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Get thee behind me, Plato

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags electrons, gluons, multiverse, ontology, Particle Physics, Physics, Platonic realism, Platonism, Quantum Mechanics, quarks, SU(3) on September 4, 2010 by telescoper

The blogosphere, even the tiny little bit of it that I know anything about, has a habit of summoning up strange coincidences between things so, following EM Forster’s maxim “only connect”, I thought I’d spend a lazy saturday lunchtime trying to draw a couple of them together.

A few days ago I posted what was intended to be a fun little item about the wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. Basically, what I was trying to say is that there’s no real problem about thinking of an electron as behaving sometimes like a wave and sometimes like a particle because, in reality (whatever that is), it is neither. “Particle” and “wave” are useful abstractions but they are not in an exact one-to-one correspondence with natural phenomena.

Before going on I should point out that the vast majority of physicists are well away of the distinction between, say, the “theoretical” electron and whatever the “real thing” is. We physicists tend to live in theory space rather than in the real world, so we tend to teach physics by developing the formal mathematical properties of the “electron” (or “electric field”) or whatever, and working out what experimental consequences these entail in certain situations. Generally speaking, the theory works so well in practice that we often talk about the theoretical electron that exists in the realm of mathematics and the electron-in-itself as if they are one and the same thing. As long as this is just a pragmatic shorthand, it’s fine. However, I think we need to be careful to keep this sort of language under control. Pushing theoretical ideas out into the ontological domain is a dangerous game. Physics – especially quantum physics – is best understood as a branch of epistemology. What is known? is safer ground than what is there?

Anyway, my little piece sparked a number of interesting comments on Reddit, including a thread that went along the lines “of course an electron is neither a particle nor a wave, it’s actually a spin-1/2 projective representation of the Lorentz Group on a Hilbert space”. That description, involving more sophisticated mathematical concepts than those involved in bog-standard quantum mechanics, undoubtedly provides a more complete account of natural phenomena associated with the electrons and electrical fields, but I’ll stick to my guns and maintain that it still introduces a deep confusion to assert that the electron “is” something mathematical, whether that’s a “spin-1/2 projective representation” or a complex function or anything else. That’s saying something physical is a mathematical. Both entities have some sort of existence, of course, but not the same sort, and the one cannot “be” the other. “Certain aspects of an electron’s behaviour can be described by certain mathematical structures” is as I’m prepared to go.

Pushing deeper than quantum mechanics, into the realm of quantum field theory, there was the following contribution:

The electron field is a quantum field as described in quantum field theories. A quantum field covers all space time and in each point the quantum field is in some state, it could be the ground state or it could be an excitation above the ground state. The excitations of the electron field are the so-called electrons. The mathematical object that describes the electron field possesses, amongst others, certain properties that deal with transformations of the space-time coordinates. If, when performing a transformation of the space-time coordinates, the mathematical object changes in such a way that is compatible with the physics of the quantum field, then one says that the mathematical object of the field (also called field) is represented by a spin 1/2 (in the electron case) representation of a certain group of transformations (the Poincaré group, in this example).I understand your quibbling, it seems natural to think that “spin 1/2″ is a property of the mathematical tool to describe something, not the something itself. If you press on with that distinction however, you should be utterly puzzled of why physics should follow, step by step, the path led by mathematics.

For example, one speaks about the ¨invariance under the local action of the group SU(3)” as a fundamental property of the fields that feel the nuclear strong force. This has two implications, the mathematical object that represents quarks must have 3 ¨strong¨ degrees of freedom (the so-called color) and there must be 3²-1 = 8 carriers of the force (the gluons) because the group of transformations in a SU(N) group has N²-1 generators. And this is precisely what is observed.

So an extremely abstract mathematical principle correctly accounts for the dynamics of an inmensely large quantity of phenomena. Why does then physics follow the derivations of mathematics if its true nature is somewhat different?

No doubt this line of reasoning is why so many theoretical physicists seem to adopt a view of the world that regards mathematical theories as being, as it were, “built into” nature rather than being things we humans invented to describe nature. This is a form of Platonic realism.

I’m no expert on matters philosophical, but I’d say that I find this stance very difficult to understand, although I am prepared to go part of the way. I used to work in a Mathematics department many years ago and one of the questions that came up at coffee time occasionally was “Is mathematics invented or discovered?”. In my experience, pure mathematicians always answered “discovered” while others (especially astronomers, said “invented”). For what it’s worth, I think mathematics is a bit of both. Of course we can invent mathematical objects, endow them with certain attributes and proscribe rules for manipulating them and combining them with other entities. However, once invented anything that is worked out from them is “discovered”. In fact, one could argue that all mathematical theorems etc arising within such a system are simply tautological expressions of the rules you started with.

