s as good as any living jazz piano player anywhere in the world. See if you agree. This is just a fragment of a performance, recorded in London about 5 years ago, in which he demonstrates the highly unusual technique he uses to make music that’s inspired by Monk and Duke Ellington but which nevertheless manages be always uniquely Stan Tracey…

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Astronomy Look-alikes, No. 52

Posted in Astronomy Lookalikes with tags Mike Barlow, William Shakespeare on March 8, 2011 by telescoper

Seeing Professor Mike Barlow‘s contribution to the written evidence submitted to the House of Common’s inquiry into particle physics and astronomy reminded me that he bears a striking resemblance to another noted man of letters…

1 Comment »

Referendum result: Wales said Yes (via Devolution Matters)

Posted in Uncategorized on March 8, 2011 by telescoper

Here’s an interesting analysis of the implications of the “Yes” vote in last week’s Referendum, written by an expert on constitutional matters relating to devolution. It’s useful reading for those of you unsure exactly what the vote was about and what the result means!

The results from the referendum on the National Assembly's legislative powers are now in. There's a very clear mandate for the Assembly to have primary law-making powers: the vote is 517,132 votes in favour, and 297,380 votes against (or 63.5 per cent to 36.5 per cent). There's news coverage from the BBC here and the official results from the Electoral Commission are here. Of the local authority areas used for counting, only Monmouthshire vote … Read More

via Devolution Matters

A Modest Proposal

Posted in Education, Science Politics with tags HEFCE, Higher Education, REF, research, Universities on March 7, 2011 by telescoper

Last week I posted a short item about the looming Kafka-esque nightmare that is the Research Excellence Framework. A few people commented to me in private that although they hate the REF and accept that it’s ridiculously expensive and time-consuming, they didn’t see any alternative. I’ve been thinking about it and thought I’d make a suggestion. Feel free to shoot it down in flames through the box at the end, but I’ll begin with a short introduction.

Those of you old enough to remember will know that before 1992 (when the old `polytechnics’ were given the go-ahead to call themselves `universities’) the University Funding Council – the forerunner of HEFCE – allocated research funding to universities by a simple formula related to the number of undergraduate students. When the number of universities suddenly increased this was no longer sustainable, so the funding agency began a series of Research Assessment Exercises to assign research funds (now called QR funding) based on the outcome. This prevented research money going to departments that weren’t active in research, most (but not all) of which were in the ex-Polys. Over the years the apparatus of research assessment has become larger, more burdensome, and incomprehensibly obsessed with “research concentration”. Like most bureaucracies it has lost sight of its original purpose and has now become something that exists purely for its own sake.

It’s especially indefensible at this time of deep cuts to university budgets that we are being forced to waste an increasingly large fraction of our decreasing budgets on staff-time that accomplishes nothing useful except pandering to the bean counters.

My proposal is to abandon the latest manifestation of research assessment mania, i.e. the REF, and return to a simple formula, much like the pre-1992 system, except that QR funding should be based on research student rather than undergraduate numbers.

There’s an obvious risk of game-playing, and this idea would only stand a chance of working at all if the formula involved the number of successfully completed research degrees over a given period .

I can also see an argument that four-year undergraduate students (e.g. MPhys or MSci students) also be included in the formula, as most of these involve a project that requires a strong research environment.

Among the advantages of this scheme are that it’s simple, easy to administer, would not spread QR funding in non-research departments, and would not waste hundreds of millions of pounds on bureaucracy that would be better spent on research. It would also maintain the current “dual support” system for research.

I’m sure you’ll point out disadvantages through the comments box!

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