This week sees the Christmas season really kick off with a host of festive work dos. I had my first Chrimbo party a week and a half ago with the canoe club (we went vaguely Italian with dinner at Di Maggios), but they'll be coming quick and fast over the next five days. Tuesday sees research group Xmas lunch number 1, with the IGR Spanish tapas-based bash at Cafe Andaluz. Then Thursday has an Australio-East Asian fusion style yuletide lunch at North of Bondi with the A&A group. Finally the week is rounded off with the traditional (traditionally rather poor that is - unless you really like Coronation Chicken and Caramel Shortcake) Physics and Astronomy Department party on Friday afternoon. I'm sure the meals will all be nice, but I've been slightly put out by the lack of a traditional turkey-based meal as an option at any of these events, but I'll just have to make up for that by eating as much turkey/stuffing/roast spuds/cranberry sauce/roast parsnips/pigs in blankets/etc the following week.
All that merriment is not to say no work will get done as I'm having to give a couple of talks during the week. Both of these are for our collaboration meeting which is in Maryland this week, but as you may have guessed I'm not going to be there in person (otherwise it would be rather hard to attend the lunches/parties), so these will be given by the magic of the phone (or the internet via EVO if it's being reliable enough). The main annoyance being that the talk on Wednesday will probably be at around 9.30-10.00pm.
Showing posts with label presentations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presentations. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The last post (from the APS)
This will be my last post from the APS meeting. I'll just take a moment comment on a few more of the talks I've seen.
One of the most entertaining talks of the meeting was on Selling Physics to Unwilling Buyers given by Lawrence Krauss (of The Physics of Star Trek fame). Krauss is well known for his public understanding of science work and is very good at it due to his enthusiasm and understanding of the problems that the general public have with science. He doesn't shy away from saying that the vast majority of people think that science is dull, difficult and that scientists are untrustworthy. But he thinks that the apprehensions are things that you can get past by showing science in its true light. We need to show that science isn't some abstract thing that has no impact on people's lives, but is in fact integral to pretty much every area of life, and basic science is in fact easy to demonstrate and understand. Also people need to be shown that by applying the basics of scientific, or experimental principles, they are able apply a better filtering of ideas or views that are obvious crap from those which have a weight of evidence. I can't do justice to all the things he said here, but the main new thing I came away with was that I should use more video clips in public talks.
At the moment I'm sitting in the morning plenary talks session and have heard a couple of very good talks. The first talk was by Jacqueline Hewitt from MIT and was about looking from a 21 cm background from neutral Hydrogen in the dark ages. The 21 cm line (the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave) is a radio frequency emission line from neutral Hydrogen (i.e. an electron bound to a proton), and the dark ages represent a period in the universe between the production of the CMBR (i.e. the time at which protons and electrons first are able to stay bound within Hydrogen atoms, without being disassociated by the radiation field) and the reionisation of that Hydrogen by radiation from the first stars after they form. I'd not really heard much on this subject before and was very interested to here about the methods for going about trying to detect this emission. I'll keep an eye on this stuff in the future as they should be able to learn a lot about structure formation in the early universe from such observations.
The next talk in the plenary session was about global warming by James Hansen - I think it's probably more useful to hear this stuff from a scientist who works on the subject than from Al Gore. I've never really been confronted (or looked out myself) the evidence for human induced global warming, so this talk was very enlightening. He showed how the Earth's climate (temperature, sea levels, greenhouse gas levels) has fluctuated by large amount over periods of hundred of thousands of years and the reasons for this. The main point being that these changes are very gradual and the feedback mechanisms of the Earth take a long time to respond to them, whereas now the man-made release of greenhouse gases is well over and above natural level and the planet can't deal with these as part of the natural long term trends. The idea that short term variations in the solar flux have lead to the current warming don't seem to hold up much weight after you've seen the long term trends. He proposed many of the main ideas to deal with energy consumption and emission problems, but obviously these need governments to introduce proactive policies or nothing will get done.
Anyway I need to make a move and head to the airport soon. Next post will be back from blighty.
