It’s been a warm and rather humid weekend in Barcelona. Yesterday was particularly stifling, with the heat and lack of breeze making things rather uncomfortable. The Air Quality indicator reached “Poor” largely due to high levels of NO2, no doubt from vehicle exhaust fumes. It surprises me that so many people sit out at the pavement tables outside restaurants having meals when it’s hot and the air is thick with nasty stuff. Al Fresco is supposed to mean “in the fresh air”! I much prefer to dine indoors, unless it’s very late at night.
Today was a little better except that there was resurfacing work going on outside my flat on RambladeCatalunya. I knew it was coming, as they’ve been doing other nearby roads over the past few weekends. It was a little noisy, even on the 6th floor, but that didn’t bother me as much as the tar fumes!
Anyway, all this has made me decide not to attempt to extend my stay here beyond my current lease, which expires at the end of June. I’ll take the last two months of my sabbatical somewhere a bit cooler!
I took my first degree in the Natural Sciences Tripos at the University of Cambridge. This involved doing a very general first year comprising four different elements that could be chosen flexibly. I quickly settled on Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics for Natural Sciences to reflect my A-level results but was struggling for the fourth. In the end I picked the one that seemed most like Physics, a course called Crystalline Materials. I didn’t like that at all, and wish I’d done some Biology instead – Biology of Cells and Biology of Organisms were both options – or even Geology, but I stuck with it for the first year.
Having to do such a wide range of subjects was very challenging. The timetable was densely packed and the pace was considerable. In the second year, however, I was able to focus on Mathematics and Physics and although it was still intense it was a bit more focussed. I ended up doing Theoretical Physics in my final year, including a theory project.
My best teacher at School, Dr Geoeff Swinden, was a chemist (he had a doctorate in organic chemistry from Oxford University) and when I went to Cambridge I fully expected to specialisze in Chemistry rather than Physics. I loved the curly arrows and all that. But two things changed. One was that I found the Physics content of the first year far more interesting – and the lecturers and tutors far more inspiring – than Chemistry, and the other was that my considerable ineptitude at practical work made me doubt that I had a future in a chemistry laboratory. And so it came to pass that I switched allegiance to Physics, a decision I am very glad I made.
(It was only towards the end of my degree that I started to take Astrophysics seriously as a possible specialism, but that’s another story…)
Anyway, when I turned up at Cambridge over 40 years ago to begin my course, and having Chemistry as a probable end point, I bought all the recommended text books, one of which was Physical Chemistry by P.W. Atkins. I found a picture (above) of the 1982 edition which may well be the one I bought (although I vaguely remember the one I had being in paperback). I thought it was a very good book, and it has gone into many subsequent editions. I also found the Physical part of Chemistry quite straightforward because it is basically Physics. I even got higher marks in Chemistry in the first year than I did in Physics but that didn’t alter my decision to drop Chemistry after the first year. When I did so, I followed tradition and sold my copy to a new undergraduate along with the other books relating to courses that I dropped.
Yesterday I found out that Peter Atkins has decided to make one of his books available to download. The book concerned is however not the compendious tome I bought, but a shorter summary called Concepts in Physical Chemistry, which was published in 1995. This is no doubt a very useful text for beginning Chemistry students so I thought I’d pass on this information. You can download it here, although you have to do it chapter by chapter in PDF files.
P.S. Chemistry in Spanish is ‘Química’. Since Physics and Chemistry share the same building in the University of Barcelona, where I am currently working, I frequently walk past rooms with doors marked ‘Quim’ (but I have never taken the opportunity to enter one).
I thought I’d share this image of Maynooth University Library Cat, complete with daisy bonnet. He doesn’t look entirely gruntled with his new headgear, and I’m not sure how long it stayed on his bonce, but it’s nice to see him in fine fettle, though he’s getting a few more grey hairs. Aren’t we all?
After a very busy and unusual week, it’s time to get back to normal with the usual Saturday roundup of business at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. If you want to know how many papers we have published so far this year (Vol. 7), the answer is 42. The total published by OJAp is now 157. We’re still on track to publish around 100 papers this year, possibly more, compared to last year’s 50.
All the members of this week’s trio are in the folder marked Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, and indeed all three relate in one way or another to the topic of weak gravitational lensing. All three were published on Wednesday 22nd May 2024.
The second paper to present is “A unified linear intrinsic alignment model for elliptical and disc galaxies and the resulting ellipticity spectra” by Basundhara Ghosh (Bangalore, India), with Kai Nussbaumer, Eileen Sophie Giesel & Björn Malte Schäfer (Heidelberg, Germany). It presents a discussion of the physical origin of intrinsic alignments of both elliptical and disk galaxies and the implications for cosmological studies
The overlay looks like this:
You can read this paper directly on the arXiv here.
As it’s Friday afternoon I thought I would share one of the little videos I mentioned in the previous post. It’s only just over a minute long but it is worth listening to, not least for the dulcet tones of Henry Joy McCracken as he explains the science.
The Euclid preprint related to this work can be found here.
This morning’s arXiv update brought the expected deluge of preprints from Euclid. You can find details of all fifteen of the new articles here. Ten of them relate to the Early Release Observations of which five were announced yesterday and five last November. These are essentially byproducts of the testing and calibration phase of the Euclid mission rather than the main cosmological survey. ESA is making a series of short videos about these results which I will share on here from time to time.
