Remembering those that gave

This weekend, the UK marks “Remembrance Sunday”.

On November 11th 1918 at 11am, the first world war came to an end. To honour those that gave their lives not just in that war, but every conflict that has followed, Ceremonies are held all over the country on the Sunday closest to 11th November. Wreaths are laid at the foot of war memorials in every city and town. Two minutes silence are observed at 11am (GMT) which is a pause for reflection on those that gave so much for future generations.

Very often, out of military necessity, comes mankind’s biggest breakthroughs that enable it to continue its journey of discovery. Every major conflict sees some advances in technology that allow us all to lead better and more fulfilled lives. World War I saw Aeroplane technology advanced in leaps and bounds. It was the first war to extensively use aircraft as both a defensive and offensive tool. The biggest and probably most profound breakthroughs however, came in World War II. Two technologies that have since changed the world came to public notice and both were deployed as weapons of mass destruction. The development (and deployment) of the Atomic Bomb is an infamous example. Not so widely known though, is the development of the V2 Rocket by German Scientists led by Werner Von Braun. The V2 was the first ballistic missile and was used by the Nazis during World War II to destroy many cities, principally London. It flew at Mach 5, the first manmade object to do so. It had a very advanced guidance system that accurately (by the days standards) guided the payload to its eventual destination. It could be argued the Von Braun and his team developed the modern discipline of Aerodynamics. Because the V2 flew so fast, its shape became an important factor in the range and effectiveness of the weapon. The V2 had a brand new propulsion system that made it many times more powerful than conventional rocket propulsion systems.

Sadly, the V2 was developed for destruction, but after the war, Werner Von Braun assisted the US (and some of his colleagues assisted the USSR), in developing advanced rocket technology. Although much of this was further used for destruction (enhancing the range of Inter-continental ballistic missiles for example), Some went on to further more worthwhile causes. The technology used in the rockets first developed by Von Brown had the potential to produce enough thrust to provide the 11m/s^2 acceleration required to escape the Earth’s gravity and send men to the Moon. This directly led to the Saturn V rocket. This technology allowed us to put artificial satellites in orbit to provide communication and information. We can collect data on climate change. Perhaps map the lifespan and activity of the Sun, and the presence of threats from Comets and Asteroids and Gamma Ray sources. GPS satellites (also developed for military use) guide emergency medical staff and fire crews to where they are needed.

Often, a human life is measured in the contribution it makes to those that follow. Though we shouldn’t applaud Von Braun on his ethics, we can applaud him for the groundbreaking technology that he developed. Although used to take many lives during World War II, paradoxically, the loss of those lives have given mankind its greatest possible chance of survival. So this remembrance Sunday, Not only remember those that fought and gave their lives so that others may live. Remember those that died from the technology developed to destroy, that may one day be the salvation of Mankind.

Werner Von Braun

Arrival of a Gattaca styled world.

The brilliant film "Gattaca" which was released in 1997 foretold a time when Genetic profiling will divide the human race into "Valids" and "invalids" at birth. This division is accomplished by analysing your genetic makeup and from the information gained, deciding on your eventual future and what "opportunities" will be open to you. It's a pretty scary vision of the near future and the sad thing is, it is actually happening before our eyes. People are being written off before they have the chance to prove themselves as a combination of not only what their genetic profile says about them, but also as a product of their upbringing and drive. You cannot separate these two variables. In fact, whenever someone suggests we "go to far" by using the term "Eugenics" to, say, only allow blonde haired, blue eyed offspring, there is a massive outcry. The study of heredity and it's use in selective breeding is condemned around the world as indeed it should be.

But wait.  We select "Valids" everyday (BBC News). The "Invalids" line the incinerator rooms of hospitals. Those that have been deemed to not be worthy of our love and affection and terminated just because they will need extra care or they don't conform to what "Society" suggests is acceptable. They won't make a massive contribution to our future. They will drain resources from an already overstretched social system.

