"This is a very rare event. It only happens every 400 years," said the glossy lady on ITV this morning. "Oh, dear," I said - or maybe something worse. "Text them!" said my wife. But I had to press on with the day so I hope somebody else commented.
Lunar eclipses are visible somewhere on Earth most years. Statistically that means we can see one in Britain on average once every year or two. Sometimes we'll see them in successive years and sometimes we might have to wait two or three years. In 2011 we'll be able to see lunar eclipses on 15 June and 10 December, but then we'll have to wait until 2015.
So, what's this "every 400 years" about? Well, it is apparently more than 400 years since the last time a total eclipse coincided with the winter solstice. This is a coincidence of so little import that nobody has yet bothered to work out when it will happen next but it certainly isn't a recurring event every 400 years. It is equally valid to get excited because a lunar eclipse falls on your birthday, on the birthday of Sun Myung Moon, or on a day when American Werewolf in London is being shown on TCM. But I'm not sure that poor Kate Garraway appreciated any of this and somebody glancing only briefly at that channel - like myself - could easily have come away with the impression that lunar eclipses in general were extremely rare events. I'm really not sure if this was her own impression.
I shouldn't complain; it's great to see a celestial event receiving this much attention. But it's hard not to feel uneasy at some of what gets said on these occasions, and the degree of cosmic ignorance that gets revealed.
Anyway, regardless of which day it falls on, a lunar eclipse is a beautiful and only slightly unusual sight and you won't have to wait 400 years to see the next one.
Tuesday 21 December 2010
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Why are we still here?
I guess there are several people who'd like answers to that question, each with his or her own view of why we shouldn't still be here. What a lot of fun I could have! But I had something less destructive in mind.
When you think about it, it all seems incredibly old-fashioned: the idea of people sitting in a room listening to another person speak, even with multimedia accompaniment, or talking to one another. What's wrong with them? Don't they have internet in their houses? Surely that's enough, whether they want to know about the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Laplace's Equation, the Killing Times or medieval tapestry. More and more scholarly articles are widely available for those who want to delve deeper. Why come to a class? - you can just teach yourself.
Of course there are a lot of obvious answers. I hope anybody who reads this and is interested will add some of them as comments - just a word or two will be fine, guys! But I'm also wondering, not for the first time, how we can use the new opportunities these media present, what useful revisions of practice they offer us. We need to keep thinking about this because the technologies keep changing.
I was grappling with this topic two or three posts ago and I deferred to Aimee Mann; now I think it's either write a book or tackle it a tiny bit at a time, with no idea of where we'll wind up. And I guess that's what a blog is for. So, first of what may become an extended sequence. Give us your thoughts!
When you think about it, it all seems incredibly old-fashioned: the idea of people sitting in a room listening to another person speak, even with multimedia accompaniment, or talking to one another. What's wrong with them? Don't they have internet in their houses? Surely that's enough, whether they want to know about the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Laplace's Equation, the Killing Times or medieval tapestry. More and more scholarly articles are widely available for those who want to delve deeper. Why come to a class? - you can just teach yourself.
Of course there are a lot of obvious answers. I hope anybody who reads this and is interested will add some of them as comments - just a word or two will be fine, guys! But I'm also wondering, not for the first time, how we can use the new opportunities these media present, what useful revisions of practice they offer us. We need to keep thinking about this because the technologies keep changing.
I was grappling with this topic two or three posts ago and I deferred to Aimee Mann; now I think it's either write a book or tackle it a tiny bit at a time, with no idea of where we'll wind up. And I guess that's what a blog is for. So, first of what may become an extended sequence. Give us your thoughts!
Saturday 27 November 2010
Wondering about wonders of the night sky
I said to my 5 year old son a few clear nights ago, "Get your coat and shoes on and come and see Jupiter through the telescope." This was met with some enthusiasm.
It was a cold, clear night and Jupiter and the Moon were to the south and I set the small scope up on my driveway with my son prancing around me happily. I found the Moon first so I could align the finderscope and then after a little fiddling with screws, I called him to have a look. He continued prancing for another minute or so and then came over.
"Oooh! That's very bright" he said. The moon is very bright through even a small telescope.
