I appear to have been challenged to point out where Autodynamics is wrong, well that sounds like it could be some fun, so below is a list of problems I have identified on the Autodynamics website. I have endeavoured here to avoid anything too mathematically complicated, so it should be fun and instructive for the average reader, its simply too difficult to explain issues like how they "prove" special relativity doesn't conserve energy so for now I'll stick to the easy to understand stuff. You will note that most examples are not definite refutations of AD, in the next post I aim to point out one fairly obvious problem that seems to have been ignored, for now lets just look at how they mis-interpret mainstream science and contort the facts in an attempt to justify their beliefs. I apologise for the poor English and spelling throughout for once this isn't entirely my fault I'm just repeating their information.

On this page. The startling claim is made that in the mainstream picture Black Holes contain infinite mass. This of course is utterly bogus, BHs contain as much mass as went into them (less some mass that would be radiated away as energy before the matter crosses the event horizon), but they are always finite in mass. They are infinite in density, because there is a finite amount of mass confined in an infinitely small space, but the mass always remains finite. I can see why they have problems with GR if they believe stuff like this.

Einstein's equations approach infinitely as objects approach the speed of light. One of the consequences of this is the so-called "singularity" at the center of black holes. At that point, mass is infinite and light and time do not exist - the exact same state of the universe at the beginning of the supposed "big bang".

On the same page some claims are made regarding entropy:

Another important difference that is related to the other concepts in Autodynamics concerning the cosmos, is "entropy". Entropy is the concept that things in the universe are getting more complex. Autodynamics, shows us a universe that is getting more complex and less complex in local areas but overalls remains constant.

This of course is incorrect, entropy is generally thought to lead to a decrease in complexity, simply put at the microscopic level things tend to get more disordered. This fact which is central to the second law of thermodynamics has even been abused by creationists to claim that evolution is impossible because more complex forms evolve from simpler ones. They also have missed the point of the second law, it is possible for areas of the Universe to become more complex, say stars, planets, us etc, its just that on the whole the Universe is constantly increasing in entropy, things become more disordered.

This page lists many claims for Autodynamics. One of which is the following:

There is a conspicuous absence of support for Einstein's Special theory of Relativity. Groups such as the Natural Philosophy Alliance and the SAA are systematically refuting "proof" for Special Relativity and many aspects of General Relativity.

Well the first statement is so untrue that it is actually funny. What about observations of the decay of Muons formed by Cosmic Rays hitting the upper atmosphere? Without the time dilation effects of SR, these Muons would not last long enough to be detected on the ground. What about all the other experiments that show time dilation of exactly the amount required by SR?, more details here. The second statement is interesting too, it says there is no support for SR, yet that the SAA and the NPA are refuting "proof" of GR, so which is it? No proof, or proof that is being refuted? The NPA it refers to is also interesting, if you look at their website the membership is a who's who, of anti-mainstreamers and cranks, oddly lacking de Hister or Carenzani, they also helpfully on the front page give us this insight into their motives for attacking relativity:

Several NPA members believe that the main benefit of criticizing and replacing special relativity may be--beyond even the likely development of new energy sources this will facilitate--the undermining of the relativism and subjectivism that have increasingly infused many areas of thought over the past century, since the iconoclastic amorality of Nietzsche. It will then become more difficult to support ethical relativism, and to argue that truth and values are not objective, absolute, eternal, and/or rationally based.

In other words that they think by attacking a physical theory (special relativity) they will be able to do away with the modern worlds moral relativism, undoubtedly to bring us closer to one god or another. Forgive me if I doubt the intentions of people attempting to overthrow accepted scientific opinion to remake morality in line with their own wishes. I mean honestly, does the fact that you can't go faster than the speed of light make you a worse person in the long run?

On the same page there is this screed:

The infamous atomic clock experiment has been refuted and the data is bogus. In a swarm meeting of the AAAS in Flagstaff Arizona in 1996, Dr. Domina Spencer, physics mathematician from the University of Connecticut, presented a talk "Analysis of the Hafele-Keating Experiment". She received the raw data from one of the authors of the original experiment and concluded that the data published was "completely and utterly fabricated". See http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/npa/flag96.htm.

