Archive for Oxford

A Day Out in Oxford

Posted in Biographical, LGBTQ+ with tags , , , on June 4, 2024 by telescoper
Radcliffe Camera and Protest
Not Sure
Bodleian Library
All Souls

So here I am, among the dreaming spires of Oxford, although I’m not sure whether they are actually dreaming or just asleep. I had a short walk around before heading to the Physics Department this morning to put the finishing touches to my talk for this afternoon. It was nice to see the Pride Progress flags flying over Lincoln College on the way.

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A Day Out in Oxford

I haven’t had the opportunity to spend much time in Oxford so I’m looking forward to having a look around over the next day or two.

P.S. It’s my birthday today…

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Pride Lecture in Oxford

Posted in Biographical, LGBTQ+ with tags , , , on June 3, 2024 by telescoper

While en route to Oxford I thought I’d do a quick post about the purpose of my visit there, namely to give the inaugural Pride Lecture at the Department of Physics. I’m looking forward to it, and spending a couple of days as a guest of All Souls College. Here’s the promo for the lecture:

This is a public event. I’ve no idea how many people will be there, but I’ll find out tomorrow I suppose!

Let me take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy Pride Month (which started on Saturday). With its origins as a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots of 1969, Pride remains both a celebration and protest. It’s more necessary than ever now, especially because of the sustained abuse being aimed at trans people from all quarters, from those in political power to those sad losers who have nothing better to do that spend all day tweeting their bigotry on social media.

Anyway, as well as a celebration and a protest, Pride is an opportunity for us all to show solidarity against those who seek to divide us.

Though many LGBTQIA+ people in many countries – even those that claim to be more liberal – still face discrimination, hostility and violence, Pride Month always reminds me of how far we’ve come in the past 50 years ago. As I get older, I find I have become more and more protective towards younger LGBTQIA+ people. I don’t want them to have to put up with the crap that I did when I was their age.

Here’s a picture of the Pride Progress flag I took outside the John Hume Building at Maynooth a couple of years ago. I hope it’s there again this year, although I won’t be in Maynooth to see it!

Update: arrived in All Souls College…

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Astronomy Look-alikes No. 101

Posted in Astronomy Lookalikes, Television, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on October 6, 2020 by telescoper

One winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics, Roger Penrose, is based in Oxford where he also plays Chief Superintendent Bright in the popular TV detective series Endeavour…

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Research Opportunities in the Philosophy of Cosmology

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , on March 16, 2012 by telescoper

I got an email this morning telling me about the following interesting opportunities for research fellowships. They are in quite an unusual area – the philosophy of cosmology – and one I’m quite interested in myself so I thought it might ahieve wider circulation if I posted the advertisement on here.

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Applications are invited for two postdoctoral fellowships in the area of philosophy of cosmology, one to be held at Cambridge University and one to be held at Oxford University, starting 1 Jan 2013 to run until 31 Aug 2014. The two positions have similar job-descriptions and the deadline for applications is the same: 18 April 2012.

For more details, see here, for the Cambridge fellowship and  here for the Oxford fellowship.

Applicants are encouraged to apply for both positions. The Oxford group is led by Joe Silk, Simon Saunders and David Wallace, and that at Cambridge by John Barrow and Jeremy Butterfield.

These appointments are part of the initiative ‘establishing the philosophy of cosmology’, involving a consortium of universities in the UK and USA, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Its aim is to identify, define and explore new foundational questions in cosmology. Key questions already identified concern:

  • The issue of measure, including potential uses of anthropic reasoning
  • Space-time structure, both at very large and very small scales
  • The cosmological constant problem
  • Entropy, time and complexity, in understanding the various arrows of time
  • Symmetries and invariants, and the nature of the description of the universe as a whole

Applicants with philosophical interests in cosmology outside these areas will also be considered.

For more background on the initiative, see here and the project website (still under construction).

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