Then I swiveled it onto Jupiter. I could see the disk, faint banding and three of the four Galilean moons. I then called my son over again and he looked through the eyepiece.
"But that's rubbish!" he said.
He listened quietly to my attempt at explaining what he was seeing, but seemed unconvinced. I hope my few words lodged somewhere in his mind.
The next night I was doing something similar with a telescope with an evening class at Glasgow University observatory. There was much less prancing around. They were very impressed by the Moon, pleased and interested at Jupiter but disappointed by the smudge that was the Andromeda galaxy. Of course, when you explain that the smudge is a galaxy of several hundred billion stars and that the light they just saw left those stars over 2 million years ago, then that smudge takes on a new significance.
We were also treated to a meteor, a couple of satellites and for a moment we were all perplexed by a strange, flickering orange "star" drifting across the sky to the north. After a bit of theorising, we concluded it was a chinese lantern, which we then confirmed with binoculars and a fleeting glimpse as it zipped across the telescope's field of view.
The night sky is beautiful to the naked eye, but it has an even deeper beauty that can only be appreciated with your mind.
It was a cold, clear night and Jupiter and the Moon were to the south and I set the small scope up on my driveway with my son prancing around me happily. I found the Moon first so I could align the finderscope and then after a little fiddling with screws, I called him to have a look. He continued prancing for another minute or so and then came over.
"Oooh! That's very bright" he said. The moon is very bright through even a small telescope.
Then I swiveled it onto Jupiter. I could see the disk, faint banding and three of the four Galilean moons. I then called my son over again and he looked through the eyepiece.
"But that's rubbish!" he said.
Clearly he expected this
but got this
He listened quietly to my attempt at explaining what he was seeing, but seemed unconvinced. I hope my few words lodged somewhere in his mind.
The next night I was doing something similar with a telescope with an evening class at Glasgow University observatory. There was much less prancing around. They were very impressed by the Moon, pleased and interested at Jupiter but disappointed by the smudge that was the Andromeda galaxy. Of course, when you explain that the smudge is a galaxy of several hundred billion stars and that the light they just saw left those stars over 2 million years ago, then that smudge takes on a new significance.
We were also treated to a meteor, a couple of satellites and for a moment we were all perplexed by a strange, flickering orange "star" drifting across the sky to the north. After a bit of theorising, we concluded it was a chinese lantern, which we then confirmed with binoculars and a fleeting glimpse as it zipped across the telescope's field of view.
The night sky is beautiful to the naked eye, but it has an even deeper beauty that can only be appreciated with your mind.
Wednesday 17 November 2010
More on Ancient Egypt in Glasgow
Since writing, I've run my hands-on session with my Art students (which went wonderfully well - lots of good photos taken of them looking at objects with such enthusiasm and reverence), and I've run another session where I took my students to the Hunterian Stores - a dark corner of Glasgow on Thurso Street - to look at facsimile paintings of scenes from Theban tombs made by the Rev Colin Campbell, a Glasgow University alumnus, at the turn of the 20th century.
The idea for the Campbell session was to unroll (in the manner of 19th century Egyptologists unwrapping mummies!) the paintings - some of which are over 3m long - and to re-create a tomb space for my students, with all its paintings intact in glorious colour. Of course, we only managed to look at 3 paintings - the time absolutely flew! We got so carried away picking out details and pondering the reasons behind them (e.g. why show a sleepy servant dozing under a tree when everyone around him is busily at work enduring provision for the tomb owner's afterlife?)!
I hope these kinds of sessions will just be the beginning. Sally-Anne Coupar, who curates the Egyptian collection in the Hunterian, has been absolutely wonderful. She firmly believes that the collection should be used to inspire students, which means giving them access rather than having objects hidden away. Another session on the Campbell paintings is planned for the Egyptology Scotland society, who've very generously contributed towards the Campbell paintings conservation fund.
Of course, nothing beats the experience of perusing scenes on tomb walls when you're actually in Egypt in the actual tomb... Although, there's something to be said for being able to get up close and personal with the scenes without feeling that you're slowly melting in the Egyptian dry heat (usually when I'm in the country, it's September, so it's in the mid to high thirties in Luxor...).
These sessions are supposed to inspire my students. They certainly do. Funny thing is - they inspire me too, which is especially important during these turbulent times for teachers.