I have to admit until I looked it up I didn't know what infamous clock experiment they were talking about. It was actually an experiment where two atomic clocks were flown around the world in different directions twice and then their times were compared. The measured times were exactly in line with what SR+GR would predict (they would lose or gain time due to their motions relative to a stationary clock). The claim is made in the AD statement that the work was discredited, I can find no reference to this anywhere, the link is dead and nothing seems ever to have been published, the talk is referenced on the NPA site, but appears to have been given at an NPA seminar not the actual AAAS meeting (not a good sign). It may be true, at present I can't verify it either way. Either way, the experiment has been repeated many times since the original and has always matched the expectations of SR + GR extremely well, see here for a good description of a repetition done 25 years after the original. So, were all the repetitions the result of fraud?

The next post I think will be more interesting for those interested in science, it will revolve around gravity and discuss the differences between the Newtonian and the General Relativistic interpretations for gravity. Oh and I may mention AD a bit.

More Autodynamics

So I have received another comment from what I assume is an adherent to AD (see previous post), they point out that calling them ADiots is rude, which is true, and exactly the reason I do it. They and their related websites are allowed to call physicists everything under the sun, from fantasists to fraudsters and post titles like "Relativity's Incestual Child Must be Euthanized", but I have to be polite to them? Bullshit.

They seem to be confusing science with religion, in the sphere of religion all ideas are equal (there's no evidence for any one being more true than another), in science this is not the case. All theories are not equal, some of them have observations that back them up, AD does not, it therefore deserves even less deference than the average theory. All theories are there to be disproven, they are quite happy to jump on perceived problems in mainstream physics yet have very thin skins when it comes to their own pet theories. Another example of the hypocrisy common to those that support "alternative" theories, anything mainstream is fair game, but not their own ideas.

The comment also makes a lot about me not understanding the difference between a kinematics and a dynamics equation, well that's true, I'm happy to admit I don't have a clue what the hell the AD velocity equation means (it definitely must be being used in some non standard way), If there is an ADiot out there that can explain it to me I'd love to here it. As far as I can tell though, no one seems capable of explaining how AD refers to the real world, their own discussion board seems to be pretty good at making this clear.

To explain the final point the comment makes that I have quickly moved onto other problems with AD is simple and obvious, no-one seems capable of explaining my first, I could spend the next six months fussing over velocity addition but the fact is that would get bring pretty fast, and why bother when there are more amusing things to look at?

Flights of Fantasy: And Watching The Watchers

One of the main problems I have with Autodynamics is the way its adherents (The ADiots) can be extremely hypocritical in the way they choose to attack mainstream science (and Physics in particular).

The case that best sums this up is their behaviour regarding the humble neutrino, this is an elementary particle that is given off in many particle reactions, including those that fuse hydrogen to helium in the sun, in fact trillions of neutrinos from the Sun are passing through you right now. Now neutrinos are almost mass less and don't interact strongly with other particles (so they're not doing you any harm), but this makes it very difficult to detect them. Nevertheless many groups around the world do this on a regular basis, learning important facts about the Sun and particle physics reactions in the process, check out the wiki link at the top for a crash course.

Now the ADiots hate the neutrino for some reason I can't fathom, constantly saying it doesn't exist and that it was invented to plug gaps in special relativity (see here).

led to the invention of a second(1) powerful fantasy of the twenty century: The Neutrino.

All of their sites are littered with such pronouncements. It wouldn't really bother me except that Autodynamics has invented several new particles of its own, none of which have a single shred of evidence to back them up. This selective behaviour, in which the neutrino is attacked for being invented to plug holes in special relativity, whilst at the same time inventing new particles to plug holes in your own is pure hypocrisy. For a good example of a particle if not invented by Autodynamics then at least co-opted by it we have to look at the pico-graviton.