Of course physicists use mathematics to construct models that describe natural phenomena. Here the process is different from mathematical discovery as what we’re trying to do is work out which, if any, of the possible theories is actually the one that accounts best for whatever empirical data we have. While it’s true that this programme requires us to accept that there are natural phenomena that can be described in mathematical terms, I do not accept that it requires us to accept that nature “is” mathematical. It requires that there be some sort of law governing some of aspects of nature’s behaviour but not that such laws account for everything.

Of course, mathematical ideas have been extremely successful in helping physicists build new physical descriptions of reality. On the other hand, however, there is a great deal of mathematical formalism that is is not useful in this way. Physicists have had to select those mathematical object that we can use to represent natural phenomena, like selecting words from a dictionary. The fact that we can assemble a sentence using words from the Oxford English Dictionary that conveys some information about something we see doesn’t not mean that what we see “is” English. A whole load of grammatically correct sentences can be constructed that don’t make any sense in terms of observable reality, just as there is a great deal of mathematics that is internally self-consistent but makes no contact with physics.

Moreover, to the person whose quote I commented on above, I’d agree that the properties of the SU(3) gauge group have indeed accounted for many phenomena associated with the strong interaction, which is why the standard model of particle physics contains 8 gluons and quarks carrying a three-fold colour charge as described by quantum chromodynamics. Leaving aside the fact that QCD is such a terribly difficult theory to work with – in practice it involves nightmarish lattice calculations on a scale to make even the most diehard enthusiast cringe – what I would ask is whether this description in any case sufficient for us to assert that it describes “true nature”? Many physicists will no doubt disagree with me, but I don’t think so. It’s a map, not the territory.

So why am I boring you all with this rambling dissertation? Well, it brings me to my other post – about Stephen Hawking’s comments about God. I don’t want to go over that issue again – frankly, I was bored with it before I’d finished writing my own blog post – but it does relate to the bee that I often find in my bonnet about the tendency of many modern theoretical physicists to assign the wrong category of existence to their mathematical ideas. The prime example that springs to my mind is the multiverse. I can tolerate certain versions of the multiverse idea, in fact. What I can’t swallow, however is the identification of the possible landscape of string theory vacua – essentially a huge set of possible solutions of a complicated set of mathematical equations – with a realised set of “parallel universes”. That particular ontological step just seems absurd to me.

I’m just about done, but one more thing I’d say to finish with is concerns the (admittedly overused) metaphor of maps and territories. Maps are undoubtedly useful in helping us find our way around, but we have to remember that there are always things that aren’t on the map at all. If we rely too heavily on one, we might miss something of great interest that the cartographer didn’t think important. Likewise if we fool ourselves into thinking our descriptions of nature are so complete that they “are” all that nature is, then we might miss the road to a better understanding.

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STFC Grants Consultation

Posted in Science Politics with tags astronomy, Particle Physics, research grants, STFC, Universities on August 31, 2010 by telescoper

I thought I’d put my community service badge on today and draw the attention of any astronomers or particle physicists reading this blog that the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is consulting on proposed changes to the ways it funds research grants. I can hardly over-emphasize the importance of this issue, especially for those of us working in University departments who rely on grant funding in order to carry out our research.

There is a consultation form on which you can post comments on the alternatives outlined in the accompanying document.

Regrettably, only three options are offered. In brief, they are

All grants to be 3-year “standard” grants (i.e. no more “rolling” grants at all)
Some (a small number?) of 6-year “core” grants introduced, mainly to cover the cost of technical support staff.
The status quo (i.e. mixture of 3-year “standard” and 5-year “rolling” grants).

I’m not going to comment on these here, as my intention is just to draw your attention to the fact that this consultation is open and that the deadline is very soon: Monday 6th September 2010, at 4pm. I would have thought it’s probably a good idea for groups to submit collective responses where possible, but I’m sure all feedback would be welcomed.

We don’t know how much of a grant programme will remain after the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review, but it’s even more important to make the system as efficient and fair as possible when we know money is going to be tight.

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No Science Please, We’re British

Posted in Education, Politics, Science Politics with tags astronomy, CERN, EPSRC, Particle Physics, postdoctoral, postgraduate, RCUK, Research Funding, Science, STFC on August 27, 2010 by telescoper

The time is getting closer when the Condem government’s hatchet men announce the detailed plans for spending cuts over the next few years. Those of us scientists working in British universities face an anxious few weeks waiting to see how hard the axe is going to fall. Funds for both teaching and research seem likely to be slashed and there’s fear of widespread laboratory closures across the sector, particularly in “pure” science that doesn’t satisfy the current desire for a rapid return on investment.