The idea for the Campbell session was to unroll (in the manner of 19th century Egyptologists unwrapping mummies!) the paintings - some of which are over 3m long - and to re-create a tomb space for my students, with all its paintings intact in glorious colour. Of course, we only managed to look at 3 paintings - the time absolutely flew! We got so carried away picking out details and pondering the reasons behind them (e.g. why show a sleepy servant dozing under a tree when everyone around him is busily at work enduring provision for the tomb owner's afterlife?)!
I hope these kinds of sessions will just be the beginning. Sally-Anne Coupar, who curates the Egyptian collection in the Hunterian, has been absolutely wonderful. She firmly believes that the collection should be used to inspire students, which means giving them access rather than having objects hidden away. Another session on the Campbell paintings is planned for the Egyptology Scotland society, who've very generously contributed towards the Campbell paintings conservation fund.
Of course, nothing beats the experience of perusing scenes on tomb walls when you're actually in Egypt in the actual tomb... Although, there's something to be said for being able to get up close and personal with the scenes without feeling that you're slowly melting in the Egyptian dry heat (usually when I'm in the country, it's September, so it's in the mid to high thirties in Luxor...).
These sessions are supposed to inspire my students. They certainly do. Funny thing is - they inspire me too, which is especially important during these turbulent times for teachers.
Tuesday 16 November 2010
Aimee Mann
I've been mulling over the implications of the internet for the ownership of knowledge and expertise, and the question of where people like ourselves fit into the big flows of these quantities (can we even speak about them in such terms?) across societal groupings in the light of these new media. Mulling so much I'm not sure what to say that can be spat out in a little blog. Need to mull some more. Or produce a long series of them. Or defer to cleverer people.
So let me just for now share this, possibly surprising news to those who hear the fearsome sounds that sometimes accompany my work in room 406, that this evening I am enjoying very much Aimee Mann's "Bachelor No 2", songs full of darkness, passion and intensity that comes across in the finely and carefully crafted words and the measured arrangements and is only enhanced by the understatement of the singing; strategies for lasting effect. Potent.
Normal service resumed soon.
So let me just for now share this, possibly surprising news to those who hear the fearsome sounds that sometimes accompany my work in room 406, that this evening I am enjoying very much Aimee Mann's "Bachelor No 2", songs full of darkness, passion and intensity that comes across in the finely and carefully crafted words and the measured arrangements and is only enhanced by the understatement of the singing; strategies for lasting effect. Potent.
Normal service resumed soon.
Monday 8 November 2010
X-rays
Today is the 115th aniversary of the discovery of X-rays. I've spent a lot of time studying X-rays from cosmic objects (particularly the Sun) so maybe I should have been aware of this particular anniversary; but I wasn't. Google stuck it under my nose, however, in today's eye-catching Google doodle. I'm always interested in bones, graveyards, old keys to crypts best left unvisited, etc. and that's how it caught my eye, but that's not what it announces at all. "X-rays" is a better topic, much more interesting because real.
I'm also thinking, "what a brilliant way to gently push a scientific topic under the noses of millions." What's more, it's generated further coverage and more words on X-rays (doesn't mention, though, that X-rays are one more form of light, not perceived by our eyes but ultimately the same sort of phenomenon as radio, infra-red, visible, ultra-violet...).
I always feel the most valuable things we do, in adult education, involve meeting people who would never have chosen to come anywhere near us. I guess most internet users use Google for something most days. Today when they click on that funny, gothic-looking picture millions of people potentially are being led to think and learn about a physics topic, one they might never have gone near otherwise. Well done, Google!
I'm also thinking, "what a brilliant way to gently push a scientific topic under the noses of millions." What's more, it's generated further coverage and more words on X-rays (doesn't mention, though, that X-rays are one more form of light, not perceived by our eyes but ultimately the same sort of phenomenon as radio, infra-red, visible, ultra-violet...).
I always feel the most valuable things we do, in adult education, involve meeting people who would never have chosen to come anywhere near us. I guess most internet users use Google for something most days. Today when they click on that funny, gothic-looking picture millions of people potentially are being led to think and learn about a physics topic, one they might never have gone near otherwise. Well done, Google!