The pico-graviton is what ADiots use to explain gravity, seeing as they don't believe General Relativity to be correct. The pico-graviton required by AD is apparently 1x10-81 kilograms and travels at 27 times the speed of light, pretty impressive, but anythings possible if you don't have to obey physical laws. Now in the AD pages they actually don't give a lot of details about what the pico-graviton actually is, I haven't come across anywhere where they actually set out important parameters, like if it has standard properties of particle physics, like spin, charge, colour charge etc. They also didn't invent the idea, its basically just a renamed version of the Le Sage theory of gravity, the web pages do not make this too obvious though, to the casual reader it seems like Carenzani though the whole thing up himself.

The problem with the pico-graviton/Le Sage gravity idea apart from the obvious is that there are loads of problems with the Le Sage theory. See the wiki article for plenty of gory details, like the Earth being heated up by 10^26 degrees per second, oops. You can also read about the theory and its "push"-like nature there, its interesting as a history lesson about how people thought about gravity before relativity and while all they had at their disposal was classical mechanics.

I think it would be interesting to hear a few more details about the pico-graviton from the AD side, it would be nice to have actual numbers, something that can be examined and compared to experiment. Something like cross sections in reactions, spin, charge etc.

P.S I think some of the posts I have been making may have riled them a little. Their latest PhysicsPolice (TM) post is even less lucid than usual even for that bunch of crackpots. I urge everyone to check it out here, its even complete with a non too liberal dose of neutrino bashing.

Erratum

It has been pointed out to me (In a mildly rude comment, which you can see in the comments section to the previous post) that my calculation in the previous post is incorrect. The final velocity predicted by Autodynamics should in fact be 14.3km/h.

I'm allways willing to point out where I have gone wrong, I won't be correcting the original post or removing the comment as I don't think that would be ethical.

So does this change anything? Well no, no at all, autodynamics still cannot reproduce one of the most basic observations in science. I ask again what good a theory is if it cannot reproduce the behaviour of phenomena in the actual Universe, after all thats the whole point of having a theory.

As I don't believe that I will get a more useful response to the question of why Autodynamics can't handle simple dynamics, I'll move onto some of the other amusing contradictions of Autodynamics in my next post.

Velocity Dumb

So the ADiots have noticed my earlier post about them. They seem to be peeved in particular that I have such trouble understanding the wierd autodynamics velocity sum equation. Its not just me thats having problems though, a guy called Will is pointing out that the way they do things is wrong, but to no avail so far, its actually interesting reading how they deal with his well reasoned points, mostly by ignoring them, its like a bunch of five year olds sticking their fingers in their ears and going "I'm not listening to you" check out the first post here. They even accused him of being me, he isn't, I don't use sock puppets, If I wanted to talk to them directly I would.

To those just joining the fun the velocity sum equation is what those of us in the reality based world use to work out how different systems appear from different viewpoints. To illuminate this I'm going to use the example they themselves have provided on their own website (here), I've changed the numbers slightly but the result is unaffected.

Imagine you are a travelling in a slow car along a long straight road, you are moving at 10km/h according to your speedometer. You are overtaken by another car, which from your viewpoint appears to be travelling at 10km/h. The question is how fast does the other driver think they are travelling at? What does their speedometer read?

In classical mechanics the answer is simple you simply sum the velocities of the two cars to work out that the second car is travelling at 20km/h. In special relativity the equations are not so simple but at low velocities (those a bit less than the speed of light) special relativity gives an answer identical to classical mechanics, within any reasonable measurement.

The autodynamics equation for velocity sums is somewhat non standard and in this case gives a velocity of... wait for it... 28.28 km/h (Correction: 14.14km/h, see next post)for the car overtaking you. If the driver looks at his speedometer it reads 28.28 km/h.

Now the point Will, and in fact several others have tried to make to the ADiots is that this is plainly nonsense. We can measure this easily, just get yourselves two cars and a speedcamera in one of them and you can prove this is not the case. It happens every day when police are chasing speeding cars, if the ADiots were right, the police would always be measuring significantly higher velocities for the other car than they were, now some out there may claim that is the case, but I've never heard of a sharp lawyer trying to use this one to get out of a speeding ticket.

