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Science versus Engineering?

Posted in Science Politics with tags , , , , , , on July 13, 2010 by telescoper

I suppose it was inevitable that there would be infighting as academics jostle for an increase intheir share of what is likely to be a diminishing level of research funding to be announced at the end of the ongoing Comprehensive Spending Review.  The first professional society to try to barge its way to the front of the queue appears to be the Royal Academy of Engineering, which has written to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in terms that make it clear that they think egineering should prosper at the expense of research in fundamental physics.

To quote the RAEng:

we believe that research should be concentrated on activities from which a contribution to the economy, within the short to medium term, is foreseeable. I recognise that this calls for significant changes in practice but I see no alternative in the next decade. This may mean disinvesting in some areas in order properly to invest in others.

And where should the axe fall?

BIS should also consider the productivity of investment by discipline and then sub-discipline. Once the cost of facilities is taken into account it is evident that ‘Physics and Maths’ receive several times more expenditure per research active academic compared to those in ‘Engineering and Technology’. This ratio becomes significantly more extreme if the comparison is made between particle physics researchers and those in engineering and technology. Much of particle physics work is carried out at CERN and other overseas facilities and therefore makes a lower contribution to the intellectual infrastructure of the UK compared to other disciplines. Additionally, although particle physics research is important it makes only a modest contribution to the most important challenges facing society today, as compared with engineering and technology where almost all the research is directly or indirectly relevant to wealth creation.

Obviously whoever wrote this hasn’t heard of the World Wide Web, invented at CERN – precisely the place singled out for vitriol.

I couldn’t agree less with what the RAEng say in their submission to BIS, but instead of going on a rant here I’ll direct you to John Butterworth’s riposte, which says most of what I would want to say, but I would like to add one comment along the lines I’ve blogged about before.

The reason I think that the RAEng is precisely wrong is that I think the Treasury (on behalf of the taxpayer) should only be investing in research that wouldn’t otherwise be carried out. In other words, the state should fund academic esearch precisely because of its “blue sky” nature, not in spite of it.

Conversely, engineering and technology R&D should be funded primarily by the commercial sector precisely because it can yield short-term economic benefits. The decline of the UK’s engineering base has been caused by the failure of British companies to invest sufficiently in research, expecting instead that the Treasury should fund it and all they have to do is cash in later.

I’m not calling for the engineering and technology budgets to be cut – I don’t have such a blinkered view as the RAEng – but I would argue that a much greater share should be funded by private companies. This also goes for energy research. As Martin Rees pointed out in a recent Reith Lecture, the UK’s energy companies spend a pathetically small proportion of their huge profits on R&D. The politicians should be “persuading” industry to get invest more in the future development of their products rather than expecting the taxpayer to fund it. I agree that the UK economy needs “rebalancing” but part of the balance  is private companies need to develop a much stronger sense of the importance of R&D investment.

And, while I’m tut-tutting about the short-sighted self-interest displayed by the RAEng, let me add that, following the logic I’ve stated above,  I see a far stronger case for the state to support research in history and the arts than, e.g. engineering and computer science. I’d even argue that large commercial companies should think about sponsoring pure science in much the same way as they do with the performing art exhibitions and the Opera. We need as a society to learn to celebrate curiosity-driven research not only as a means to economic return (which it emphatically is) but also as something worth doing for its own sake.

Finally, and most depressingly of all, let me point out that the Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Philip Greenish, sits on the Council of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, an organisation whose aims include

To promote and support, by any means, high-quality basic, strategic and applied research and related post-graduate training in astronomy, particle physics, space science and nuclear physics.

Clearly, he should either disown the statements produced by the RAEng or resign from STFC Council. Unless he was put there deliberately as part of the ongoing stitch-up of British physics. If that’s the case we all have the dole queue to look forward to.

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The Joy of Natural Units

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on March 5, 2010 by telescoper

I’m glad it’s the end of the week. It’s been ridiculously busy. It didn’t help that I was already exhausted before it started, after a hectic three days in Geneva. Part of the reason for being so heavily occupied is that my teaching duties have just doubled. I teach the second half of a module called Nuclear and Particle Physics, and I’ve just taken over  for the second half of the semester to cover the part about particle physics. I started my set of 11 lectures with one about natural units, which is a lot of fun because it usually divides the class into two opposing camps.

About half the students think natural units are crazy, and the other half think they’re great. I’m in the second camp. The motivation is straightforward: particle physics combines quantum theory, which involves Planck’s constant

\hbar \simeq 1.05 \times 10^{-34}\,\,\,{\rm Js}

with special relativity, which involves the speed of light

c\simeq 3 \times 10^{8}\,\,\,{\rm m s}^{-1} .

Using everyday SI units (metres, seconds and kilograms) to deal with quantities that are either ridiculously small or ridiculously large doesn’t make any sense but, more importantly, the SI units don’t really reflect the physics very clearly.

In natural units we take these two constants to be equal to unity, so they don’t appear in any formulae:

\hbar = c =1

For example, the energy invariant in special relativity is usually written

E^2=p^2c^2 + m^2c^4

This is where the most famous equation in physics

E=mc^2

comes from. However, the equivalence between mass and energy (and also momentum) is much more clearly expressed in the natural units system:

E^2=p^2 + m^2

None of those tiresome factors of c^2 to remember! Mass, energy and momentum are all expressed in terms of the same natural unit of energy (usually, in particle physics, the GeV).  You can keep track of which is which by the simple expedient of using different names.

Velocities are, of course, always expressed as a fraction of c in this system so have no units.

In quantum theory we find energy E=\hbar \omega becomes E=\omega so energy is expressed in the same units as frequency. Energy is thus a measure of inverse time.  Momentum p =\hbar k becomes just p= k so momentum is an inverse length.  This is in accord with the various forms of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle too:  \Delta p \Delta x \sim \hbar is \Delta p \Delta x \sim 1 and \Delta E \Delta t \sim \hbar becomes \Delta E \Delta t \sim 1. A particle with a finite lifetime thus has a finite energy width which is inversely proportional to the lifetime. It makes sense to use energy units for both of these things.

