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The Test Final and Final Examination Board

Posted in Cricket, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , on June 12, 2025 by telescoper

Had I not been obliged to attend this morning’s final Examination Board for Theoretical Physics programmes at Maynooth University, I would have been at Lord’s today watching Day 2 of the World Test Cricket final between Australia and South Africam where it is now the Tea interval. There certainly wouldn’t have been any cricket in Maynooth this morning, as there has been torrential rain all day so far, but the Exam Board went ahead and finished even before South Africa were all out in their first innings for 138, after late-order collapse, in response to Australia’s first innings total of 212.

As I already mentioned, today’s Examination Board we went through the results in the presence of our External Examiner. Since this is the end of the academic year, we also looked at the final grades of those students who are completing their studies this year in order to consider the classification of their degrees. Another (pleasant) duty of our Examination Board was to award prizes for the best performance, not just for finalists but for students at every stage, including the first year. These will be announced in due course.

But that’s not quite the end of it – there is an overall University Examination Board that covers all courses in the University to formally bring an end to the examination process. It is not until after all the Boards have done their business that the students get their marks. If all goes to plan, students will receive their final marks on Friday 27th June.

Soon after that, on Tuesday 1st July, we have a Consultation Day, where

Staff will be available in all Departments to discuss results with students. Students are entitled to see their examination scripts if they wish, these will be generally available on this day or at another mutually convenient time.

If I had my way we would actually give all students their marked examination scripts back as a matter of routine. Obviously examination scripts have to go through a pretty strict quality assurance process involving the whole paraphernalia of examination boards (including External Examiners), so the scripts can’t be given back immediately but once that process is complete there doesn’t seem to me any reason why we shouldn’t give their work, together with any feedback written on it,  back to the students in its entirety. I have heard it argued that under the provisions of the Data Protection Act students have a legal right to see what’s written on the scripts – as that constitutes part of their student record – but I’m not making a legalistic point here. My point is purely educational, based on the benefit to the student’s learning experience.

That’s one set of examination duties done and dusted, but not everything. Next Tuesday I am Internal Examiner for a PhD at Maynooth and, about a month from now, I have to travel to a foreign land to be an External Examiner. It’s all go…

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Sydney looking back

Posted in Biographical with tags , , , , on March 5, 2024 by telescoper

I am a bit jet-lagged, and don’t have the energy for anything too strenuous, so I thought I’d post a couple of reflections of my time in Sydney. Actually I wrote this piece yesterday but was so tired I forgot to post it!

The first thing I should say is that Sydney is a very fine city. I really enjoyed my time there. Although I had four weeks there are still many things I didn’t get to do. Had I been on holiday for a month I might have seen more, but I was actually working a lot of the time. Perhaps I’ll go back when I’ve retired! It was a last-minute decision to go, actually. I only decided in January to make the trip. Had I had more time to plan things I would have been more organized.

One issue with Sydney is that it is very expensive. That goes for food and drink as well as accommodation. I might have found a cheaper place to stay had I looked earlier, of course, but everyone there told me it was always difficult to find rental properties. A while ago I read a story about how and why many young Irish people are moving to Australia. Sydney is even more expensive than Dublin to live in, and there’s just as much difficulty in finding somewhere to rent. On the other hand, in Australia there is a lot more sunshine than in Ireland!

Sydney is also very cosmopolitan and culturally diverse. The most obvious sign of this is the huge range of different cuisines. I rented an apartment with a kitchen rather than a hotel room because I was there for so long that I thought I would do a significant amount of cooking. As it turned out, though, there were many relatively inexpensive eateries nearby, some of them very good indeed, so I didn’t cook all that much.

A Cockatoo or Three

Another thing that struck me at first was the huge difference in flora and fauna, especially the birds. I’ve mentioned some of them before but I should say something about the cockatoos. These are far more numerous than I’d imagined and are rather gregarious, often swooping around in large flocks. They are cute but somewhat deranged creatures, often very noisy and sometimes downright destructive. You don’t want to let one into your house. They are naturally inquisitive and use their strong beaks and dextrous claws to dismantle things. Like all indigenous birds, cockatoos are protected by law. I rather think they are aware of this immunity as they are very cheeky. Strange as they are, I got used to their squawking and screeching. I miss them a bit already.