Of more direct relevance to cosmologists such as myself are the following five reference papers:
The overview paper, led by Yannick Mellier (Euclid Consortium Lead), giving a general description of the mission capabilities and science goals, will be the main reference paper and just about every active member of the Euclid Consortium is on the author list (including myself). That’s over a thousand people, not quite at the level of the Large Hadron Collider but getting there. I do think we need to find a better way of giving credit to work in large collaborations than through authorship, but until someone comes up with a workable scheme, and people responsible for hiring researchers adopt it, we’re stuck with what we’ve got. At least I can say that I’ve read that paper (which is 94 pages long, including the author list)
Papers II-IV are technical articles relating to Euclid’s instruments and their calibration, which will also be important references for the survey part of the Euclid mission. Paper V is about the Flagship simulations and the mock catalogues produced therefrom; I discussed these a while ago here. It is led by Francisco Castander of Institut de Ciencies de l’Espai, who organized the meeting I attended recently here in Barcelona.
These papers now now be peer-reviewed and, assuming they are accepted, published in a special issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A).
Together with the five images released last November that makes a total of ten Early Release Observations from the pre-survey phase of Euclid. It’s not all about the pictures, however. Today also saw the release of ten scientific papers to go with these images, as well as five reference papers for the main survey. You can find them all, with accompanying information here. They will be announced on arXiv tomorrow.
You might also be interested to read my Euclid piece on RTÉ Brainstorm which has just appeared. This is not just about the new images, but gives an update on what Euclid has been up to since launch, and what we can expect in the future. There’s also a version adapted for Maynooth University PR purposes here. It includes this quote:
Today’s release of new data and technical papers from Euclid is exciting in itself but also marks the start, after months of painstaking calibration and testing of the instruments, of Euclid’s main cosmological survey. We are on the threshold of a new era in cosmology. Maynooth is the only University in Ireland to be involved in this mission and it is very exciting to be at the forefront of such an important scientific development.
I’m also quoted in a piece in the Irish Times. You’ll probably find the article blocked by a paywall but my bit is:
I was intrigued to see this graphic accompanying an article about hurling. Notice that the left hand side shows the field equations of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and some expressions to do with quantum mechanics. Hurling is indeed an extraordinary – and extraordinarily fast – sport but is the article implying that classical physics is inadequate to describe it? Perhaps it is implying that through hurling we will at last arrive at a Theory of Everything?
It’s a hectic time ahead of a Big Event on Thursday 23rd May, which will include the publication of five new Early Release Observations (EROs). I’m not at liberty to say what they are until after 12 noon (CEST) on Thursday except that they’re very pretty. You can watch the live stream here:
Thursday will also see the release of ten scientific papers related to the EROs; they will appear on arXiv on Friday 24th May. These will be the first science results from the Euclid mission.
But that’s not all! Thursday will also see the publication of five papers from the Euclid Consortium (of which I am the sole member based in Ireland). These will be the principal technical reference papers aimed at the astronomical community about the Euclid mission, covering the instruments, cosmology and other astronomy science possibilities, as well as the cosmological simulations used to assist the analysis of the mission. One of these, the main overview paper for the mission, has over a thousand authors (one of whom is your truly).
Thursday’s announcements are likely to significant level of press interest. That’s not only due to the European Space Agency’s own social media feeds and the like, but also local activities in Ireland. For example, there’s this from Science Foundation Ireland using this, from the Little Book of Irish Research:
I have also written a piece for RTÉ Brainstorm, as a kind of update on the one I wrote last year on the occasion of the launch; this will go live after the embargo is lifted on Thursday.
Now all the final results are in and validated, the Board can now proceed to the classification of Honours for the 2023/24 Premier League.
As Chair, I will remind you of the regulations as we go through. Fortunately, as was the case last year, matters are relatively straightforward.
FINAL TABLE
Three candidates (Manchester City, Arsenal, and Liverpool) have a final score greater than or equal to 70 and will therefore be awarded First Class Honours. All three can look forward to further study abroad in Europe next year. Manchester City win this year’s prize for getting the top marks as well as a special award for getting away with so many financial irregularities.
The next five candidates all have scores in the range 60-69 so they are all in the Upper Second Class, i.e. II.1, category though in the case of Newcastle United and Manchester United, only just. Aston Villa will be disappointed to have missed out on a First, but their mark of 68 is nevertheless enough to ensure they will be heading abroad next year along with the top three.
Tottenham and Chelsea (and perhaps Newcastle United) will also get to study abroad next year. Manchester Utd are taking an extra exam on Saturday and if they pass that will get to study abroad, in place of Newcastle.
Only one candidate is in the Lower Second Class (II.2) this year (West Ham), while the next six candidates all get clear Thirds, having marks in the range 40-49. The Board discussed whether to offer Crystal Palace a viva but in the end decided it couldn’t be bothered. Everton only just passed, with a mark of 40, after having points deducted for disciplinary reasons.
Brentford technically failed with a mark of 39 but can pass by compensation. Nottingham Forest only just scraped through by compensation last year, and did even worse this year including having marks deducted for cheating but, having considered the extenuating circumstances, the Board has decided to allow them yet another go, although they do not qualify for Honours and must be content with being classified as “Ordinary”.
That leaves the three candidates at the bottom of the table – Luton Town, Burnley, and Sheffield United – who are all “hard fails” . They will have to terminate the course and consider their options. The Chair has agreed to meet with the Admissions Team to understand how Sheffield United was admitted to the course when they were so clearly under-qualified. Perhaps some form of administrative error occurred?
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In the Dark 