As an extra bonus we can dispense with the clumsy way that electromagnetism is handled in the SI system by noting that

\frac{e^2}{4\pi \epsilon_0 \hbar c} \equiv \alpha\simeq \frac{1}{137}

is dimensionless. In the SI system the coulomb force between two electrons is \frac{e^2}{4\pi \epsilon_0 r^2} whereas in natural units it is just \frac{\alpha}{r^2}, which is much nicer. Incidentally, the strange quantity \epsilon_0 that appears in the SI version is called the permittivity of free space. Nice name, but I wonder what it means?

The dimensionless quantity \alpha on the other hand, has a very clear  physical meaning: it is the fine structure constant,  a coupling constant that measures the strength of the electromagnetic interaction.

Some people – including emeritus professors of observational astronomy – object to natural units because they hide the units that things are expressed in. They don’t actually. What they do is express things in units that are better geared to the physics. In any case, if you want to convert back to SI units you can always do so straightforwardly with a little bit of dimensional analysis. This is necessary if you have to talk to engineers and the like, perhaps so they can build you a particle accelerator, but in the more elevated company of particle physicists you should definitely follow proper etiquette and keep your units natural.

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The Management

Posted in Finance, Science Politics with tags , , , , , on January 24, 2010 by telescoper

After my little trip to Denmark last week, it’s now time to settle into the routine of academic life. Teaching starts tomorrow, and I’m actually quite looking forward to it. I find teaching very rewarding, in a way that’s quite different from research, to the extent that I would hate to see further separation between the two in British universities. Call me old-fashioned.

Inevitably, though, it’s been research that’s been occupying my mind for the past few days. I’ve posted a couple of times recently about the ongoing review of the way astronomy and particle physics research are funded here in the United Kingdom (see here and here). The Science Minister, Lord Drayson, seems keen to find a way to stop research grants  being massacred by overruns elsewhere in the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). His aim appears to be come up with a plan before the end of February to find a way of preventing the situation from getting any worse for science. No doubt the idea of a dedicated British Space Agency will also be thrown into pot, so that the bit of STFC’s current portfolio that deals with space things will probably be hived off elsewhere.

The major question that is occupying the minds of scientists – but perhaps not those of the bureaucrats – is whether the research grants currently dispensed by STFC will continue to be held by whatever STFC morphs into or whether they should go elsewhere, probably to EPSRC.  I sense a predisposition towards the former possibility among many of my colleagues. I recognize that the EPSRC route is not without its problems, but I fear that if we remain with STFC then not only is there a very strong probability that recent history will repeat itself but that the damage done by the current STFC structure will be irreparable.

Behind all this is the issue of why STFC is in such a mess in the first place. When it came into being in 2007, it was immediately saddled with an £80 million operating deficit. Why? There are two theories. One is that it was a mistake, resulting from inept STFC management. The other is that the creation of STFC presented various grey eminences that inhabit the superstructure of British science politics represented by RCUK  with an opportunity to slash expenditure on “useless” science (i.e. particle physics and astronomy) without having to go through the tedious rigmarole of public consultation. I don’t know which of these is the truth but, given the choice, I’d put my money on the latter.

Note the behaviour of STFC’s Chief Executive after the yawning gap was discovered in his organization’s finances. If it was a result of management incompetence then he should have been fired. If he was stitched up by RCUK then the only honorable thing to do for someone with the best interests of science at heart was to resign in protest. Neither of these things happened. This leads me to the interpretation that Professor Mason was a willing participant in the game, a  point of view that is supported by his performance at the Town Meeting in December 2007 where the STFC’s delivery plan was presented to an audience of scientists. The document containing the delivery plan is notable for its upbeat and self-congratulatory tone containing no hints of the financial catastrophe engulfing the organization. It was clearly designed to say exactly what the Chief Executive’s political masters wanted it to say. The gross dishonesty of this publication was revealed by Professor Mason’s presentation, wherein he told us scientists something rather closer to the truth, that STFC was facing financial oblivion. It was an appaling performance.

After a botched and panicky initial attempt to cut science projects, and a public dressing down by the House of Commons select committee, it took another two years for its latest Programmatic Review to emerge. Once again, though, the management of STFC put an absurdly glowing light on the wreckage of UK astronomy, nuclear and particle physics; calling it “Investing in the Future” and making light of the devastating cull of research grants and projects that it is proposing. The message that I glean from all this is that STFC’s problems stem from deliberate policy at a high level, probably at the Treasury, and carried out enthusiastically by a hierarchy of yes-men who will do whatever they are told regardless of what it means for science. Some of these creatures may have started out as scientists, but they’ve definitely gone native when lured into the Whitehall jungle.

Of course the public purse is limited. We have to decide how much to spend on different bits of science. Astronomy or particle physics (or any other discipline, for that matter) has to make its case. Somehow a balance must be struck between all the competing demands for cash. Maybe Britain does have too many astronomers. Or too many particle physicists. Who knows?  My point is: who decides? This kind of thing is too important to be settled behind closed doors by  individuals who lap up whatever their masters feed them like mother’s milk.

The STFC debacle  is just one manifestation of the rampant managerialism that is strangling British civil society. Gone are the days when scientists knew best about science, doctors knew best about medicine and teachers knew best about education. Now we’re all subservient to managers who think they know best about everything. Things are no better at EPSRC, an organization notorious  for its top-down structure, mania for meaningless initiatives, and wholehearted endorsement of the ill-considered impact agenda. What I am saying is that the Haldane principle is dead and buried.