Anyway, I’m now pretty much recovered from the jet lag – just in time for another flight. It’s going to be a busy ten days or so before I return to Barcelona. A student of mine has their viva examination next week. Although at Maynooth University the supervisor doesn’t attend these examinations, I feel I should be on hand to buy champagne and offer congratulations. And talking of congratulations, I just found out this morning that, after a number of postdoctoral positions, a former PhD student of mine has joined the staff at a UK university. I’m very happy about that – what special delight you feel when you hear one of your former PhD students has got a permanent job!

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Western Sydney

Posted in Biographical, Open Access with tags , , , , , , on February 26, 2024 by telescoper

Today I made a journey by train to Kingswood, a suburb of Sydney which is the location of one of the campuses of Western Sydney University (WSU). The journey of about 50 km takes about an hour on the stopping train (T1) from Sydney Central Station. I was intrigued that the final destination for the train I got was Emu Plains; I had visions of vast herds of Emus gathered there, but I had to get off the stop before the terminus so never saw them. There’s about a 20-minute walk to the campus from Kingswood Station. It was quite warm so I was grateful when one of my hosts offered me a lift back to Kingswood Station at the end of my visit.

The reason for my visit was set another seminar about Open Access Publishing in Astrophysics. Here are the slides:

Although I’ve given a talk based on more-or-less the same slides recently, it always comes out slightly different. There was a bigger audience than I expected in the room, supplemented by even more on Zoom. The topic of Open Access Publishing does seem to be pretty hot these days in Australia and there was quite a lively discussion. I have a feeling we might have a manuscript or two submitted from WSU before too long.

Kingswood is a far less affluent area than where I am staying in Ultimo, and WSU is an institution that’s very different from the University of Sydney itself, but it was good to see another side of the city, geographically as well as socially. Thank you to everyone who attended and, especially, to Luke Barnes for inviting me and for lunch and coffee!

On the train back into Sydney I noticed that trains going in the opposite direction where crammed full, with (mostly) teenage girls heading to Olympic Park for a Taylor Swift concert. My train, heading into Sydney was fairly empty by contrast and the journey back pleasant enough.

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A Manly Excursion

Posted in Architecture, Biographical with tags , , , , , on February 25, 2024 by telescoper

I realized this morning, with a shock, that I only have one more week in Sydney so I decided to cross off another of my things to do by taking the ferry (F1) from Circular Quay to Manly, so I could have a view of the Pacific Ocean. The most fun was on the way back, when a yacht race was under way in Sydney Harbour. Lots of small boats had come out to get a good view, many of them right in the ferry path. An officer of the Harbour Police on a jet ski was buzzing around politely inviting the offenders to get out of the way. At one point a quite large boat came right across our bow and the captain of the ferry had to sound the alarm. No harm was done, but that clown could have caused a serious accident.

Anyway, there are lots of Manly things in Manly: a Manly Wharf, Manly Beach, a Manly Bank, Manly Pharmacy and, as you can see in one picture, Manly Paradise; there’s even, as pointed out to me by Richard Easther, Manly Astrophysics. I only stayed long enough to have a Manly beer and some Manly Fish & Chips before heading back to Circular Quay.

Here are some snaps.

Anyway, here are a few little videos from my instagram page:

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Sydney, Ten Days in

Posted in Biographical with tags , , on February 14, 2024 by telescoper

Taking a few moments over breakfast to post about life in Sydney. This morning is cooler than it has been for a while and it’s all a bit rainy. It was very warm (by my standards) earlier in the week (up to 31°C) and very humid, culminating in thunderstorms but those were some way off in the distance so didn’t affect us greatly. Since then it’s been in the mid-20s with a mixture of clouds, light rain, and sunshine. You have to be careful here, though, as it is perfectly possible to get sunburn when it’s cloudy. I’m definitely glad I brought my hat.

Preparing for Fresher’s Fair
Fresher’s Fair

Other than the weather, the main thing at the University is that it’s Orientation Week, when the new students arrive. Campus has been much busier this week than it was last week, as you can see from the pictures above; I wanted to stand in the same spot for the second picture but there were too many people. Lectures start next week, for both new and returning students, so it should get even busier.

I’ve managed to book tickets for two different performances at the Opera, The Magic Flute and La Traviata. These weren’t cheap but I couldn’t resist seeing the Sydney Opera House from the inside. I’m also planning a trip to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, were there is a special exhibition of art by Wassily Kandinsky which I must see. I’m also going to travel around a bit to give a few talks in the Sydney area.

My diary is filling up, so the second half of this visit will be rather busier than the first, but it should all be interesting!