So what do the ADiots themselves have to say about this? Well their response are generally along the lines of, "your thinking like a relativist", or that AD conserves energy when relativity doesn't (it does btw), essentially anything to distract from the central point. What good is a theory of motion if it doesn't work in the real world? I'm waiting for the ADiots to explain this one. Feel free to do it here in a comment, I'll post it for all to see.

Hobbit Galaxies

According to this story from space.com the SDSS has found 8 more dwarf galaxies in the local group. Seven of which appear to be satellites of the Milky Way, these seven galaxies, all of which are very faint and diffuse appear to be essentially old. The one new galaxy which is not thought to be bound to the MW appears to still be forming stars and to have a significant reservoir of neutral hydrogen with which to form more stars.

This is all very interesting because it has implications for one of the big problems of modern cosmology, the so called "missing satellite" problem. This is the observation that cosmological simulations of structure formation in a dark-energy, dark matter dominated Universe seem to predict many more small satellite galaxies around larger galaxies like the MW than we see. If however these galaxies do exist and they are simply very faint and hard to see as the SDSS results imply, then there isn't any problem at all. Seeing as the SDSS only covers about an eighth of the sky, and doesn't see very faint things, it does imply that there should be many more of these galaxies left out there to be found. I think a cottage industry of trying to find these things is probably about to spring up.

The Nerdiest Thing In The World

Another tip of the hat to the excellent bad astronomer for bringing this gem to my attention. Possibly the nerdiest picture I have ever seen (click on it for the full version), but one that may well answer many an argument over coffee at the office (If like me you work in an almost all male astronomy department). A scale picture of just about every spaceship you can think of from TV or film and I thought I had too much time.

Who Watches the Watchers?

So the resident loons over at autodynamics (that's the de Hilster clan) have decided to set another website up, physicspolice.org, its introduction is interesting:

Welcome to the physics police website. Our goal is to do what governments, universities, and journalists do not do: read the content of articles published by physicists and cosmologists around the world and look for sweeping statements, contradictions, and the biggest crime - not looking for alternatives to explain something that until now has been ruled by fantasy and dogma.

Sounds reasonable really, until you begin to read their stories further down the page. The best one is this one. They actually take the time to try to pull apart a humorous Christmas story about how Santa uses relativity to get around the world in one night. Its a joke for Christs sake, a bit of fun written for kids. de Hilster goes to the effort of criticizing the quoted scientist for an apparent contradiction about whether relativistic frames are physically real or not (AD holds that relativity is wrong). It was written for a bunch of 5 year olds for Gods sake. If this is the level of journalistic fervor we can look forward to from the physics police we're in for fun.

On a more serious note, he again uses that good old lie of people that refute relativity, that GPS systems don't use relativistic corrections, the quote from wikipedia (and its references) is enlightening here:

For GPS satellites, this discrepancy is 38 microseconds per day. To account for this, the frequency standard on-board the satellites are given a rate offset prior to launch, making it run slightly slower than its desired frequency on Earth, at 10.22999999543 MHz instead of 10.23 MHz, a difference of -4.465 parts in 10¹⁰. The atomic clocks on board the GPS satellites are precisely tuned, making this a practical engineering application of the scientific theory of relativity in a real-world system.

Now I believe that this correction may be negligible compared to the accuracy of the system, but the correction is made.

On an even lighter note it has been pointed out to me that the ADiots are now aware of me and this blog (see here), specifically they are annoyed by my demolition of their mad velocity sum equation (see here). I can't wait for the reviews of my real research by the physics police after this.

Education, Edukation, Edjuckation

Hi All, its been a long time since I lasted posted, this has mostly been due me being away for Christmas, working on Phase IIs for the telescope time I got (this is where we set up the way we want our observations to be taken), writing a paper, and trying to help my girlfriend through the awful confusion that is teacher training.

Anyway now I'm back and want to jump right into something I noticed while at home. In a town near my home called Blyth there are plans to set up a new Academy, nothing too special there except that this Academy is going to be partly funded by the Christian Fundamentalist "Philanthropist" Peter Vardy. For those of you who don't know who he is, he is a man who made his fortune selling cars, now he spends his time and money trying to brainwash children to try to buy back his soul. His Emmanuel Schools Foundation currently runs 3 schools, with plans for 4 more (apparently 7 is an auspicious number in the Bible).