While I was in Copenhagen last week attending the inauguration of the Discovery Center I was struck by the differences between how research is funded in Denmark and in the United Kingdom. This new initiative in particle physics and cosmology is funded as a rolling programme by the Danish National Research Foundation (Danmarks Grundforskningsfond). Way back in 1991, Denmark part-privatised its pension system and a large chunk of the resulting cash was invested in scientific research. The organization funds programmes across an entire range of disciplines (including arts and humanities)  for periods of10 years (or, more precisely, 5 years with an extension to 10 after satisfactory performance; most get extended). The primary criterion for funding these programmes is scientific excellence and the vast bulk of the funds goes to funding PhD students and postdoctoral researchers at Danish universities.

A representative of the foundation (whose name I have regrettably forgotten) spoke at the official inauguration of the Discovery Center to describe the parent organization’s philosophy. In a nutshell his message was: “You’re the scientists. You know about science. We don’t. We’re here to help you hire the best people, then get out of your way. Excellence is what we want to fund, wherever it lies. That’s our only agenda.” As it happens, two out of the nine programmes funded in the last round, including the Discovery Center, were in particle physics.

Of course I was jealous. I was also struck by how similar this organization sounds to the suggestion I made in a blog post before christmas. Of course Denmark is a much smaller country than Britain and it has  a very different economic structure. I’m not saying we could simply copy what the Danes have done without any modification. But the  real reason why such an organization could never get set up in Britain, is that The Management would never allow it…

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What is to be done?

Posted in Finance, Science Politics with tags , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2010 by telescoper

Just after December’s announcement of huge cuts in spending on science by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the minister responsible, Lord Drayson, issued a Press release that included the following

… it has become clear to me that there are real tensions in having international science projects, large scientific facilities and UK grant giving roles within a single Research Council. It leads to grants being squeezed by increases in costs of the large international projects which are not solely within their control. I will work urgently with Professor Sterling, the STFC and the wider research community to find a better solution by the end of February 2010.

I’ve decided to post a few thoughts here under a deliberately bolshie title not because I think I have all the answers, but in the hope that somebody out there will come up with better suggestions.

Superficially the problem dates back to the formation of STFC in 2007 via the merger of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and the Council for the Central Laboratories of the Research Councils (CCLRC). Previously, PPARC had looked after particle physics and astronomy (including space science) and CCLRC had run large experimental facilities in other branches of science. The idea of merging them wasn’t silly. A large chunk of PPARC’s budget went on managing large facilities, especially ground based astronomical observatories, and it was probably hoped that it would be more efficient to put all these big expensive pieces of kit under the same roof (so to speak).

However, at the time, there was considerable discussion about what should happen with science grants. For example, physicists working in UK universities in areas outside astronomy and particle physics previously obtained research grants from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), along with chemists, engineers and even mathematicians. Some experimentalists working in these areas used facilities run by the CCLRC to do their work. However, astronomers and particle physicists got their grants from PPARC, the same organisation that ran their facilities and also paid subscriptions to international agencies such as CERN and ESA. These grants were often termed “exploitation”  or “responsive mode” grants; they involved funding for postdoctoral researchers and staff time used in analysing observational or experimental data and comprised relatively little money compared the the cost of the PPARC facilities themselves. PPARC also funded PhD studentships and postdoctoral fellowships under the umbrella of its Education and Training division, although needless to say all the Education and Training involved was done in host universities, not by PPARC itself.

The question was whether the new merged organisation, STFC should continue giving grants to university groups or whether they should be moved elsewhere, perhaps to EPSRC. At the time, most astronomers were keen to have their research grants administered by the same organisation that ran the facilities. I thought it made more sense to have research scientists all on the same footing when it came to funding and in any case thought there were too many absurd divisions between, say, general relativity (EPSRC) and relativistic astrophysics (PPARC), so I was among the (relatively few) dissenting voices at the time.

There were other reasons for my unease. One was that during a previously funding squeeze, PPARC had taken money from the grants line (the pot of money used for funding research groups) in order to balance the books, necessarily reducing the amount of science being done with its facilities. If STFC decided to do this it would probably cause even more pain, because grants would be an even smaller fraction of the budget in STFC than they were in PPARC. Those EPSRC physicists using CCLRC facilities seem to have managed pretty well so I didn’t really see the argument for astronomy and particle physics being inside STFC.  

The other reason for me wanting to keep research grants out of STFC was that the (then) new Chief Executive of PPARC, Keith Mason, had made no secret of the disdain he felt towards university-based astronomy groups and had stated on a number of occasions his opinion that there were too many astronomers in the United Kingdom. There are two flaws with this argument. One is that astronomy is essential to the viability of many physics departments because of its appeal to potential students; without it, many departments will fold. The other problem is that Mason’s claim that the number of astronomers had grown by 40% in a few years was simply bogus.  This attitude convinced me that he in particular would need only the slightest excuse to divert funds away from astronomy into areas such as space exploration.

It all seems a very distant memory now, but three years ago UK physics (including astronomy) was experiencing a time of relative plenty. The government had introduced a system whereby the research councils would fund research groups on the basis of the Full Economic Cost of the research, which meant more money coming into research groups that were successful at winning grants. The government increased funding for the councils to pay for this largesse and probably diminished the fear of another funding pinch. Astronomers and particle physicists also felt they would have more influence over future strategy in facility development by remaining within the same organisation. In the end what happened was that STFC not only kept the portfolio of astronomy and particle physics grants, but also acquired responsibility for nuclear physics from EPSRC.

But then, in 2007, just after STFC came into existence,  a major financial disaster broke: that year’s comprehensive spending review left the newly formed STFC with a huge gap in its finances. I don’t know why this happened but it was probably a combination of gross incompetence on behalf of the STFC Executive and deliberate action by persons higher up in the Civil Service. The subsequent behaviour of the Chief Executive of STFC led to a public dressing down by the House of Commons Select Committee and a complete loss of confidence in him by the scientific community. Miraculously, he survived. Unfortunately, so did the financial problems that are his responsibility. After two years of head-scratching, STFC has finally grasped the nettle and slashed its spending, including research grants,  in an attempt to balance the books.