Society has double standards. I've always suggested that Parents should have the right to choose to terminate if they think that their unborn child will need the love and attention that they are incapable of providing. But those parents spend more time deliberating what it will mean for their lives rather then what it will mean for the child's life in most cases. My life would not be complete without my Daughter who has Downs Syndrome. She gives me a reason to get up in the mornings and if the tests had been performed and the Doctors had been listened to before she was born, I would not have had the opportunity to know how much she enriches our society and how fulfilling her presence in my life would be.

So what gives parents the right to chose one area of Eugenics (because that is what testing a baby invitro is really about), is acceptable and another area is not. Maybe this is why Society sucks so much at caring for those that really need their help. What is the "Invalids" value to society? They drain resources and add nothing to the development of the human race after all, right? They'll never discover a cure for cancer or the common cold. They will never walk on another planet or formulate a theorem about extra dimensions or the existence of life on other planets.

What they do is to show us our humanity and sadly, the vast majority of us come up lacking.

An ode to Phoenix

Perhaps Mars Phoenix has been the most media savvy Mars lander ever.  Throughout the mission, Phoenix has been twittering to interested subscribers about the day to day goings on during its time on the “red planet. So successful has been this venture that the lander won a “Twitties” award as the Smartest tweet. Other missions are now following in Phoenix’s tracks (OK, Phoenix has no tracks but that shouldn’t stop the puns), such as Cassini and the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

Phoenix has arguably been one of the most successful missions to Mars ever. It has far exceeded its original goal of operation for 90 days (Martian days that is). But as the environment on Mars steadily gets colder, the lander will spend more of it’s precious energy keeping its instruments warm. Well before the 3 month period next April when the sun will not riseat the poles on Mars, it will fall silent and the world will miss its day to day escapades.

Naked Scientist Rocks :)

I sent a question into the Naked Scientist Radio program on Sunday and they asked it on air :) There was a crowd of us listening in Secondlife and everyone cheered :) The program was about aging and the question was :

Q:

I heard that our cells replace themselves every 18 months which means our bodies are actually only 18 months old. How do the new cells carry the information about our real chronological age forward into the next generation of cells? Rebecca

It was answered by Steve Jackson of the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge

A:

Steve - First of all, some cells in our body don’t divide such as nerve cells and so they really aren’t. They last our whole lives but even the cells that do turn over- a new cell is generated from the division of an existing cell. The age of an existing cell basically gets transferred. The new cell remembers how old the other cell was. One of the important things that is transferred are the chromosomes. The ends of the chromosomes called telomeres get shorter every time a cell divides. They are a very useful counting mechanism. These telomeres shortening is one of the important counting mechanisms that tells our cells how many times they’ve divided and how old they are.

Download a podcast and read a transcript of the show here

The "Unit" and Galactic fossil hunting

Does anyone know what the origin of calling people you are associated with a "Unit"? I'm seeing it everywhere these days. Mother Unit. Spousal Unit. Daughter Unit. It's really interesting how fast a new fad like this catches on and worrying that Internet communication seems to make us all clones.

I attended a really interesting presentation today by Mario Juric from Princeton. Mario talked about the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This is a survey that has mapped a quarter of the sky (around 8000 degrees)  and has catalogued ~100 million objects. The presentation that Mario gave centred on his work relating to stellar density in the milky way galaxy as a function of distance from the centre. They have also done some analysis work on spectral data to ascertain metallaticitys of stars within the surveys range.

A really interesting outcome of this research is that he has possibly found artifacts of the Milky Ways past encounters with other galaxies or objects. This was deduced mainly by density anomalies in the data. What you should see is density of stars decreasing as you work outward from the centre. This holds true for most of the data but in at least two areas (and these "areas are huge), the density of objects sharply increases. The current explanation is that potentially, these are remnants of a past encounter. There are no current conclusions as the whether these areas also have velocity and/or metallicity differences but that is something they are working on.