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Walkabout in Sydney

Posted in Biographical with tags , , , , , on February 10, 2024 by telescoper

It was a bit rainy this morning so my planned Saturday walk around Sydney was a bit truncated. I made it to Sydney Harbour but didn’t go on a boat trip, which I’ll do later. I didn’t have time to visit the Botanical Gardens or the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which are nearby, but will do so later. I was planning to take more pictures with my little compact camera too, but when I took it out I realized its battery was virtually flat and I had to use my phone camera instead. The light here is very different from Ireland! Fortunately I’m here long enough that I’ll have other opportunities for exploration.

My residence in Sydney is the district called Ultimo, which is very central and close to the University of Sydney campus. There is excellent public transport from here to Circular Quay, close to both the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, but I needed to stretch my legs so took a leisurely stroll of about an hour, my route taking me through Haymarket and Chinatown to Circular Quay. It being Chinese New Year, I took a detour to look at some of the preparations for two weeks of celebrations. I enjoyed the walk, which followed the tram line most of the way there, and it was getting rather warm in late afternoon so I returned by tram.

Anyway, after much fiddling about, I’ve managed to embed a video I put on Instagram. As you can hear, it was quite windy!

P.S. Here’s an interesting factoid for you: the population of Greater Sydney (5.3M) exceeds that of the entire Republic of Ireland (5.0M).

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University of Sydney, Physics, and Astronomy…

Posted in Biographical, History with tags , , , , on February 7, 2024 by telescoper

Here’s a gallery of random pictures I took on the way to the Physics Department at the University of Sydney this morning.

The academic year at the University of Sydney is about to start, with the new intake of students beginning to arrive next week and the first lectures taking place the week after that. The rows of tents are for the various student societies which will be hoping to recruit new members. The University was founded in 1850 and the architectural style of the older buildings on campus is what you might call Victorian Gothic Revival. There are also buildings dating from the 1920s, such as the Faculty of Medicine (1922) and the Physics Building (1924); the latter seems much bigger on the inside than the outside, and also has a new building next to it devoted to nanoscience.

Entrance to Campus
Preparing for Fresher’s Fair
Gothic Revival
Built in 1922
Way in to Physics
Long Corridor
A refracting telescope
Grubb Telescope Company 1893

I’ve posted before about the famous optical instrument manufacturer, the Grubb Telescope Company, founded in Dublin by Thomas Grubb and later renamed Grubb Parsons after its relocation to Newcastle upon Tyne. I’ve posted about other connections too, including the presence in the Physics Department in Barcelona of a refracting telescope made by Grubb. Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw yet another Grubb Telescope near the entrance to the Physics building of the University of Sydney, this one made in 1893. This is further evidence – as if it were needed – that, in its time, the Grubb Telescope Company really was the world leader in optical instrumentation.

P.S. The later manifestation of the Grubb Telescope Company – Grubb Parsons – also has Australian connections, including making the primary mirror for the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) and building the UK Schmidt situated next to the AAT at Siding Spring Observatory (about 500 km from Sydney).

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The Women’s World Cup

Posted in Football with tags , , , on August 20, 2023 by telescoper

I couldn’t resist a short post wrapping up the 2023 Women’s Soccer World Cup after today’s victory by Spain over England. I don’t think there can be any arguments about the final: England are a good side and played pretty well, but Spain had the edge tactically and in terms of skill levels. They had a penalty saved and a shot by the excellent Paralluelo hit the post near the end of the first half. In short, the better team won.

Although Spain lost heavily to Japan in the Group stage, I think they were worthy winners of the competition overall playing some superb football on the way. The other team that I thought played particularly great football to watch was France. I felt sad when they lost on penalties to Australia in the quarter-finals, as France-England semi-final would have been a great match. I particularly admire Wendie Renard, who at 33 may have played in her last World Cup.

Although I didn’t see that many games because of the timing, I thought it was a very good competition. A particular thing struck me, that in the past there really haven’t been that many teams who had a realistic chance of winning, so many of the games were very one-sided. This time it was quite different, and there were many upsets. I never thought Germany, Canada, Italy and Brazil would fail to progress beyond the Group stage. Nor did I think USA would be out before the quarter-finals, losing on penalties to Sweden in the round of 16. I think this is an indication of a generally increase in quality and a positive sign for the women’s game.