I don’t like to say I told you so, but that’s exactly what I am doing. Everything that has happened was predictable given the initial conditions. You might argue that STFC wasn’t to know about the global economic downturn. In fact, I’d agree. However, the terrible cuts in the science budget we have seen have very little to do with that. They all stem from the period before the Credit Crunch even started. We still have the aftermath of that to look forward to. Unless something is done, grants will be hit again. Things are bad now, but will only get worse as long as the current arrangements persist.

Now, back to Lord Drayson’s press statement. He is of course right to say that there are tensions in putting large facilities and grant giving roles in the same organisation. That’s particularly true when it’s an organisation run by a one-man disaster area, but the main problem seems to me that actually doing science is very far down the list of priorities for STFC. The point I want to make is that by far the most of the very best science in the United Kingdom is actually done in university groups. Some of these groups use shiny new facilities but some continue to do first-rate research with older gear, not to mention us theorists who need very little in the way of facilities at all. What has happened is that the axe has fallen across the programme, apparently without regard for scientific value for money so that highly rated theory grants are being slashed along with those related to lower priority facilities.

Here it seems appropiate to make an aside to the effect that,  in my opinion, even taking into account the difficult financial circumstances in which it was done, the recent prioritisation review was completely botched. All the STFC advisory panels placed university research grants at the highest priority but the management has slashed them anyway. Moreover, instead of really biting the bullet and making tough decisions to shut down more facilities projects, they have kept as many of them going as possible (although with reduced budgets).  Cutting exploitation grants for the highest priority experiments was a particularly stupid decision. If STFC wanted to put science first, what they should have done is baled out of more facilities but preserved exploitation grants.  If that means abandoning whole areas of astronomy then that’s very sad, but surely it is better to do a smaller number of things well than a larger number of things poorly? Isn’t management meant to be about making difficult decisions?

I know this preamble has been a bit long-winded, but I think it’s necessary to see the background to what I’m going to propose. These are the steps I think need to be taken to put UK physics back on track.

First, the powers that be have to realise that university researchers are not just the icing on the cake when it comes to science. They actually do most of the science. The problem is that the way they are supported is a total mess. It’s called the dual support system, because the research councils pay 80% of the cost of research grants and Higher Education Funding Councils (i.e. HEFCE in England) are meant to provide the other 20%, but in reality it is a bureaucratic nightmare that subjects researchers to endless form-filling and costs hundreds of millions in wasteful duplication. The Research Councils already have well-managed systems to judge the quality of research grant applications, so why do we have to have the additional burden of a Research Assessment Exercise every few years on top of that? Just a few millions saved by slashing red tape could restore a large proportion of the physics grant budget.

What we need is a system that recognises the central importance of universities in science research. In order to safeguard this, research grants for all disciplines need to be adminstered organisations that cannot raid the funds allocated for this purpose to offset management failures elsewhere. The funds allocated to STFC under the Full Economic Cost system have already been systematically misappropriated in this way, and things will get worse unless something is done to protect them.

Moving grants from STFC to EPSRC would go part of the way, but I’m not a particular fan of the latter organisation’s heavy-handed top-down management style and gung ho enthusiasm for the  impact agenda which may be appropriate for applied sciences and engineering but surely doesn’t make any sense for, say, pure mathematics. I would prefer instead to see a new organisation, specifically intended to fund blue-skies scientific research in universities. This organisation would have a mission statement that  makes its remit clear, and it would take over grants, studentships and fellowships from STFC, EPSRC and possibly some of the other research councils, such as NERC.  The new outfit would need a suitable acronym, but I can’t think of a good one at the moment. Answers on a postcard.

As a further suggestion,  I think there’s a strong case to be made that HEFCE should be deprived of its responsibility for research funding. The apparatus of research assessment it uses is obviously  flawed, but why is it needed anyway? If the government believes that research is essential to universities, its policy on selectivity doesn’t make any sense. On the other hand, if it believes that university departments don’t need to be research groups then why shouldn’t the research funding element be administered by a reserch organisation? Even better, a new University Research Council along the lines I have suggested  could fund research at 100% of the Full Economic Cost instead of only 80%. The substantial cash saved by scrapping the RAE should be pumped into grants to be administered by the new organisation, reversing the recent savage cuts imposed by STFC.

And what should happen to STFC? Clearly there is still a role for an organisation to manage large experimental facilities. However, the fact that the UK is now going to have its own Space Agency should mean space science is taken out of the STFC remit.  The CERN and ESO subscriptions could continue to be managed by STFC along with other facilities, and it would in some cases commission projects in university research groups or industrial labs as it does now. Astronomers and particle physicists would continue to sit on its Board.  However, its status would change radically, in that it would become an organisation whose job is to manage facilities, not research. The tail will no longer be wagging the dog.

I very much doubt if these suggestions are at all in line with current political “thinking”. I don’t think politicians really appreciate the importance of research in universities, especially if its of the open-ended, blue-sky variety. The self-serving bureaucrats in RCUK and HEFCE won’t like it either, because the’ll all have to go and do something more useful.  But unless someone stands up for the university sector and does something to safeguard future funding then things are just going to go from bad to worse. This may be the last chance we have to avert a catastrophe.

I very much doubt if many of my fellow physicists or astronomers agree with my suggestion either. Not to worry. I’m used to being in a minority of one. However, even if this is the case I hope this somewhat lengthy post will at least get you thinking. I’d be interested in comments.

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(Physics and) Astronomy Look-alikes, No. 4

Posted in Astronomy Lookalikes with tags , , on December 31, 2009 by telescoper

Oh go on then, it’s raining outside so here’s one more.