I guess you could pose other possibilites for the these anomolies. Perhaps Dark matter is "clumpy" - but then we would have to explain why it clumped in these regions. How about an massive compact object such as a black hole that has now evaporated. As the massive velocity changes that this would bring are not seen currently, that seems unlikely. Others have suggested it is related to the warp of the galactic disk. If this is so, what caused the warp? Perhaps that brings us back to an encounter.

So it isn't just fossils from the Earth that describe our history. Cosmic fossils go back way before the Earth was even a galactic twinkle in Mother Natures eye.

Good luck China

Today, the Chinese space agency launches it's third manned space mission. The Shenzhou 7 mission will carry three "taikonauts" into space and include a 40 minute spacewalk hopefully on Friday. Recently, the ISM in Secondlife held an auction to sponsor the Chinese exhibits and I won the auction to sponsor the  CZ-3B. Here is my sponsorship plaque near the exhibit :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is the actual model. This is a sister to the launch vehicle being used in today's launch - The Long March IIF. The launch today will be between 1pm and 2:30pm BST and the Chinese Space Authority will be webcasting the mission live such is there confidence. Future missions will assist in setting up a Space laboratory. Good luck China. I have everything crossed that things go well for you.

My secret fetish (Not secret for long)!

I have a fetish which I am now ready to reveal to the world. It is for notebooks. It's sad I know but I just can't resist buying them when I see them. One of my favourite pastimes is to fill them up with lots of lovely notes. Today, I found the notebook to put all notebooks to shame. Here it is :

I was so excited when I saw it sitting on the shelf I couldn't wait to buy it even though for a notebook, it was pretty expensive. Apparently, it's not really a Physics reference. Newton is the bear character. He "has a lot to say about life - and that's Newton's Law". I'm itching to go back to the shop tomorrow and buy another couple of them. What's more, it's the perfect size. A3 (I thinks that's the number for half A4?).

Marco Polo sample return

I'm so lucky. I live in a town that has a long history in Space flight. In fact, for as long as I can remember, Stevenage in Hertfordshire, UK has had pioneering companies involved in space related activities. The first was British Aerospace and now EADS Astrium. Astrium have been involved in a long line of groundbreaking missions including many built (but maybe not assembled) in Stevenage. The Beagle 2 and the Automated Transfer Vehicle Jules Vern (ATV), to name two well known examples. Now, ESA are proposing a sample return mission to a near Earth object. The mission has been named Marco Polo and Astrium have been appointed the prime contractor.  What's more, the mission is a collaboration with the Japanese Space Agency JAXA, a potent mix of expertise. The proposed launch vehicle will be a Soyuz rocket.

So when someone asks you where all those ESA space missions are built. You can now tell them Stevenage in Hertfordshire, UK. It's where all the great European space stuff really goes on!

Changing for the better

Before my very eyes, studying science is changing me. The course syllabus says "You will start to look at the world in a different way". You certainly do. Whilst waiting for the kettle to boil for my morning cup of tea, I watched the water filled bowl sitting in my sink. The remnants of my dinner from the previous night. The tap was dripping into it. Obviously I didn't turn it off properly from my kettle filling chore. After a few minutes I realised that I was deep in thought about how the molecules of the water entering the bowl where dispersing. What did their motion look like? How fast were they travelling? How big were they? How long did it take the area of the water drop to be diluted into the background of the pre-existent molecules? How could I test all this. A coloured drop of water? Would the colouring in the droplet affect the outcome of the experiment? How would the temperature of the water affect it?

Without even realising it fully, my mind is developing into a machine that questions things in a far more detailed way then I ever did before. I notice things I didn't previously. I think about the hidden aspects of something. This is exactly how Einstein discovered Brownian Motion if you believe the stories. He watched the irregular motion of particles on the surface of a fluid - Perhaps Pollen on a pond? He wondered exactly what was making the particles move.