I think a word is due for Ireland, who qualified for the finals this year for the very first time. They didn’t get beyond the group stage but in no way did they disgrace themselves. It was always going to be difficult for them to progress from a tough group with Australia, Canada and Nigeria. In the end they lost narrowly to the first two and drew with the latter. They’ll be back.

But the day belongs to Spain’s women, as does the trophy. Felicidades a Ellas!

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The Ashes Regained!

Posted in Cricket, Poetry with tags , , , on August 8, 2015 by telescoper

Well, there you have it. England’s cricketers have won the Fourth Test of the Ashes series at Trent Bridge (in the Midlands) by an innings and 78 runs, to take an unassailable 3-1 lead with one game to play. When I settled down to watch the opening overs of the opening match in Cardiff I really did not think England had any chance of winning the series, and even after England won in Cardiff I felt that the Australians would come back strongly. That horrible defeat at Lord’s in the Second Test confirmed that opinion, but emphatic victories in the Third and Fourth Test have proved me wrong. The amazing first day at Trent Bridge, during which Australia were all out for a meagre total of 60 with Broad taking 8-15,  made an England victory and the Ashes virtually certain. It all just proves how little I know about cricket.

At one point it looked like the game would be wrapped up yesterday, inside two days, but Adam Voges and the remaining Australian tailenders clung on doggedly in the fading light of yesterday evening to end the day on 241-7 in response to England’s first innings total of 391-9 declared. The main question this morning was whether they could accumulate the 90 runs needed to make England bat again.

As it happened, neither Starc nor Hazlewood nor Lyon could cope with the swing of Wood and Stokes. Hazlewood in particular led a charmed life for 10 deliveries, during which he never really looked like putting bat to ball, before finally losing his middle stump to Wood. Moments later, Lyon fell in the same manner. In some ways it’s cruel sport when bowlers have to bat in a futile attempt to save a game that’s lost, but the end was mercifully swift.

Nevill battled well to end on 51 not out, but he might have tried a bit harder to protect his tailenders. No doubt he was hoping a not out score would improve his chances of continued selection.

Commiserations to Australian cricket fans. Their team just wasn’t as good as England, with bat or ball. They have a lot of rebuilding to do, and I think it won’t just be the Captain Michael Clarke who won’t be playing another Ashes series, but you can be sure they’ll be back challenging for the Ashes again before long.

And as for England, there are some interesting questions about the next Test at the Oval. Will Jimmy Anderson return, or should England rest him even if he is fit? Does Adam Lyth get another chance to establish hismelf with the pressure off, or do England try to blood another opener? And although Moeen Ali  is an excellent find as a batting all-rounder, he’s not the kind of bowler that’s likely to bowl a team out at Test level. Can we find a world-class spinner to balance the attack? Answers on a postcard, please.

It’s been an extraordinary series so far, consisting of four relatively one-sided matches (three to England and one to Australia). A far cry from the brilliant Ashes series of 2005 which had so many close games, so I guess it’s not been such a great series for the neutral. But then I’m not neutral, so I don’t mind at all..

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Australia: Cyclones go up to Eleven!

Posted in Bad Statistics with tags , , , , , , , on October 14, 2013 by telescoper

I saw a story on the web this morning which points out that Australians can expect 11 cyclones this season.

It’s not a very good headline, because it’s a bit misleading about what the word “expected” means. In fact the number eleven is the average number of cyclones, which is not necessarily the number expected, despite the fact that “expected value” or “expectation value” . If you don’t understand this criticism, ask yourself how many legs you’d expect a randomly-chosen person to have. You’d probably settle on the answer “two”, but that is the most probable number, i.e. the mode, which in this case exceeds the average. If one person in a thousand has only one leg then a group of a thousand has 1999 legs between them, so the average (or arithmetic mean) is 1.999. Most people therefore have more than the average number of legs…

I’ve always found it quite annoying that physicists use the term “expectation value” to mean “average” because it implies that the average is the value you would expect. In the example given above you wouldn’t expect a person to have the average number of legs – if you assume that the actual number is an integer, it’s actually impossible to find a person with 1.999! In other words, the probability of finding someone in that group with the average number of legs in the group is exactly zero.

The same confusion happens when newspapers talk about the “average wage” which is considerably higher than the wage most people receive.

In any case the point is that there is undoubtedly a considerable uncertainty in the prediction of eleven cyclones per season, and one would like to have some idea how large an error bar is associated with that value.

Anyway, statistical pedantry notwithstanding, it is indeed impressive that the number of cyclones in a season goes all the way up to eleven..

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