The mood is pretty accurately summarised by an article in the Guardian, in which John Womersley (who is the Director of Science Programmes at the Science and Technology Facilities Council) pointed out the very real possibility that the UK might be forced to mothball expensive national facilities such the recently built Diamond Light Source and/or withdraw from international collaborations such as CERN (which would also entail pulling out of the Large Hadron Collider). Astronomers also fear that cuts to STFC might force us to withdraw from the European Southern Observatory, which would basically destroy our international competitiveness in a field which for so long we have been world-leading. Withdrawal from CERN would similarly ensure the end of particle physics in Britain.

As well as the loss of facilities and involvement in ongoing international research programmes, big cuts in science funding – especially at STFC – will also lead to a “lost generation” of young scientists having little or no opportunity to carry out their research here in Britain. In fact the process of throwing away the UK’s future as a scientific nation has already begun and is likely to accelerate even without further cuts this year.

The STFC budgets for training young scientists at both postgraduate and postdoctoral levels were slashed even before the General Election because STFC was formed in 2007 with insufficient funds to meet its commitments. The total funding for research grants in astronomy – which is how many postdoctoral researchers are trained has been squeezed by an unsustainable level of 40% already. Many young scientists, whose contracts have been terminated with virtually no notice, have not unreasonably decided that the UK can offer them nothing but a kick in the teeth and gone abroad, taking their expertise (which was developed thanks to funding provided by the UK taxpayer) to one of our competitors in the global economy.

Some say the previous funding crisis was due to downright incompetence on behalf of the STFC Executive, some say it was part of a deliberate policy at the RCUK level to steer funding away from pure science towards technology-related areas. Either way the result is clear. Opportunities for young British scientists to do scientific research have been severely curtailed. Another round of cuts to STFC of the 25% being talked about by the new government will certainly lead to wholesale closures of labs and observatories, the withdrawal from international commitments such as CERN and ESO, and the loss of irreplaceable expertise to other countries.

On top of this, it seems not only STFC but also other research councils (such as EPSRC) are talking about clawing back funds they have already granted, by reneging on contracts they have already signed with Universities to fund research by scientists carried out there. If this does happen, there will be a catastrophic breakdown of trust between University-based scientists and the government government that will probably never be healed.

This government risks destroying the foundations of scientific excellence that have taken over 300 years to build, and all for what level of saving? The annual subscription the UK pays to CERN is about £70 million, a couple of pounds per British taxpayer per year, and a figure that most bankers would regard as small change. It would be madness to throw away so much long-term benefit to save so little in terms of short-term cost.

In the Guardian article, John Womersley is quoted as saying

Our competitor nations such as Germany and the US are investing in science and engineering right now because they recognise that they stimulate economic growth and can help to rebalance the economy. It is pretty obvious that if the UK does the exact opposite, those companies will look elsewhere. That would deepen the deficit – in a recession you need to invest in science and engineering to reap the benefits, not cut back.

Of course we don’t know how the Comprehensive Spending Review will turn out and there may be still time to influence the deliberations going on in Whitehall. I hope the government can be persuaded to see sense.

I’m trying very hard to be optimistic but, given what happened to STFC in 2007, I have to say I’m very worried indeed for the future of British science especially those areas covered by STFC’s remit. The reason for this is that STFC’s expenditure is dominated by the large facilities needed to do Big Science, many of which are international collaborations.

In order to be active in particle physics, for example, we have to be in CERN and that is both expensive and out of STFC’s control. The cost of paying the scientists to do the science is a relatively small add-on to that fixed cost, and that’s the only bit that can be cut easily. If we cut the science spend there’s no point in being in CERN, but we can’t do the science without being in CERN. The decision to be made therefore rapidly resolves itself into whether we do particle physics or not, a choice which once made would be irreversible (and catastrophic). It’s the same logic for ESO and ground-based astronomy. There’s a real possibility in a few years time that the UK will have killed off at least one of these immensely important areas of science (and possibly others too).

A decade ago such decisions would have been unthinkable, but now apparently they’re most definitely on the cards. I don’t know where it all went wrong, but given the (relatively) meagre sums involved and the fact that it started before the Credit Crunch anyway, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that it’s a deliberate stitch-up by senior mandarins. All I can say is that the future looks so grim I’m glad I’m no longer young.

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Nicola Cabibbo (1935-2010)

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags CKM matrix, Nicola Cabibbo, Particle Physics, quarks, weak interactions on August 16, 2010 by telescoper

Just a short post to convey the very sad news that the great Italian physicist Nicola Cabibbo passed away today at the age of 75. I know I’m not alone in thinking that he should have received a share of the Nobel prize in 2008, which was awarded to Yoichiro Nambu (half the prize) and the other half was split between Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa.