Finally on the home straight

Yesterday, I delivered the final assignment on my current course. I had to drive all the way to Cambridge to deliver it so that it wasn't late. As I heard it plop on my tutors mat a wave of relief came over me and my shoulders must have dropped about 2 inches. Only 1 assignment (CMA) and an exam to go and then I have finished 2008's presentations and  I can truly concentrate on S207. Everything starts to get very real after the arrival of the name and address of your tutor, the dates for your first tutorials and you see the date for the first TMA looming large.  I need to make sure I use the face time with other students provided by the tutorials.  It is becoming clear to me that studying is so much better when you can interact with others in the group. It will also help me over my shyness of group discussions.  Being able to actually stick my hand up and ask those questions I always want to ask would be fantastic. With that aim in mind, I also intend to go to more IOP lectures. The ones I have been to (with one exception) have been so good for practicing your "Networking" skills and of course for learning about what other people are doing. As time goes on, I'm feeling less of a fraud :)

Standing on the shoulders of giants

On the way into the office this morning I was thinking about all those great people who have given us our understanding of the world. Thales, Aristotle, Archimedes, Eratosthenese, Bacon,De vinci, Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galilei, Cassini, Huygens, Faraday, Maxwell, Rutherford, Planck, Newton, Einstein, Hubble, Schrodinger, Dirac, Heisenberg, Bhor, Oppenheimer, Feynman..... But wait.. Who comes next? I can name many many who have contributed to our understanding of the universe since 1950 but they are no longer "household names". Mention the pre-1950's names I listed to anyone and they will have heard of them. Mention any of those that have come since, and I bet at least 70% of them will not be in the psyche of those not studying Physics or Astronomy. Why is this? You would think that with modern media and especially, the internet, The names of those related to the major breakthroughs in the Physical Sciences would be more widely known.  Most people, when asked to name a post 1950's Physicist, would probably name Stephen Hawking and that's it. Has the real breakthroughs in understanding the physical world stalled over the past 40 years or have we become so used to hearing about them that we have become immune to the impact of those discoveries? Maybe people are just no longer interested. It was upsetting to me that the biggest stories around the LHC First beam day last week where centred on the scaremongers warnings of the end of the world. But perhaps that's what sells newspapers.

A physical adventure

When I started my adventure into the world of Physics and academia, I used to look at some of the papers pre-published on arxiv.org and wonder if I would ever be able to understand the beautiful equations, tables and graphs that they contained. For the uninitiated they are truly scary. But the more I study, the more of those squiggles and abstract pieces of writing I do understand. So reading them, even if you don't fully understand them, is a valuable part of the educational process.

I'm also a very shy person. I hate being amongst crowds of people. This is especially true when the crowds of people have a massive potential for showing up my lack of knowledge and understanding. I wimp out. Being in a room full of people doing such great and interesting work and feeling that you really don't belong there is a terrible feeling. I had a conversation with someone at an IOP event once which went along the lines of :

Person : "I'm working on the Elastic theory of low-dimensional continua and its applications in bio- and nano-structures - And you?"

Me : "I'm a 2nd year Physics undergraduate at the Open University"

Person : "That's nice.......See you then...."

However, the comment Simon Singh made on BBC news 24 during the LHC first beam day ("I got out of particle physics because everyone was smarter then me"), made me think seriously about this. I know it hampers my development and I have really been trying to come to terms with the shyness. I think being a mature student I feel I have less validity then those that had the opportunity to go to University early on in life and now able to make a contribution to *real* research. I have this underlying feeling that I have "missed the boat" and "will never catch up".  I hasten to add that those in the Physics/Astronomy community don't make me feel this way. They are the most open and welcoming bunch of people (in the main) I have ever met. I do this to myself.

But wait. I am studying. I started late in life but have always had a real passion for the subject. I find it quite hard going at times which probably makes this a more nobler pursuit for me then those that find it easy. I'm holding down a full time job, and have other pressing life issues and I still choose to spend almost all my spare time pursuing this passion. Perhaps that makes me eminently qualified to be part of the world of physics. The feeling that the more I know, the less I understand also seems to be saying I am reaching the point where all the things I have learned will stop being a disparate bunch of facts and equations and finally make sense as a whole.