Has anyone ever noticed the resemblance between former musician, now particle physicist and media star Professor Brian Cox , and the Cat in the Hat from the Dr Seuss Books? Apart from the hat, that is…

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Day of Reckoning

Posted in Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on December 16, 2009 by telescoper

10.45am. I came in this morning determined to get on with some work to distract my attention from the looming announcement of budget cuts from the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC). I was up nearly all night worrying about the future, especially for the current generation of postdocs whose careers I’m pretty sure are going to sacrificed in large numbers to balance the books. It reminded me a bit about a poem I posted a while ago: I could not sleep for thinking of the Sky STFC.

Anyway, I’ve spent over an hour trying to write one paragraph of the paper I’m trying to finish and I can’t settle so I thought I’d start a post, with the intention of updating it as the day goes on, the picture gets a bit clearer, and I become increasingly suicidal.

The actual announcement of the result of the prioritisation exercise will appear this afternoon on the STFC website here under the heading

STFC: Investing in the Future

Who said these guys don’t have a sense of humour? What’s underneath is currently completely blank. Hang on, they might have put the result up early in that case…

Most of the blogs and tweets I follow – at least those emanating from this side of the Atlantic – are about this today, so if you’d like to keep up here are some useful links:

Paul Crowther at Sheffield has kept up with all the ongoings and downturnings at STFC and you can expect him to understand it better and quicker than the rest of us  here.

There’s a very good (and nearly anonymous) post about all this on the blog To Left of Centre.

The e-astronomer (Andy Lawrence at the ROE)  has written about this and a lot of important people have commented on it.

Rob Simpson, a PhD student here in Cardiff,  is probably expressing the fears of many younger researchers as is Sarah Kendrew who gives a postdoc perspective.

There’s a list of things astronomical that are probably about to eat the dirt at this website. My bet is that everything on their list will go, plus more. The reason is that most of the things at the bottom of the prioritisation exercise are actually fairly cheap, so just closing a few won’t plug the gap. As a colleague of mine said the other day, “It’s a big shit sandwich, and we all have to take a bite.”

11.15am. If the phrase “going forward” appears anywhere on the STFC announcement page, then I won’t be responsible for my actions…

11.50am. WICKET! Prince c Collingwood b Swann 45. Oh sorry. Wrong blog.

12.08pm. Incoming transatlantic link from the Starving Economist, from whose page I’ve pulled the following comment:

So I’d almost forgotten that other countries are out there, facing the Great Recession as well, and making really stupid decisions in the face of it. IMHO one example of blatant incompetence in an economic sense is being perpetrated by none other than the UK. We kind of look up to them, don’t we? It’s the accent or something. But they are busy tossing some of their world-renowned science, and much of their past investment in such, out the door rather than restructure some of their government funding. Talk about inertia. Their astronomy program appears to be particularly hard-hit. Interesting way to close 2009, the International Year of Astronomy.

I couldn’t agree more. It also reminded that I haven’t made enough of the irony that this is indeed the International Year of Astronomy. For a lot of people it will be the last year they’ll be doing astronomy.

12.25pm. Meanwhile, our man in Madrid, Matt Griffin has been wowing the audience with some of the new results from Herschel. I hope to be able to post a few of them later when the official workshop results go live.

12.45pm. STFC operatives have been phoning project leaders this morning to tell them the bad news. Our head of school, Walter Gear, has got his phone call telling him that our attempt to resurrect Clover will not be funded. Disappointing, but not entirely unexpected…

13.15pm. It’s tea-time in sunny  South Africa (with the home side at 159-4) but here in Blighty it’s the long dark lunch break of the soul, waiting for news of the inevitable.

13.30pm. Half an hour to go. Most of the astronomers in the department have now left to travel to Madrid for the big workshop starting tomorrow. They tell me the new results probably won’t be available for public consumption until Friday (18th December). Nothing to sugar the pill, then.

13.55pm. I’m not often right, but I was wrong again. I’ve just noticed that there is already an ESA press release that includes this stunning image of a star-forming region in the constellation of Aquila made using both PACS and SPIRE observations. This is just a first look at part of an extended survey of stellar nurseries that Herschel will be undertaking over the forthcoming months.

14.00pm. And there were are, right on cue. Here is the announcement. As expected, there is a ridiculous attempt to put a positive spin on it all, but you will find immediately, sigh, another 10% cut in research grants to universities (on top of the 25% we already had) to reduce the amount of “exploitation”, plus 25% cuts in the number of PhD students and fellowships “mirroring the overall reduction in the programme”. I read that as meaning that STFC wants, in the long term, about 25% of the astronomers in the UK to go somewhere else and, preferably,  never come back.

I’ll post more when I’ve read the details.

14.10pm. So here’s a quick summary of what projects will be funded in (ground-based) astronomy:

Advanced LIGO, JCMT (to 2012), Gemini (until end 2012), ING (to 2012), KMOS, VISTA, Dark Energy Survey, E-ELT R&D, SKA R&D, SuperWASP, e-Merlin, Zeplin III; Total cost of £87m over 5 years

(the big surprise to me in there is  e-Merlin, which I thought would get the chop) and what won’t

Auger, Inverse Square Law, ROSA, ALMA regional centre, JIVE, Liverpool Telescope, UKIRT. Additional reduction imposed on ongoing projects of £16m. Total savings of £29m over 5 years

And on the space side we have the lucky ones:

Aurora, GAIA, Herschel, JWST-MIRI, LISA Pathfinder, Rosetta, Planck, ExoMars, Hinode, Cosmic Vision, Solar Orbiter, Stereo, Swift, Bepi-Colombo; Total cost of £114m over 5 years

and the losers

Cassini, Cluster, SOHO, Venus Express, XMM. Additional reduction imposed on ongoing projects of £28m. Total Savings of £42m over 5 years

Note that both Aurora and Bepi-Colombo were both rated very low on scientific grounds but have been retained in the programme, presumably for political reasons.