The schools are built and run under one of the governments worst thought out Private Finance Initiatives, for the investment of £2million (or about 9%) of the cost of building one of these schools, Peter Vardy gets total control of the school, he chooses the Headteacher all but 2 of the board of governors. This despite the schools running costs being entirely met by standard funding from the Education authorities. Does this seem like a terrible deal to anyone else? It gets worse when after 25 years the land the school is built on also becomes legally theirs! Land that was probably owned by the council and worth considerably more than £2 million, it seems Mr Vardy has gone from dodgy cars to dodgy real estate deals now.

The schools have courted a great deal of controversy through their teachings, which have occasionally seemed to contradict the guidelines of the DFES, as well as their hiring practices. I personally know of one teacher at one of the academy's that was told they would not be hired if they "lived in sin", remember their wages are being paid for by you and me (well not me, yet), yet one man who will actually make a huge amount of money out of the deal gets to decide who is suitable to teach our children. I could go on for hours listing all the things that are wrong with these schools, from the fact that they teach creationism, to the fact that they are inherently homophobic intolerant places, but other people have done it better so here are some links.

This one is particularly good.
Wiki as always has the goods.

I sincerely hope Blyth manages to keep these wing nuts away from their schools, and shame on the government for blackmailing them so that the only way they can get the new schools Blyth so obviously needs is by selling their children's minds.

For a final thought, what a crazy world we live in when a left wing government gives control of education to a bunch or right wing zealots.

And the Results are in

Its been a successful few days workwise, the allocations from the Gemini TAC (telescope allocation committee) have come in and all three of my proposals for the coming semester have been awarded time. Adding up to a grand total of 72 hours or around 8-10 nights of 8m time its a big success but also comes with big problems, namely getting all the PhaseII work done in time for the deadline in January. Its going to be a busy Christmas.

The three proposals actually break down into two projects, one is continuing our work of using Globular Clusters around galaxies to determine the formation history and Dark Matter content of the galaxies. I'll probably write a big post about this when I finish the papers I'm working on now.

The other is examining the stellar populations of S0 galaxies, these galaxies are an interesting intermediate galaxy type between star forming Spirals and old dead Elliptical galaxies. By looking at their stellar populations we hope to be able to determine how these galaxies formed, with a view toward determining the possible future of our own Milky Way.

Sometimes I Despair

Sometimes it just seems that the world is being over run by a tidal wave of fundamentalist nut jobs.

Check out this BBC story about the creation "museum". Just look at the scene of the kids playing with baby T-Rexs.

The main thing that I take away from this is the 40% of the worlds richest nation are either sheep, brainwashed or just plain idiots. The thought that just one normal person could be convinced by this rubbish is deeply disturbing, perhaps its time we came up with some way to fight back for reason and sense, otherwise all us rational people are going to be caught up when this bunch of religious fundamentalist madmen decide to take on some other bunch.

Personally I'm hoping to move to Mars, at least you can guarantee you won't have to put up with this lunacy there, its fairly unlikely that any of these types that won't read anything but the Bible is going to make it that far.

A "Short" History Of The Dark Side - Part 2

In the previous post we saw how in certain circumstances it is possible to explain supposedly missing mass in terms of standard physics. I'm now moving onto a case where it appears that this isn't possible, the strange "Dark Matter" that seems to permeate space.


Its been known since the 1930s that if you add up the mass seen in clusters of galaxies (like that shown above) there isn't enough mass to account for the motion of the galaxies in the cluster. This is exactly analogous to the situation in GCs, where instead of individual stars appearing to be moving to fast its now entire galaxies moving too quickly. Over the years some of this missing mass has been found, in the form of very tenuous hot gas that resides between the galaxies in the cluster. The image below shows the Centaurus cluster as seen in X-Rays, the X-Rays are produced by the hot gas in between galaxies in the cluster. The gas itself is also of great use in determining the mass in the cluster, this is because we can measure the temperature and density of the gas and from this infer the gravity that must be present to stop the gas expanding out of the cluster and into intercluster space. Although this gas is very diffuse when its mass is added up it still adds up to more than the mass contained in the galaxies in the cluster but still it only makes up a small fraction of the total mass we know must be in the cluster from the motions of the galaxies.