Big Bang Day - The highlights

Some of them slightly off-topic . Some made me chuckle (No, skinny people can "chuckle" too), and some made me sad.

Worst Quote - Simon Singh on BBC News 24. "I gave up particle physics because everyone was smarter then me"

Funniest Moment - 3....2.....1.....ohhh! Lyn Evans counting down to the first event.

Most annoying moment - No CERN webcast feed. They invented the web and damn, they don't know how to use it!

Never work with Children and animals moment - School child when interviewed - "What good do Electrons do me anyway?".

Saddest news of the day - A 16 year old girl from India committed suicide because she believed the story's about the world ending were true.

Most exciting moment - The release of the first ATLAS beam event images.

So, "Big Bang Day" comes to a close and the engineers can hand off the equipment to the scientists and their work can now begin. Everyone I am studying with is really looking forward to finding out more about the experiments and results over the coming years.

Incidentally, spare a thought for those of use who are NOT school age and have decided to formally study physics later in life. A lot of the news today was about inspiring young people into Science. This is extremely important to be sure, but there are also plenty of us mature students out here who believe we still can make a difference.

Public engagement in Physics

So tomorrow is the big "Switch on" of the Large Hadron Collider. I can't help thinking that it will be a little like Y2K. In the minds of everyone it's going to be this massive event. Scientists poised over "the" big red button. At 08:30 BST, the Chief will countdown from 10....9....8.... All eyes will be on dials and widgets that say "optimum performance".....7....6....5...4.... The excitement around the world will be palpable....3...2..... The dissenters will be holding hands waiting for the end off the world...1......BIG RED BUTTON PRESSED. Immediately, hundreds of screens around the sophisticated control room will burst into life and scientists will scream with delight as evidence of the Higgs Boson is delivered. The standard model of particle physics will be complete. Everyone can go home happy.

No! It will certainly be an exciting event but I think to most people, especially the "end of the world is nigh" folks, it will be a bit of an anti-climax. I doubt it will be exciting television and definitely not exciting radio. But how then, do you get the public to engage with the science when often, the exciting parts come after years of very hard and painstaking work? How can the perception of the scientist as mad, anti-social people working alone in some damp basement be changed? How can physicists especially communicate the work they are doing and show that funding physical science and astronomy is fundamental to the advancement, and, dare I say it, even the survival of the human race.

Scientists like Professor Brian Cox are changing the way the public sees big projects such as the LHC. And it is right that we do this. After all, if public money is being spent on these projects the public should have access to the knowledge and some understanding of what they money is being spent on. It is true that scientists don't engage the public enough. In the UK, we have a shortage of science and maths teachers and I think this is mainly because the subjects are seen as inaccessible to the average person in the street. Controversy seems to make people sit up and listen. For the LHC, its access to the main broadcasters have been via the "end of the world" stories it has brought about. Perhaps the originators of these stories are doing the scientific community a favour and we should turn the media interest it brings to our advantage by telling the public about the science of these projects and its benefits. For those of us that want to learn, we find scientists, on the whole, accessible to us. If you ask a question, often, they are more then willing to answer. This is not true of many other areas. We need to develop a common language which allows everyone to engage in the conversations about scientific progress on a level an individual finds interesting and relevant.

What does "Success" look like?

One of my former bosses asked me this on a number of occasions in relation to individual projects. I've recently been asking myself the same thing after spending quite a lot of time researching some stuff for the SL groups I look after. This time though, it's "Life" success rather then short term projects.  During this research, I've been looking fairly intimately at two figures; Brian Cox and Colin Pillinger.

At first, it seemed to me that "success" in the careers of these two individuals took them away from what they really love doing. But the more I think about it, the more I think that perhaps they were doing what they always wanted to do.