Saturday 30 October 2010
Life in the Cosmos
Are there living things elsewhere in the universe? Barring the arrival of the flying saucers over the capital cities of the world, we'll have to try to answer this tantalising question using the same tactics employed for any of the big scientific questions, a bit like the assembly of a very large jigsaw puzzle of an unusual character. We have lots of little, detailed pieces for some bits of the picture but there are other, big sections we have few or no pieces for and we're going to have to go out to try to find them. Sometimes we'll come back with a handful of pieces that turn out to be wrong, or to belong in a different jigsaw. We're not really sure of the ultimate size or shape of the picture and there may be entire sections we're not yet aware of, whose existence will only become clear because they're needed to fit into the bits we've completed in detail. At the present time the sizes of the pieces also vary enormously: some parts of the picture are represented in detail by lots of teensy pieces, other bits are like the big, chunky pieces of a toddler's jigsaw, drawing crude, unsubtle shapes in primary colours. We'd love to take the jig saw to those bits and render them more finely, in particular to see if there are big new, unsuspected bits that border them. People will spend their entire scientific careers filling in wee bits of the jigsaw and they may even turn out not to be so important - they were smaller bits, making a smaller part of the picture, than we thought at the time.
There might never come a time when the jigsaw is definitively finished.
Astronomers are working very hard at the extraterrestrial life jigsaw right now, on several different fronts, and there are stories in the media all the time. So in the last couple of days we have learnt that there has been liquid water on Mars in "recent" times; and we've heard that one quarter of observed Sun-like stars harbors a close-in terrestrial-mass planet (these links are to the American journal Science - you can read the abstracts but you'll have to be inside an organisation with a subscription to go further).
The presentation of these stories in the mass media often causes problems, however. "Scientists might possibly have found a new Earthlike planet" is not nearly as attention-grabbing a headline as "At last, an Earthlike planet that could harbour life!" The widely reported discovery of such a planet a couple of weeks ago has turned out to be more tentative than most reports suggested, with an inevitable backlash as foolish as the initial hype. The mystery of the disappearing planet in the Guardian deals really well with this, highlighting the perennial clash between the demands of journalism and the long, painstaking process of completing the jigsaw puzzle.
How can you find out what's behind the headlines? Come to our courses! We'll mention the caveats and uncertainties alongside the exciting results. There's time to ask questions and we're aiming to explore the ideas, not propagandise. My starting point here is Astronomy - and we do have a "Life in the Cosmos" course after Xmas - but these comments apply to any of our science courses, and "explore the ideas", in science or otherwise, is what universities are for.
It's too beautiful a day to sit in the house. But before I stop, here's a very different, I think wonderful sort of science communication: "Dance your PhD 2010".
There might never come a time when the jigsaw is definitively finished.
Astronomers are working very hard at the extraterrestrial life jigsaw right now, on several different fronts, and there are stories in the media all the time. So in the last couple of days we have learnt that there has been liquid water on Mars in "recent" times; and we've heard that one quarter of observed Sun-like stars harbors a close-in terrestrial-mass planet (these links are to the American journal Science - you can read the abstracts but you'll have to be inside an organisation with a subscription to go further).
The presentation of these stories in the mass media often causes problems, however. "Scientists might possibly have found a new Earthlike planet" is not nearly as attention-grabbing a headline as "At last, an Earthlike planet that could harbour life!" The widely reported discovery of such a planet a couple of weeks ago has turned out to be more tentative than most reports suggested, with an inevitable backlash as foolish as the initial hype. The mystery of the disappearing planet in the Guardian deals really well with this, highlighting the perennial clash between the demands of journalism and the long, painstaking process of completing the jigsaw puzzle.
How can you find out what's behind the headlines? Come to our courses! We'll mention the caveats and uncertainties alongside the exciting results. There's time to ask questions and we're aiming to explore the ideas, not propagandise. My starting point here is Astronomy - and we do have a "Life in the Cosmos" course after Xmas - but these comments apply to any of our science courses, and "explore the ideas", in science or otherwise, is what universities are for.
It's too beautiful a day to sit in the house. But before I stop, here's a very different, I think wonderful sort of science communication: "Dance your PhD 2010".