However, the big downside for everyone is the cut in university grants for “exploitation” that I mentioned above. STFC wants to have lots of expensive facilities, but doesn’t want to fund the modest among of staff needed to actually get science out of them. The stupidity of this decision is made even more depressing by its inevitability.

Even the top-rated projects are getting cuts to their funding. It just shows how little thinking is going on about the actual science that STCF is supposed to be supporting. Isn’t it a more sensible strategy to do a few things well, rather than a lot of things poorly? It’s a mess.

14.38pm. From a Cardiff perspective this is nowhere near as bad as it could have been, but is still pretty dire. The primary activities for our current astronomy programme, Herschel and Planck, are both very high in the priority list and the relativity group is relieved to see ground-based gravitational wave research, including Advanced LIGO, at the highest priority. Moreover, it looks like what I feared most of all – an immediate clawback of existing grants with consequent immediate redundancies – is not going to happen, owing to what appears to be a last-minute injection of funds from RCUK. We’re still looking at cash cuts though, and we’re vulnerable because so much of our research income comes from STFC.

14.43pm. Not on the STFC webpage, but it appears that they are not going to support LOFAR-UK either.

15.05pm. If you want to read the full outcome of the prioritisation exercise, in terms of a batting order of projects, you can download it here. It includes a recommendation that the top funded (alpha-5) projects should get a 15% cut and those at the next leveldown (alpha-4) should get a 20% cut. However, things will probably turn out worse than that because those cuts were suggested on the basis that only those projects would be funded at all. As it turns out, some alpha-3 projects have made it through also, so the cuts to the higher-rated projects must be larger to compensate. Mustn’t they?

15.24pm. I note that STFC have decided to carry on their programme of outreach activities:

Ongoing support for public outreach and science communication, through continuance of our award schemes and Fellowships, and public engagement and communications, helping to ensure new generations of children are enthused and inspired by science, and encouraged to continue study in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

..so we can kick them in the teeth when they’ve just started a scientific career.

15.30pm. Press release, from Unelected Minister for Science and Innovation, Strategic Defence Acquisition Reform, and Formula 1 Car Racing,  Lord  Drayson of Twitter.  I quote:

… it has become clear to me that there are real tensions in having international science projects, large scientific facilities and UK grant giving roles within a single Research Council. It leads to grants being squeezed by increases in costs of the large international projects which are not solely within their control.   I will work urgently with Professor Sterling, the STFC and the wider research community to find a better solution by the end of February 2010.

Is there a possibility that a light has gone on somewhere to the effect that something must be done to stop STFC killing University research? I hope so. If he can pull something out of the fire before March 2010, though, I’d be very impressed.

16.07pm. I may be clutching at straws here, but it is interesting to join the dots between Lord Drayon’s comment above and the following excerpt from the STFC announcement

discussions would be held in coming months with national and international partners, including universities, departments and project teams, on implementation of the investment strategy. This will include discussions with EPSRC and the University funding councils on the impact of these measures on physics departments in universities.

I doubt if EPSRC is going to come running to the rescue without a great deal of encouragement. However, taken together with the comment above by Lord Drayson, there’s at least a hint of a possibility that a way to protect grants might be found. Calling them “research” rather than “exploitation” grants would be a start…

16.18pm. Press statements from Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, President of the Institute of Physics here and Andy Fabian, President of the Royal Astronomical Society here.

17.08pm. I think that’s enough for the day. It hasn’t been good, but the nightmare scenario was that my own research grant would be terminated immediately and I’d have to break the news to my PDRA. At least that didn’t happen, not yet anyway. I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies. But I’m exhausted after sleeping so badly last night, so I think I’ll close this for now. Keep your comments coming if there’s anything significant I missed…

19.45pm Before I settle down with my gramophone records for the evening, I just thought I’d remind anyone not sufficiently depressed at the state of STFC that the drastic cuts announced today do not take account of whatever share of the £600 million “efficiency savings” announced in the budget has been allocated to them. It may look bad now, but it’s probably going to get worse. On that cheery note, I’m going to have a drink and listen to Mahler.

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Advanced Fellowships

Posted in Science Politics with tags , , , on July 11, 2009 by telescoper

This is just a quick Newsflash that UK Astronomers will be  interested in (and depressed by). My attention was drawn to it yesterday by Frazer Pearce of Nottingham.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has decided in its finite wisdom to cut in half the number of Advanced Fellowships (AFs) it awards each year, that is from 12 to 6, that number to cover all of Astronomy and Particle Physics.

These fellowships are awarded to researchers who do not have a permanent position but wish to pursue research, and are designed to further the careers of individuals with outstanding potential. They last 5 years – longer than the usual 2-3 year postdoctoral positions and have been for many a scientist an important stepping-stone to an academic career. A very large fraction of my colleagues who have permanent positions were awarded one of these fellowships when they were run by PPARC (including Frazer), as was I myself but, being an Oldie, mine was even pre-PPARC so was in fact given by SERC. Of course the fact that they gave me one doesn’t itself serve as much of a recommendation for continuing them, but it is worth drawing attention to the huge amount of  high quality research done in the UK by holders of these Fellowships.

A number of people have expressed to me their shock at this decision but it doesn’t surprise me at all. For one thing, it’s an open secret that STFC considers the academic community in these areas to be too large so the last thing it wants is more people getting permanent jobs through the AF route.  In any case, STFC’s prime concern is with facilities, not with scientific research.

Who needs half a dozen top class scientists when you can have Moonlite instead?

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A Unified Quantum Theory of the Sexual Interaction

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on May 20, 2009 by telescoper

Recent changes to the criteria for allocating research funding require particle physicists  and astronomers to justify the wider social, cultural and economic impact of their science. In view of the directive to engage in work more directly relevant to the person in the street, I’ve decided to share with you my latest results, which involve the application of ideas from theoretical physics in the wider field of human activity. That is, if you’re one of those people who likes to have sex in a field.