So. Professor Brian Cox. A theoretical Physicist at the University of Manchester and a spokesperson for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. He is currently working on the ATLAS experiment but we see him mostly giving lectures, TV and radio interviews trying to engage the public in the experiments they are due to begin on September 10th. These presentations are aimed at the general public and so do not have a high level of Physics in them. Rightly so. But how does a highly trained and driven individual cope with doing this kind of work? It's really something anyone could do. I wondered wouldn't Brian feel more comfortable concentrating on the actual physics of the experiments? Does this look like success for Brian? Well, yes. I suppose the purpose of any academic is to further our understanding of things and teach those insights to others. And that is precisely what he is doing.

Colin Pillinger is best known as the driving force behind the Open University's pioneering mission to Mars to search for life. It was his initial enthusiasm that brought this mission to reality. But again, he is not best known for the science content, but for engaging the public and seeking funding for the project. His quirky character was the perfect vehicle for the public. He comes across as the sightly eccentric yet loveable scientist. Talk to most people involved with the Beagle 2 project and they will tell you Colin is not exactly loveable. He worked people HARD! But this is what success is for Colin. A single minded determination to see the project succeed. Sadly, in it's primary mission aims, it did not. However, the wealth of information and skills gained by the team that worked so hard, is worth heaps. Again, we see Colin popularising science and bringing the public along for the ride.

Most of the scientists you can name have one thing in common. Their love of communicating science. If I can say one thing about the scientific community and that is they are (mostly) willing to impart their knowledge to anyone who will listen.  And if you want to listen to them, that is what success looks like.

Why bother with the maths?

An absolutely essential part of science is observation. So the theorists give us some idea (pretty good ones most of the time) about what to look for and the rest is about trying to observe those things. Of course, you could stab in the dark for something interesting. I think it's a far better use for time to actually have some idea about what you are looking for. So for this you'll need some sort of theory about roughly where you should be stabbing! But there are fundamental problems to the observation stage.

For starters, our senses are limited. Take studying electromagnetic radiation as an example. We "see" electromagnetic radiation as "light" Our eyes are sensors that pick up radiation in a very narrow range of values. We actually "see" a range outside that which our eyes can detect. This is the heat we feel coming from objects. This is just infrared radiation. We don't see it with our eyes but can sense it. To visualise the full range of electromagnetic radiation, we need machines that convert the stuff we can't directly sense to something we can.

Another problem for observation is that our intuitions are flawed. For example, our intuitive sense of space is in three dimensions. Up/Down, Left/Right, forward/back. However, we experience a 4th dimension, Time. We talk about direction of time by saying "Future and Past". We cannot intuitively sense time in a backward direction because we have no experience of it. Try to imagine 5 or more dimensions I guarantee you will fail. Our brains just cannot do it.

one area where intuition is some help though is in the sense of Beauty. A scientific theory or result is often seen as simple and beautiful. This beauty is often only apparent to those people who understand the universal language of beauty, Mathematics. It does not limit us because it does not rely on our senses or our intuitions. It liberates us from the shackles of human experience and allows us to see nature in all its glory.

But wait! isn't mathematics a human invention which will suffer from all the limitations of human intuition and sense? The answer lies in wether you believe we invented or discovered mathematics. Personally, I believe we are discovering although we have to be careful that our definition of beauty is not based on Human experience alone. Mathematics provides a description of beauty that steps away from what we perceive with our senses. This is what makes it such a valuable tool and why we should bother with Maths.

Progress to date on the Beagle 2 challenge

 

Lots of good work is being done by the team to try and get as much fresh information as we can muster. The Google group has had a few articles posted researched and written by group members. These will accompany the final model if we can get approval to use some of the content which is most likely copyright. It's a shame that the Beagle2.com site seems to have been abandoned and there is very little information there about what happened after the lander was lost and the lessons learned. Also, I posted an item about a possible "Beagle 3" lander that was suggested in a few places and hinted at by Colin at an event I attended. Not much follow-up information about that anywhere beyond a couple of press releases. As the proposal was to include launch in 2009. I think this is quite unlikely now as we have heard nothing since.