Friday 22 October 2010
Mandelbrot
Benoit Mandelbrot passed away on 14 October. The Guardian gives quite a good obituary. The Economist's is admirable and even includes some mathematics.
He was a character of hen's teeth rarity, a mathematician known far beyond the confines of academia. Fast computers became a routine tool of mathematical work during his career and he seized on the resulting possibilities for making abstract mathematics visible. His investigations were always rooted in the visible anyway, in questions like "How long is the coastline of Britain?" and the geometrical objects he studied opened up new possibilities for understanding the messy character of the world around us, for a "science of roughness" embracing clouds and coastlines. Mandelbrot set and fractals became almost household phrases and the beautiful images that reveal their properties turned up on tee-shirts, paperback covers, rock gig posters, ... they entered the vocabulary of popular culture (They also entered the lexicon of phrases used to legitimise sciencey sounding gibberish in other academic areas but we can't blame the man himself for that depressing outcome). Mandelbrot did not invent all the mathematical tools he exploited but he promoted their use, now routine in many sciences - in contrast to the suggestion in the Economist obituary that popular interest has drifted away again.
I wonder now why a topic so illuminating and so visually appealing hasn't cropped up more in DACE Science courses. Rex Whitehead once gave an excellent talk in a day school on Antichaos, prompted by a Channel 4 documentary and the Channel 4 Science Club (does anybody remember it?). Fractals certainly turn up in other topics, for the insight they give. Maybe it's time for another day school, maybe "Mandelbrot's legacy" - could be really cross-disciplinary, many sciences and creative arts too.
In 2005, World Year of Physics, we had a day school looking at Einstein's three 1905 papers and what followed from them. I spoke about his theory of Brownian motion, its importance in demonstrating the reality of molecules and its significance as a starting point for statistical physics, one road that leads to Mandelbrot. One feedback form voiced the view that too much time had been spent on this. These forms are of course anonymous but it turned out I know the person who made this comment and he was quite happy to repeat it to my face. He thought my talk was interesting and there was nothing wrong with it - but if we'd left it out there could have been more time spent on the topics he regarded as 'fundamental': cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics. I think this is wrong! But I guess this is not an unusual view and it might make Mandelbrot's legacy a hard sell.
Any thoughts? I'd love to hear them.
He was a character of hen's teeth rarity, a mathematician known far beyond the confines of academia. Fast computers became a routine tool of mathematical work during his career and he seized on the resulting possibilities for making abstract mathematics visible. His investigations were always rooted in the visible anyway, in questions like "How long is the coastline of Britain?" and the geometrical objects he studied opened up new possibilities for understanding the messy character of the world around us, for a "science of roughness" embracing clouds and coastlines. Mandelbrot set and fractals became almost household phrases and the beautiful images that reveal their properties turned up on tee-shirts, paperback covers, rock gig posters, ... they entered the vocabulary of popular culture (They also entered the lexicon of phrases used to legitimise sciencey sounding gibberish in other academic areas but we can't blame the man himself for that depressing outcome). Mandelbrot did not invent all the mathematical tools he exploited but he promoted their use, now routine in many sciences - in contrast to the suggestion in the Economist obituary that popular interest has drifted away again.
I wonder now why a topic so illuminating and so visually appealing hasn't cropped up more in DACE Science courses. Rex Whitehead once gave an excellent talk in a day school on Antichaos, prompted by a Channel 4 documentary and the Channel 4 Science Club (does anybody remember it?). Fractals certainly turn up in other topics, for the insight they give. Maybe it's time for another day school, maybe "Mandelbrot's legacy" - could be really cross-disciplinary, many sciences and creative arts too.
In 2005, World Year of Physics, we had a day school looking at Einstein's three 1905 papers and what followed from them. I spoke about his theory of Brownian motion, its importance in demonstrating the reality of molecules and its significance as a starting point for statistical physics, one road that leads to Mandelbrot. One feedback form voiced the view that too much time had been spent on this. These forms are of course anonymous but it turned out I know the person who made this comment and he was quite happy to repeat it to my face. He thought my talk was interesting and there was nothing wrong with it - but if we'd left it out there could have been more time spent on the topics he regarded as 'fundamental': cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics. I think this is wrong! But I guess this is not an unusual view and it might make Mandelbrot's legacy a hard sell.