One of the most entertaining talks of the meeting was on Selling Physics to Unwilling Buyers given by Lawrence Krauss (of The Physics of Star Trek fame). Krauss is well known for his public understanding of science work and is very good at it due to his enthusiasm and understanding of the problems that the general public have with science. He doesn't shy away from saying that the vast majority of people think that science is dull, difficult and that scientists are untrustworthy. But he thinks that the apprehensions are things that you can get past by showing science in its true light. We need to show that science isn't some abstract thing that has no impact on people's lives, but is in fact integral to pretty much every area of life, and basic science is in fact easy to demonstrate and understand. Also people need to be shown that by applying the basics of scientific, or experimental principles, they are able apply a better filtering of ideas or views that are obvious crap from those which have a weight of evidence. I can't do justice to all the things he said here, but the main new thing I came away with was that I should use more video clips in public talks.
At the moment I'm sitting in the morning plenary talks session and have heard a couple of very good talks. The first talk was by Jacqueline Hewitt from MIT and was about looking from a 21 cm background from neutral Hydrogen in the dark ages. The 21 cm line (the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave) is a radio frequency emission line from neutral Hydrogen (i.e. an electron bound to a proton), and the dark ages represent a period in the universe between the production of the CMBR (i.e. the time at which protons and electrons first are able to stay bound within Hydrogen atoms, without being disassociated by the radiation field) and the reionisation of that Hydrogen by radiation from the first stars after they form. I'd not really heard much on this subject before and was very interested to here about the methods for going about trying to detect this emission. I'll keep an eye on this stuff in the future as they should be able to learn a lot about structure formation in the early universe from such observations.
The next talk in the plenary session was about global warming by James Hansen - I think it's probably more useful to hear this stuff from a scientist who works on the subject than from Al Gore. I've never really been confronted (or looked out myself) the evidence for human induced global warming, so this talk was very enlightening. He showed how the Earth's climate (temperature, sea levels, greenhouse gas levels) has fluctuated by large amount over periods of hundred of thousands of years and the reasons for this. The main point being that these changes are very gradual and the feedback mechanisms of the Earth take a long time to respond to them, whereas now the man-made release of greenhouse gases is well over and above natural level and the planet can't deal with these as part of the natural long term trends. The idea that short term variations in the solar flux have lead to the current warming don't seem to hold up much weight after you've seen the long term trends. He proposed many of the main ideas to deal with energy consumption and emission problems, but obviously these need governments to introduce proactive policies or nothing will get done.
Anyway I need to make a move and head to the airport soon. Next post will be back from blighty.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Hard at work
This conference lark is grueling stuff I can tell you! Here at the Moriond meeting we start at 8.30am in the morning and things don't finish until 8.00pm at night. So what have I been doing during this taxing schedule? Well snowboarding mostly, as there's a specific skiing related break in the conference for 4-5 hours every day. This has provided ample time for me to brush up on my snowboard skills and look pretty damn cool in my gear (I went shopping at the weekend to buy some salopettes, i.e. waterproof skiing trousers, and some ski gloves, and despite the salopettes being half price they still cost £50!) My fellow conference attendees, Christian and Alastair, have also been improving their skiing. My ability has improved quite a lot and I can, most of the time, go back and forth from either edge of the board at will. I've spent considerably less time on my arse, and am far less bruised and battered, than my first time. Here in La Thuile there are no green/beginners runs, although there are several pretty easy blue runs. These are all rather nice to go down, and they aren't too busy so there's plenty of space to move. However, I'm not limited to the blue runs and have attempted, along with Christian and Alastair, a couple of red runs. Let me tell you these can be steep and pretty scary at points. We may not have been the most graceful looking people descending down the slopes, but we survived which is the most important thing. I can't believe I originally didn't want to come to this conference.
On an actual work note I did have to give a presentation which seemed to go well. I also got quite an interesting comment, well worth following up, from a certain Jim Faller (who some people know quite well).
Oh, and did I mention that the weather has been amazing!
On an actual work note I did have to give a presentation which seemed to go well. I also got quite an interesting comment, well worth following up, from a certain Jim Faller (who some people know quite well).
Oh, and did I mention that the weather has been amazing!
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Steal from the rich...
...and present to the poor.
Today I'm in Nottingham, home of Robin Hood and rampant gun crime, to give a talk to the Astronomy group at the University of Nottingham. It's been a fairly busy day of getting up early and then spending most of the time travelling and writing the talk I'm to give, but the event is now just minutes away. Bring on the seminar!
Today I'm in Nottingham, home of Robin Hood and rampant gun crime, to give a talk to the Astronomy group at the University of Nottingham. It's been a fairly busy day of getting up early and then spending most of the time travelling and writing the talk I'm to give, but the event is now just minutes away. Bring on the seminar!
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