I, along with a colleague, visited the Walton Hall Library at Milton Keynes to see if we could un-earth some schematic diagrams from which was can scale the model inworld. At first, it looked like we hadn't really found anything that would fit that bill, but I was very grateful to receive a copy of Colin Pillingers book "The Guide to Beagle 2" from the Science Faculty at Walton Hall, which turned out to have some fantastic information contained within it. I also borrowed "Beagle - From Darwin's Epic voyage to the British Mission to Mars", This also has some great material, and 3 VHS tapes containing the BBC series that followed Beagle 2's early progress. I didn't realise that a major part of the lander was built in my home town by EADS Astrium. I'm hoping perhaps they can help us with some finer details about the lander itself.

For now, I have found out that :

Closed Lander Dimensions	660mm (About the size of a bicycle wheel)
Diameter	110mm Deep at the centre.
Open Lander Dimensions	1600mm measured across the Solar panel > Lid > Solar Panel axis   1900mm measured across the Base > Lid > Solar panel axis
Circular lander base compartment	600mm internal dimensions 80mm Depth Volume of 22 litres.
Solar arrays	Pentagon shaped. Rounded at the angles. 570mm diameter four panels take up a 1m^2 area made up of 78 solar cells each 69.2mm x 31.3mm

 

So it turned out to be a pretty worthwhile trip after all.

Authors that don't get enough recognition

I'm re-reading Richard Feynmans "The character of Physical Law". Why isn't this a standard text book on the curriculum of every school? Although this is really a transcript of a series of lectures given by Feynman, his style of delivery still comes across in print. I can see him in my minds eye and the the smile that would have been on his face. I remember watching one of the lectures in the Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures series in New Zealand. The way he reacted when the audience laughed when he described that "Theoretical Chemistry is really Physics at the deepest level". He got quite upset and said "it wasn't a joke". He would have been talking about a particular topic and get carried away and become very excited, agitated and sidetracked. Finding someone with that level of passion is rare these days. To be able to talk about things in an understandable way and not in the least tied up with how others think you should be explaining something.

He was not afraid to say he did not understand some aspect or other.  He had a strong belief that Mathematics was the real way to "visualise" physics where human experience let you down. You cannot visualise the strangeness of the Quantum world or more then 3 dimensions for example, so don't even try. Although he was fond of using everyday analogies to re-enforce a point, he had a knack of doing it without clouding your view of the world. I have always hated the fact that the Rutherford-Bohr model of atomic structure made me see the atom as a set of electrons orbiting a central nucleus rather like the planets orbit the Sun. It's an image I can never erase from my mind whenever I read or hear about an atom.

I also have an affinity with Richard Feynman for purely sentimental reasons. He reminds me of my father both physically and in his actions. We also share a name Richard PHILLIPS Feynman.

How the hell is Physics done anyway?

As a late developing physics undergraduate, I often gaze at the papers I see physicists publishing and wonder how they ever got to the stage of producing the mind blowing bits of work contained in them. Now I'm not saying that I come close to even remotely understanding even a small part of the content of these papers. I am, after all just starting out on my formal education in the topic. I haven't yet completed my "Basic training". I can say though, that the more I study, the more I am beginning to recognise little snippets. I guess it's like learning a language. One day you are sitting in your car repeating after the linguaphone cd, not really knowing what the hell it is you are saying. Next thing you know, you are in a shop in a foreign country understanding totally what the foreign speaking shop keeper is saying to you. You suddenly get a realisation that you actually can understand more then you were giving yourself credit for.

This seems to be how all learning experiences work and that includes Maths and Physics (for me anyway). I look back on things I didn't understand 3 years ago before I embarked on the Maths I have been recently doing and realise that I actually understand it now.  Those little twiddles and curly things actually say something to me. So now my training is actually starting for real (it is no longer preparation), I wanted to know what it is like to be at the other end of the pecking order and actually be working on the cutting edge of Physics research. So I have been asking some questions.