In the simplest theories of the sexual interaction, the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian describing all allowed forms of two-body coupling are identified with the conventional gender states, “Male” and “Female”  denoted |M> and |F> in the Dirac bra-ket notation; note that the bra is superfluous in this context so, as usual, we dispense with it at the outset. Interactions between |M> and |F> states are assumed to be attractive while those between |M> and |M> or |F> and |F> are supposed either to be repulsive or, in some theories, entirely forbidden.

Observational evidence, however, strongly  suggests that two-body interactions involving either F-F or M-M coupling, though suppressed in many  situations, are by no means ruled out  in the manner one would expect from the simplest theory outlined above. Furthermore, experiments indicate that the relevant channel for M-M interactions appears to have a comparable cross-section to that of the standard M-F variety, so a similar form of tunneling is presumably involved. This suggests that a more complete theory could be obtained by a  relatively simple modification of the  version presented above.

Inspired by the recent Nobel prize awarded for the theory of quark mixing, we are now able to present a new, unified theory of the sexual interaction. In our theory the “correct” eigenstates for sexual behaviour are not the conventional |M> and |F> gender states but linear combinations of the form

|M>=cosθ|S> + sinθ|G>

|F>=-sinθ|G>+cosθ|S>

where θ is the Cabibbo mixing angle or, more appropriately in this context, the sexual orientation (measured in degrees). Extension to three states is in principle possible (but a bit complicated) and we will not discuss this issue further.

In this theory each |M> or |F> state is regarded as a linear combination of heterosexual (straight, S)  and homosexual (gay, G) states represented by a rotation of the basis by an angle θ, exactly the same mechanism that accounts for the charge-changing weak interactions between quarks.

For a purely heterosexual state, this angle is zero, in which case we recover the simple theory outlined above. At θ=90° only the G component manifests itself; in this state only classically forbidden interactions are permitted. The general state is however, one with a value of the orientation angle somewhere between these two limits and this permits all forms of interaction, at least with some probability.

Note added in proof:  the |G> states do not appear in standard QFT but are motivated by some versions of string theory, expecially those involving G-strings.

One immediate consequence of this theory is that a “pure” gender state should be generally regarded as a quantum superposition of “straight” and “gay” states. This differs from a classical theory in that the true state can not be known with certainty; only the relative frequency of straight and gay behaviour (over a large number of interactions) can be predicted, perhaps explaining the large number of married men to be found on gaydar. The state at any given time is thus entirely determined by a sum over histories up to that moment, taking into account the appropriate action. In the Copenhagen interpretation, collapse one way or another  occurs only when a measurement is made (or when enough Carlsberg is drunk).

If there is a difference in energy of the basis states a pure |M> state can oscillate between |S> and |G> according to a time-dependent phase factor arising when the two states interfere with each other:

|M(t)>=cosθ|S>exp(-iE1t) + sinθ|G>exp(-iE2t);

(obviously we are using natural units here, so that it all looks cleverer than it actually is). This equation is the origin of the expressions  “it’s just a phase he’s going through” and “he swings both ways”. In physics parlance this means that the eigenstates of the sexual interaction do not coincide with the conventional gender types, indicating that sexual behaviour is not necessarily time-invariant for a given body.

Whether single-body phenomena (i.e. self-interactions) can provide insights into this theory  depends, as can be seen from the equation,  on the energies of the relevant states (as is also the case  in neutrino oscillations). If they are equal then there is no oscillation. However,  a detailed discussion of the role of degeneracy is beyond the scope of this analysis.

Self- interactions involving a solitary phase are generally difficult to observe,  although examples have been documented that involve short-lived but highly-excited states  accompanied by various forms of stimulated emission. Unfortunately, however, the resulting fluxes are  not often well measured. This form of interaction also appears to be the current preoccupation of string theorists.

More definitive evidence for the theory might emerge from situations involving some form of entanglement, such as in the examples of M-M and F-F coupling mentioned above.  Non-local interactions of a sexual type are possible in principle, but causality and simultaneity issues exist and most researchers consequently prefer to focus on local interactions, which are generally supposed to be more satisfactory from the point-of-view of reproducibility.

Although the theory is qualitatively successful we need more experimental data to pin down the parameters needed for a robust fit. It is not known, for example, whether the rates of M-M and F-F coupling are similar or, indeed, whether the peak intensity of these interactions, when resonance is reached, is similar to those of the standard M-F form. It is generally accepted, however, that the rate of decay from peak intensity is rather slower for processes involving |F> states than for|M> which is not so easy to model in this theory, although with a bit of renormalization we can probably explain anything.

Answers to these questions can perhaps be gleaned from observations of many-body processes  (i.e. those with N≥3),  especially if they involve a multiplicity of hardon states (i.e. collective excitations). Only these permit a full exploration of all possible degrees of freedom, although higher-order Feynman diagrams are needed to depict them and they require more complicated group theoretical techniques.  Examples like the one  shown above  – representing a threesome – are not well understood, but undoubtedly contribute significantly to the bi-spectrum.

One might also speculate that in these and other highly excited states,  the sexual interaction may be described by something more like the  electroweak theory in which all forms of interaction occur in a much more symmetric fashion and at much higher rates than at lower energies. That sounds like some kind of party…

It is worth remarking that there may be finer structure than this model takes into account. For example, the |G> state is generally associated with  singlet configurations like those shown on the right. However, G-G coupling is traditionally described in terms of  “top” |t> and “bottom” |b> states, with b-t coupling the preferred mode,  leading to the possibility of doublets or even triplets. It may be even prove  necessary to introduce a further mixing angle φ of the form

|G>=cosφ |t> + sinφ |b>

so that the general state of |G>  is “versatile”. However, whether G-G interactions can be adequately described even in this extended theory is a matter for debate until the intensity of t-t and b-b  coupling is more accurately measured.