Any thoughts? I'd love to hear them.
Wednesday 13 October 2010
Holding on to Ancient Egypt
Yesterday, after a (non-departmental) meeting, I introduced several colleagues (formerly of DACE) to a collection of ancient Egyptian objects very kindly loaned out to me for teaching by Sally-Anne Coupar at the Hunterian Museum. Everyone seemed to enjoy the experience of being able to hold something old and a little bit precious in their hands.
The pieces are mostly amulets that would have been worn around the neck or held in the hand both during life and then accompanied their owner into their tomb after death. They're not the grandest of ancient Egyptian objects to come down to us, but there's something special about holding onto something that meant a lot to a person who lived 3,000 years ago. Some of the amulets are worn almost smooth by the amount of handling they received from their ancient owners.
Today, I'm putting the objects to work again in my Ancient Egyptian Art class. I've been dropping tantalising hints about the surprise that I've planned for them this week, but I haven't told them exactly what they're in store for. I'm hoping that they'll enjoy it. They'll also have the chance to update the Hunterian records, which are patchy. Their observations about the objects will hopefully enrich the museum's catalogue and make it a little more accurate (one amulet with wonderfully rounded leonine ears is listed as a figure of the god Horus, who was falcon-headed!).
Thanks also to Mike Keen, who spent some time with me identifying the materials of some amuletic bracelets and necklaces among the collection. Only in a (insert inoffensive synonym for 'department') that brings together Egyptologists and geologists could such a confab happen easily!
I'll report back on what my students made of their chance to hold a bit of ancient Egypt in their hands...
The pieces are mostly amulets that would have been worn around the neck or held in the hand both during life and then accompanied their owner into their tomb after death. They're not the grandest of ancient Egyptian objects to come down to us, but there's something special about holding onto something that meant a lot to a person who lived 3,000 years ago. Some of the amulets are worn almost smooth by the amount of handling they received from their ancient owners.
Today, I'm putting the objects to work again in my Ancient Egyptian Art class. I've been dropping tantalising hints about the surprise that I've planned for them this week, but I haven't told them exactly what they're in store for. I'm hoping that they'll enjoy it. They'll also have the chance to update the Hunterian records, which are patchy. Their observations about the objects will hopefully enrich the museum's catalogue and make it a little more accurate (one amulet with wonderfully rounded leonine ears is listed as a figure of the god Horus, who was falcon-headed!).
Thanks also to Mike Keen, who spent some time with me identifying the materials of some amuletic bracelets and necklaces among the collection. Only in a (insert inoffensive synonym for 'department') that brings together Egyptologists and geologists could such a confab happen easily!
I'll report back on what my students made of their chance to hold a bit of ancient Egypt in their hands...
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Celebrity Lifelong Learning
Today I glanced at the BBC website while eating my excellent soup and sandwich from the St Andrews Building cafe and learned about Lenny Henry's "slow-burn academic career". A very familiar story, really, to DACE people, somebody bright and able who didn't thrive in school but valued education enough to come back to it repeatedly. His particular story gets a public telling because he's a high-profile media figure but there are thousands and thousands of similar tales across the country, some of those people passing through our very own doors.
Each one of these stories has its own particular features, life events, influences from family, friends, places, wider culture. He evidently learned to value learning in the family home and that stayed with him in spite of school experiences; a wee moral for any of us who are parents. And I was glad he liked his science teacher - but sadly not enough to actually study science.
It would be nice to see lots more of these stories written down in one place, not just those of celebrities. You would get such a rich sense of the complexity and variety of adult lives, the myriad ways in which learning stays alive in them, all the stories hidden behind statistics and policies. Does that exist, outside academic journals (where 'biographical studies' are a well-defined genre)? Who could do it....?
In the meantime, well done Lenny Henry and good luck with the PhD.
Each one of these stories has its own particular features, life events, influences from family, friends, places, wider culture. He evidently learned to value learning in the family home and that stayed with him in spite of school experiences; a wee moral for any of us who are parents. And I was glad he liked his science teacher - but sadly not enough to actually study science.