One of the things I have learned and surprised me just a little is that Physics research actually seems to be quite a social thing to do. It's about group discussion and interaction as much as it's about lone research, theory, experiment and observation. The Genesis of an idea is often flushed out and molded by more then one person. This means you have to learn not to be precious about what you come up with. You have to accept that you are going to be challenged.

After chatting with a MICA member about this recently, He pointed me to blog, called "Cosmic Variance" and a three part piece called "The anatomy of a paper". It's well worth a read if you are interested in how the actual work of a theorist is carried out.

"How well are we doing?"

I recently had dinner with a friend and a few others and a conversation we had has been bugging me ever since. During the meal, I got a tap on the shoulder from another friend who I haven't seen for almost 2 years. I spent a little time talking to her and her husband at their table then rejoined the group I was sitting with originally. I recounted part of my conversation with the couple and was a little surprised at the response.

My friend and her Husband care for their autistic son. They also have a Daughter. Our conversation was partly about the lack of help the local authority give the family despite overwhelming need. They do amazingly well considering their son never sleeps. He gets into all sorts of problems including constant attempts to climb out of windows and often he self harms by banging his head on a table or even the floor or a wall. As a result, he needs almost 24 hour care and attention. The couple have to have separate holidays so that each can take care of their son while to other gets a little rest from the routine. It also gives them the opportunity to spend some quality time with the Daughter, who, despite being a teenager, helps out immensely so has had a weight of responsibility on her shoulders since a young age. Local authorities only step in if a family is "in crisis" and then the help is often so far in the future that is next to useless.

So this brings me to the conversation that has been troubling me. I mentioned to my the friend when I returned to my table that they had been asking for an extra night a month respite care. They currently get 18 days a year.Their son is now 16 and he is getting very big thus harder to handle and more aggressive as puberty kicks in. For every extra nights respite they get, they will have 1 day removed from the care they already receive. This is extra help??? This is robbing one area to pay for another. SO I expressed my disgust to my friend and she thought the authority were doing the right thing. "Other people don't get that much annual leave" , and "There is only so much money in the pot" was her response. WHAT! Is this how people see respite and is this why Local authorities are so reluctant to help family's BEFORE they reach crisis (despite helping them afterwards is always so much more costly)?

Imagine, if you will, the scenario. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the shoes of those parents. You're son will never grow into independence. Every day, you get 2 hours sleep and are woken from that sleep with either a scream, kick or a crash. Maybe even some days a trip to the hospital because your son has found something to cut himself with or has thrown himself against the wall so hard, has broken something. You have to deal with his needs like they where an extension of your own. Wash him, feed him, wipe him after the toilet, dress him. He can't tell you what he wants, you have to guess if he is in pain, needs a drink, wants the toilet. You have to find things to occupy him every day and fight for the treatment, therapy and care he needs every step of the way. You are told that he can only attend school 3 days a week because the help isn't available. If this were a mainstream child, you would be imprisoned for not taking to them to school 2 days a week yet for a disabled child this is acceptable. You can see the REST OF YOUR LIFE stretching before you with this the prospect for every single day.

You love the child and you do not see this as a burden but you yourself need time to to contemplate and replenish to allow you to continue this unrelenting regime day after day. Yet you cannot get the help you need because some IDIOT who sits in an office and has never lived this life or had contact with people that do, has decided that the money is better spent on building a new road, paying some executive bonus or an advertising company to tell the public  "How well we are doing". Perhaps the idiot has had contact. But it was an interview for an hour with you. You were having a reasonable day that day. You had got 3 hours sleep because a friend had looked after your son for an hour because she saw your exhaustion. So you are upbeat. Things aren't so bad. Idiot sees this in your so takes away one of the days respite you have because you obviously don't need it! Besides, you cannot express in words how bad things can get to someone who really just wants the day to end so they can go down the pub or to the gym. Something you haven't done for years or even been able to think about.

This is not a little extra holiday for these parents. It is a life line The only thing that separates us from being barbarians is our humanity and sympathy for others in situations less fortunate then ours. So perhaps you aren't doing so well after all.