Over time other manifestations of this missing mass has been seen, it was observed that spiral galaxies rotated too quickly to be explained by just the visible mass, then it was noticed that the stars in elliptical galaxies where also speeding around too quickly, finally that the GCs and dwarf galaxies around normal galaxies were themselves moving too quickly to be explained by the luminous mass of the parent galaxy. Other effects were noticed that do not rely on the kinematics of objects, it was observed that the bending of light due to the gravity of galaxy clusters and individual galaxies was too severe to be explained by the visible mass.

As it became clear that this invisible mass was a real phenomenon and not due to some problems with our models people attempted to explain this missing mass. Initially people attempted to explain this missing mass in terms of stellar remnants (like in the GCs) and/or gas and dust that doesn't emit light strongly. With our increasing ability to observe at different wavelengths of light where we would expect gas and dust to be emitting radiation it became clear that this gas and dust could only explain a small fraction of the missing mass. Similarly stellar population modeling showed that it was almost impossible to explain the missing mass as being due to stellar remnants, it would require far too many stars to have already died by now, this would only be possible if initially most stars that formed in a galaxy were very massive. This is not observed in nearby galaxies and from what we know of star formation is not expected to be the case in most situations.

So what is the solution to the puzzle? Well the one that is most popular is inclusion of some matter which is not made of the same material as normal atoms, this Dark Matter is non-baryonic and only interacts with luminous matter through the force of gravity, if it did interact in any other way we would be able to see it. This solution seems like a fudge, except that it can be used to fit all of the problems I have listed above and more, something which the other contending model has difficulty with. This other approach (called Modified Newtonian Dynamics or MOND) is to assume that gravity behaves differently on different scales, this approach can reproduce many of the observed effects but not all, and is generally distrusted because gravity in general and general relativity in particular is seen to work so well in every observation we have to date. At the present much work is being done to investigate and try and detect a Dark Matter particle, if one is found it will be the crowning achievement of modern astronomy, if it is not observed then we have major problems.

However just as the astronomical community was reaching consensus on the existence of DM another set of observations appeared that has led to another dark substance. We will look at this in my next post in the series.

A "Short" History Of The Dark Side - Part 1

I am often asked what an astronomer does and what the main problems facing astronomy are today. The first question is easily answered, an astronomer spends most of their time in front of a PC trying to make sense of confused data that is never enough for the task. Occasionally you get to go observing to out of the way places like Hawaii or Chile, or to conferences in equally exotic locations where you argue over minor points inside a lecture theatre from dawn till dusk, avoiding the always lovely weather and interesting locals. Somedays it seems to be hard work, but on others you find something that no one has ever known before and on others still you get to sit 4 and a half kilometers in the air on top of a huge volcano and watch the sun set over the Pacific in absolute quiet. Its probably the best job in the world on days like those.


The other question is more difficult, it depends on which sub-field you work on, but I would guess that most people would agree that the most pressing area of research at the moment is investigating the so called "Dark Sector". That part of the Universe that is due to exotic particles or strange forces of nature. In this and the following posts in the series I'm going to try to pull together what I understand about Dark Matter and Dark Energy, perhaps even offer a few opinions. This first post does not actually deal with unusual objects or forces but explains a similar set of observations that can be explained using standard physics, I am doing this so that in the later posts I can explain the fundamental differences between the two cases, so onto the main post.

As an astronomer I am used to the fact that we are rarely able to see everything we need to to understand a given object completely. This is simply a by-product of the fact that we don't have infinitely sensitive instruments, so there will always be objects that are difficult or impossible to detect, objects like brown dwarfs and isolated neutron stars or black holes.