It would be nice to see lots more of these stories written down in one place, not just those of celebrities. You would get such a rich sense of the complexity and variety of adult lives, the myriad ways in which learning stays alive in them, all the stories hidden behind statistics and policies. Does that exist, outside academic journals (where 'biographical studies' are a well-defined genre)? Who could do it....?
In the meantime, well done Lenny Henry and good luck with the PhD.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Irresistible East Kilbride!
East Kilbride is one of Europe's top emerging destinations! Why could this be? I bet it's because of Ravi Singhal's free, "Science for All" talks on Saturday mornings. The next series of six talks will take place on Saturday mornings, 11.00 - 12.00, starting 23 October and they're held in the James Watt Building (E.K, Technology Park, G75 0QD). Ravi's topic, always an enticing one, will be "Einstein and the Theory of Relativity". More details at http://ektalks.blogspot.com/
Tuesday 7 September 2010
A bad omen for Astronomy?
Sales of alcoholic drink have fallen dramatically. Could this be bad for Astronomy? Maybe not now - although astronomers enjoy a drink as much as anybody and their general morale may suffer - but it might once have been.
The Liverpool brewer William Lassell (1799-1880) was one of the major figures of British Astronomy in the "Golden Age of Amateur Science". Brewing was good to him. Huge teams of "navvies" were engaged in digging canals, building railroads: heavy, thirsty work. To discourage them from just downing tools and heading to the pub, their employers supplied them with ten to twelve pints of ale a day. Beer apparently was one of the fuels of Empire and Lassell was lucky enough to gain contracts for its supply. With the resulting wealth he indulged his true passion: Astronomy. The 24 and 48 inch telescopes he constructed were among the biggest in the world in the 1840s - 1860s. He discovered Neptune's moon Triton and pioneered the use of the equatorial mount (which simplifies the business of following celestial objects as the sky appears to rotate in the course of the night). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the ultimate accolade for UK scientists and pretty good going for a brewer.
Lassell belonged to that time when gentlemen of means, however acquired (and yes, they were gentlemen) could pursue their interests and make real contributions to knowledge. What would it have meant for 19th century Astronomy if beer sales had plummeted as they have recently? Perhaps Lassell would have had to pursue the solution of his friend the Rev. W R Dawes, whose astronomical activities were funded by his wife. "Eagle Eye" Dawes was famous for visual acuity, however, and only needed smaller telescopes for his pursuits. Would a wealthy widow have been adequate support for Lassell's enthusiasms? Fortunately he never had to face plummeting beer sales.
What will falling booze sales mean for 21st century Astronomy? Probably not much. Even if Paul Theakston, say, were a fanatical astronomer, most new discoveries now demand facilities far beyond the resources of most brewers: huge telescopes, space missions, Large Hadron Colliders. No doubt this was one of the factors that brought the Golden Age of Amateur Science to an end.
Who can be scientists? What sort of science are they able to do? What sorts of questions are they likely to ask? We can't answer questions like these without paying attention to the culture and big currents of the times. They remind us of the human face of science.
I don't think beer lubricates the wheels of capitalism as it did in Lassell's time. Money from Paul Allen's Microsoft riches has funded the Allen Telescope Array, however. Once again money flows from the major drivers of the age through personal enthusiasm to pure science. Maybe Lassell's time was not so different after all.
Hmm, that was longer than I meant these blog stories to be. And there's still much more that could be said - maybe some of it will come out through any responses.
The Liverpool brewer William Lassell (1799-1880) was one of the major figures of British Astronomy in the "Golden Age of Amateur Science". Brewing was good to him. Huge teams of "navvies" were engaged in digging canals, building railroads: heavy, thirsty work. To discourage them from just downing tools and heading to the pub, their employers supplied them with ten to twelve pints of ale a day. Beer apparently was one of the fuels of Empire and Lassell was lucky enough to gain contracts for its supply. With the resulting wealth he indulged his true passion: Astronomy. The 24 and 48 inch telescopes he constructed were among the biggest in the world in the 1840s - 1860s. He discovered Neptune's moon Triton and pioneered the use of the equatorial mount (which simplifies the business of following celestial objects as the sky appears to rotate in the course of the night). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the ultimate accolade for UK scientists and pretty good going for a brewer.