Finally, we should like to point out the difference between our model and that of the usual quark sextet, in which interacting states are described in terms of three pairs: the bottom (b) and top (t) which we have mentioned already; the strange (s) and charmed (c); and the up (u) and down (d). While it is clear that |b> and |t> do exhibit strong interactions and it appears plausible that |s> and |c> might do likewise, the sexual interaction clearly breaks the isospin symmetry between the |u> and the |d> in both M-M and M-F cases. The “up” state is definitely preferred in all forms of coupling and, indeed, the “down” has only ever been known to engage in weak interactions.

We have recently submitted an application to the Science and Technology Facilities Council for a modest sum (£754 million) to build a large-scale  UK facility  in order to carry out hands-on experimental tests of some aspects of the theory. We hope we can rely on the support of the physics community in agreeing to close down their labs and quit their jobs in order to release the funding needed to support it.

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Unravelling CERN

Posted in Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on May 13, 2009 by telescoper

A disturbing piece of news passed me by last week. One of the founder members, Austria, has decided to pull out of CERN, the home of the much-vaunted Large Hadron Collider. The announcement was made on 8th May 2009, but I missed it at the time owing to my trip to Berlin.

Austria, a founder member of CERN, has been a member of the 20-nation body since 1959, but its justification for leaving, according to Austria’s Minister for Science Johannes Hahn, is that the CERN subscription ties up about 70% of the nation’s budget for international research. To quote him

“In the meantime there have been diverse research projects in the European Union which offer a very large number of different scientists’ perspectives..”

Austria only contributes 2.2 percent of CERN’s budget, but it will be the first country to leave the organization since Spain’s departure in 1969. Spain rejoined in 1983. According to a statement,

“CERN would be sorry to lose Austria as one of its member states and sincerely believes that it would be in Austria’s best interests to remain a member..”

The immediate consequence of this will be a (small) increase in the subscriptions payable by other member nations in order to plug the funding gap left by Austria’s departure. However, particle physicists will probably see this as a very worrying precedent that might signal to other funding bodies that they could think the previously unthinkable and follow Austria’s example.

The CERN subscription payable by the United Kingdom comes from the budget of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Although it amounts to about £82 million, this is about 16% of the STFC budget, which is a much smaller fraction than in the case of Austria. However, the consequences of one of the larger contributors like the UK pulling out of CERN would be extremely serious, because of the large increases in remaining subscriptions that would be needed to fill the gap that would be created.

All this puts even more pressure on the Large Hadron Collider to produce the goods and it also reinforces the view I expressed in one of my first ever blog posts that we may be nearing the time when nations decide that Big Science is just too expensive and  too esoteric to be worth investing in…

STOP PRESS:  New just in from Thomas (below) reveals that the Austrians have done a U-bahn U-turn and are not, after all, going to pull out of CERN.

For more information, see the story in Physics World.

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Turkeys and Angels

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , on March 4, 2009 by telescoper

Travelling to London on Saturday to see Doctor Atomic, I read an interesting piece in the Guardian review by Salman Rushdie. The general theme was inspired by the fact that a film director once told him that all movies made from novels were “rubbish”.

I was reminded of that piece today when I had a quick look at cosmic variance and found a post about the forthcoming film Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code.  The post is mainly about the fact that Angels and Demons is based in the world of particle physics so some educational materials have been generated to cash in on it, so to speak. Nothing wrong with that as an idea. Every little helps.

The problem for me is that the film is  directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks. This is the same combination that took Brown’s enjoyably preposterous page-turner and made it into one of the worst pieces of cobbled-together garbage that I’ve ever seen in a cinema. The novel isn’t so bad for what it is, a formulaic but fairly well crafted thriller. The film is excruciating. The book of Angels and Demons is not as good as the book of the Da Vinci Code, so I shan’t be rushing to see the film when it is released in the UK, particle physics content notwithstanding.

This is only one example of a book being turned into a terrible film, but I can think of many counter-examples to the assertion that they’re all rubbish. Of course it helps if the book you start with isn’t rubbish itself.  As a recent example I  think of Atonement by Ian McEwan, a great book  turned into a pretty good film.

But the example that for me really refutes the argument is Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann:  a brilliant and disturbing novella about  physical and spiritual decay turned into a stunning visual masterpiece of a film by Luchino Visconti. The story is about the growing obsession of ageing writer Gustav von Aschenbach with a young Polish boy, Tadzio, in a city beset by a cholera epidemic. It’s not a story about paedophilia (nor even, in fact, particularly about homosexuality) although it doesn’t shrink from either of those themes. As the critic Lawrence J.  Quirk put it

Some shots of Björn Andrésen, the Tadzio of the film, could be extracted from the frame and hung on the walls of the Louvre or the Vatican in Rome. For this is not a pretty youngster who is supposed to represent an object of perverted lust; that was neither novelist Mann’s nor director-screen writer Visconti’s intention. Rather, this is a symbol of a beauty allied to those which inspired Michelangelo‘s David and Da Vinci‘s Mona Lisa, and which moved Dante to seek ultimate aesthetic catharsis in the distant figure of Beatrice.

In other words Tadzio symbolises beauty in a primarily aesthetic sense rather than a sexual one. Or maybe I protest too much.

The film is beautiful to look at and is held together by a riveting central performance by the late Dirk Bogarde in probably his greatest acting role. Here is the closing scene of the film, La Morte del Professore sulla Spiaggia, languidly paced but emotionally and erotically charged. Aschenbach, wearing make-up and with the  hair dye used to disguise his age melting in the heat, suffers a heart attack and dies while Tadzio stands in the sea, like an angel beckoning him  to a better world.

The music is the 4th movement (Adagietto) from Mahler‘s 5th Symphony. If ever there was music to die for, this is it.

And if this is a bit morbid for your taste, maybe you can suggest other great novels made into great movies?

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