As I wrote in 2008:

All three are extremely distinguished physicists and their contributions certainly deserve to be rewarded. But, in the case of Kobayashi and Maskawa, the Nobel Foundation has made a startling omission that I really can’t understand at all and which even threatens to undermine the prestige of the prize itself.The work for which these two were given half the Nobel Prize this year relates to the broken symmetry displayed by weak interactions between quarks. We now know that there are three generations of quarks, each containing quarks of two different flavours. The first generation contains the up (u) and the down (d), the second the strange (s) and the charmed (c), and the third has the bottom (b) and the top (t). OK, so the names are daft, but physicists have never been good at names.

The world of quarks is different to penetrate becauses quarks interact via the strong force which binds them close together into hadrons which are either baryons (three quarks) or mesons (a quark and an anti-quark).

But there are other kinds of particles too, the leptons. These are also arranged in three generations but each of these families contains a charged particle and a neutrino. The first generation is an electron and a neutrino, the second a muon and its neutrino, and the third has the tau and another neutrino. One might think that the three quark generations and the three lepton generations might have some deep equivalence between them, but leptons aren’t quarks so can’t interact at all by the strong interaction. Quarks and leptons can both interact via the weak interaction (the force responsible for radioactive beta-decay).

Weak interactions between leptons conserve generation, so the total number of particles of electron type is never changed (ignoring neutrino oscillations, which have only relatively recently been discovered). It seemed natural to assume that weak interactions between quarks should do the same thing, forbidding processes that hop between generations. Unfortunately, however, this is not the case. There are weak interactions that appear to convert u and/or d quarks into c and/or s quarks, but these seem to be relatively feeble compared to interactions within a generation, which seem to happen with about the same strength for quarks as they do for leptons. This all suggests that there is some sort of symmetry lurking somewhere in there, but it’s not quite what one might have anticipated.

The explanation of this was proposed by Nicola Cabibbo who, using a model in which there are only two quark generations, developed the idea that states of pure quark flavour (“u” or “d”, say) are not really what the weak interaction “sees”. In other words, the quark flavour states are not proper eigenstates of the weak interaction. All that is needed is to imagine that the required eigenstates are a linear combination of the flavour states and, Bob’s your uncle, quark generation needn’t be conserved. This phenomenon is called Quark Mixing. What makes it simple for only two generations is that it can be described entirely by one number: the Cabibbo angle, which measures how much the quark flavour basis is misaligned with the weak interaction basis. The angle is small so the symmetry is only slightly broken.

Kobayashi and Maskawa generalized the work of Cabibbo to the case of three quark generations. That’s actually quite a substantial task as the description of mixing in this case requires not just a single number but a 3×3 matrix each of whose entries is complex. This matrix is universally called the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix and it now crops up all over the standard model of particle physics.

And there’s the rub. Why on Earth was Cabibbo not awarded a share of this year’s prize? I was shocked and saddened to find out that he’d been passed over despite the fact that his work so obviously led the way. I can think of no reason why he was omitted. It’s outrageous. I even feel sorry for Kobayashi and Maskawa, because there is certain to be such an outcry about this gaffe that it may detract from their success.

But really…

I hope, however, that controversy doesn’t intrude too much on what I hope will be the forthcoming celebration of Cabibbo’s immense contributions to particle physics. I’ll leave it to the experts to write more detailed appreciations that do better justice to his achievements. I’ll just say that I only met him once in real life, but found him charmingly modest and altogether quite delightful company. He will be greatly missed.

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Lines on the non-Discovery of the Higgs Boson

Posted in Poetry, The Universe and Stuff with tags Higgs Boson, Particle Physics, Tevatron on July 14, 2010 by telescoper

In search of fame I spread around
A rumour that the Higgs was found;
But now it’s clear it wasn’t true,
My career has just gone down the loo.

(by Peter Coles, aged 47½)

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Science versus Engineering?

Posted in Science Politics with tags BIS, Particle Physics, Physics, Royal Academy of Engineering, Science, STEM, STFC 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 Natural Units, Particle Physics, quantum theory, special relativity 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 astronomy, Danish National Research Foundation, EPSRC, Lord Drayson, Particle Physics, STFC 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 astronomy, CCLRC, CERN ESA, EPSRC, Lord Drayson, Particle Physics, PPARC, Research Assessment Exercise, STFC 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 Brian Cox, Dr Seuss, Particle Physics 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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In the Dark