In many systems we cannot see these objects directly but we can observe the influence in other ways, in particular through the effects of their gravity, for example in the cores of Globular Clusters the velocity of the stars is so high that it can't be explained by all the mass we can see, if there wasn't some unseen mass whose gravity was holding the GC together the cluster would simply blow apart. This is fairly strong evidence that there must be something else at work here. Happily the amount of missing mass in GCs is consistent with what we would expect of the type of stellar populations that make up a GC, so we would expect some fraction of stars that are not large enough to make it to main sequence (Brown Dwarfs) and some stars to have already expended all of their fuel and to have died by now (white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes). These objects are simply too faint to be seen in the GC which is why their mass is "missing". When you add up all the mass that should be in these stars its about enough to explain the mass deficit in GCs entirely in terms of normal (baryonic) matter.


In the second post in this series we will look at observations of galaxies and galaxy clusters and examine why the approach used for GCs cannot explain missing mass in these systems.

More Great News from Sunderland

I love this story, a couple of old ladies in their 70s are wanted by Police in Sunderland in relation to a stolen wallet. Now they may have had nothing to do with it, but still I love the way the news has been going in Sunderland recently, idiots with fireworks and possibly criminal grannies. Brilliant.

Attempted Darwin Award

I love this story from the bbc. Its perfect Darwin award material, if only the damage had been done about 5cm away. In short some genius decided to launch a firework rocket from his backside, apparently its been done on Jackass, well without the extra help the Jackass team had it all went a bit wrong. The aptly name Black Cat Thunderbolt rocket (it all happend in Sunderland home to the Black Cats, or the filthy Maccam B**tards if your from nearer the Tyne) then proceeded to cause a scorched rectum, thats got to sting.

Then There Were 4

It looks as if India is about to join the very exclusive club of nations that can independently support manned space operations. According to a space.com story found here the Indian Space Research Agency IRSO (?) has decided to get ambitious and propose a manned space program costing $3 Billion a year which is more than 3 times its annual budget at present. Good luck to them. I hope things go well and that a bit more cooperation between the space going countries can be achieved.

If only governments over here could be just a little more abitious, I note that looking at the wikipedia article on GDP that the richest "country" in the world is the EU with 18 times as much GDP as India. Of course there are many complications here that means you can't take a simplistic GDP view of things but you would still think that the europeans together could make a go at an independent manned space program. Its not like a space program is a total waste of money, all of the money is spent on Earth and invested in real economies. Anyway I suppose we should be pleased for the ambitious ground based programs we have here, CERN, ITER, ESO etc.

Government Interference

Reading through Live Science I came across another one of those articles that makes you want to scream. It can be found here. I suggest anybody interested in governments meddling with research should check it out. The short version is that the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) in the US has been attempting to suppress research that does not fit with President Bush's abstinence only solution for unwanted pregnancies and STD transmission. We can only hope that now he is essentially left quacking after the mid term elections common sense may prevail and science can be left to enlighten rather than forced to fit particular prejudices.

The Earth

As an astronomer I tend to spend a lot of time looking upwards and outwards at some of the most incredible and powerful events in the Universe. So much so that I often forget just how amazing the Earth can be, the BBC News website tends to have a different interesting science picture everyday, sort of a Science Pic of the Day if you will, todays picture is a perfect reminder of just how incredible things can be on Earth.

It shows an area of Namibia called the Brandberg Massif, the whole thing is a single lump of granite which punched its way through the Earths crust 120 million years ago during the break up of the Gondwana supercontinent. The dark ring around the massif is caused by the rocks that were pushed out of the way as it broke the surface.

That something that size (it covers 650 square km) can push its way through the Earth crust just shows the immense pressures and energies still bound up in our active seemingly benign little ball of rock.

Another Great Astronomy Pic

I've just come across this great picon the badastronomy blog. Its really cool as it combines radio (red), optical and X-ray (blue) images into one. In the image you can see the radio jets thrown out by a supermassive black hole in the central galaxy of a large cluster, these jets are busily blasting a trillion solar masses of gas out of their way to form a cavity around the galaxy. This cavity can clearly be seen in the X-Ray image as the dark regions that line up with the jets. It just shows what extra information you can get by combining the information from many different wavelengths.

For a much fuller and more literate explanation of the whole thing check out the badastronomer blog here.