Lassell belonged to that time when gentlemen of means, however acquired (and yes, they were gentlemen) could pursue their interests and make real contributions to knowledge. What would it have meant for 19th century Astronomy if beer sales had plummeted as they have recently? Perhaps Lassell would have had to pursue the solution of his friend the Rev. W R Dawes, whose astronomical activities were funded by his wife. "Eagle Eye" Dawes was famous for visual acuity, however, and only needed smaller telescopes for his pursuits. Would a wealthy widow have been adequate support for Lassell's enthusiasms? Fortunately he never had to face plummeting beer sales.
What will falling booze sales mean for 21st century Astronomy? Probably not much. Even if Paul Theakston, say, were a fanatical astronomer, most new discoveries now demand facilities far beyond the resources of most brewers: huge telescopes, space missions, Large Hadron Colliders. No doubt this was one of the factors that brought the Golden Age of Amateur Science to an end.
Who can be scientists? What sort of science are they able to do? What sorts of questions are they likely to ask? We can't answer questions like these without paying attention to the culture and big currents of the times. They remind us of the human face of science.
I don't think beer lubricates the wheels of capitalism as it did in Lassell's time. Money from Paul Allen's Microsoft riches has funded the Allen Telescope Array, however. Once again money flows from the major drivers of the age through personal enthusiasm to pure science. Maybe Lassell's time was not so different after all.
Hmm, that was longer than I meant these blog stories to be. And there's still much more that could be said - maybe some of it will come out through any responses.
Tuesday 10 August 2010
DACE Memorial Blog
Since 1 August 2010, nothing in Glasgow University goes by the name of "Department". So DACE no longer exists and there is no named unit in the University that combines people from several disciplines to make academic ideas accessible outside the academy. But we're all still here (more or less), working on our various programmes, setting up and teaching courses for the public, having all sorts of conversations as we have in the past. For now, something like DACE still exists, within the School of Education, although it no longer corresponds to a structural unit post-restructuring.
I thought it would be nice to note our continued existence, albeit in the virtual, ghostly form of this blog, and celebrate the unique mix of individuals and disciplines that produces the programmes. From time to time any of us might share some ideas or facts that get us excited from our own disciplines, or comment on stories in the news. I always feel that when two of us get together we wind up having such interesting conversations, completely different from those we'd have with people from our own disciplines (in my own case, recently, on the Moon landings; climate change; environmental catastrophes and religious visions in history; the relationship between words and things). Now we'll do some of this online, in a public space where others can see and join in. We might muse on adult education, universities, education in society, our own disciplines in broader contexts. We've had such interesting experiences in the past few months, we've been forced to think about such topics. Or we might share non-professional interests, blunder into others' territories, generate generic, low-content internet verbiage, etc.
There's no schedule; we'll add things as we feel like it. There are enough of us that it should be easy to keep alive and busy, without relying too much on any one of us. Quite possibly there's no single person who will enjoy all of it, but we can hope that you'll find most of it interesting and that we'll keep the spirit of DACE alive in this new form, alongside the continued Courses for Adults programmes, etc.. Hope to see you here!
I thought it would be nice to note our continued existence, albeit in the virtual, ghostly form of this blog, and celebrate the unique mix of individuals and disciplines that produces the programmes. From time to time any of us might share some ideas or facts that get us excited from our own disciplines, or comment on stories in the news. I always feel that when two of us get together we wind up having such interesting conversations, completely different from those we'd have with people from our own disciplines (in my own case, recently, on the Moon landings; climate change; environmental catastrophes and religious visions in history; the relationship between words and things). Now we'll do some of this online, in a public space where others can see and join in. We might muse on adult education, universities, education in society, our own disciplines in broader contexts. We've had such interesting experiences in the past few months, we've been forced to think about such topics. Or we might share non-professional interests, blunder into others' territories, generate generic, low-content internet verbiage, etc.
There's no schedule; we'll add things as we feel like it. There are enough of us that it should be easy to keep alive and busy, without relying too much on any one of us. Quite possibly there's no single person who will enjoy all of it, but we can hope that you'll find most of it interesting and that we'll keep the spirit of DACE alive in this new form, alongside the continued Courses for Adults programmes, etc.. Hope to see you here!
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