The Wonder of YouTube

Ah the wonder that is YouTube.

I've just come across a collection of Wierd Al videos on there.
These are brilliant, just look at all the visual gags, its like watching Airplane!.

Like A Surgeon.



Amish Paradise.



The Saga Begins

Hawaii Earthquake - Update

The latest from Gemini-North seems to be that so far they haven't found any major damage due to the earthquake, though the chillers required a bit of patching up. Fortunately for me, GMOS and its associated calibration unit, seem to be fine, fingers crossed.

Apparently it's going to be a few days before they are certain everything is ok, they aren't confident enough to move the telescope to check that the secondary mirror is ok.

Let's hope they get things up and running as soon as possible.

On a related note it seems that the JCMT and UKIRT came through unscathed.

Distorted View of Beauty

I just came across this incredible video on youtube. It really points out just how we have ended up having such a distorted view of beauty these days. It shows what can be done with one average(ish) looking woman, lots of makeup, time and digital effects.



It kind of reminds me of all the fuss during the Lebanese-Israeli conflict about doctored photos, I don't really hear anything about how advertising is intellectually dishonest.

New Element

Scientists in California and Russia have succeeded in making the heaviest element to date, element 118, or as it provisionally called ununoctium (Latin for "one-one-eight") or eka-radon (beneath radon on the periodic table).

They acheived the feat using a method I thoroughly approve of, brute force. They basically fired 40 billion billion atoms of calcium-48 at a target of californium-249 at such high speed that the nuclei overcame their mutual repulsion (due to the large amount of positive charge located there) and fused. In total it took 3000 hours and in that time they produced 3 atoms of 118. I don't feel that bad about asking for 100 hours of observing time any more.

The work is pretty cool, the teams aim is to search for the "island of stability" a theoretical region of the periodic table where very heavy atoms like this can be stable for macroscopic timescales. The 118 only lasted around nine ten-thousandths of a second, but heavier elements in the sland of stability are theorised to have half lives of several seconds to minutes, long enough to do chemistry with the atoms.

Here is a link to the Washingtonpost article about the discovery.

More from The Onion

This is probably my favourite story from The Onion of all time,

"Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory"

It perfectly sums up the utter absurdity of Intelligent Design. Enjoy.

Hawaii Earthquake - Mauna Kea Operations Affected

At 7.07am on Sunday (15th) there was an earthquake just off the kona coast of Hawaii, it measured 6.6 on the richter scale and has royally screwed up observations from Mauna Kea for the next few days at least.

I have a personal/professional interest in this because the guys at Gemini-North were actually observing my S0s project earlier in the evening. The latest news from Gemini-North is that it could be several days before they are confident enough everything is safe enough to get back to normal operations. Good luck.

Here is the latest from Gemini-North, and here is a short newsweek Q&A about the Earthquake. I can't find any official word from Keck or JAC about this yet, but I'll keep my ears open.

Derby Day

Well people in the department can hardly have missed the excitment in the air over todays keenly awaited astronomy 5-a-side derby. Though ending the game as an unused sub myself I can at least say I was there to drink in the atmosphere of 10 out of shape, sweaty astronomers running about for 20 minutes. Many years from now people will still discuss how things may have been, should Raul been fully fit for the game, however he wasn't and as such the Astro boys were left lacking their main outlet. Cosmic took advantage of this, with some solid defending by Rich, more solid keeping from Nic and Tony keeping himself busy up front as usual, the boys in red eventually ran out deserved 2-1 winners.

Well done us, and for fun here is what I imagine the celebrations would have been like after the game, had I played and scored.

Oh My God!

I want one of these. The physics it has built in is incredible.



Craig has just pointed out what this kind of physics can lead to when released onto the internet. Guys clean yourselves up, take a shower, drink a few beers and go meet some women.

Space News: 2

More interesting news from Space.com, research to be published in ApJL by Miley et al. (2006) used the HST ACS to look at a forming galaxy cluster at z~2.2.

They found the galaxy in the centre of the image above (which they call the spiderweb galaxy) to be made up of about 10 smaller clumps, which are believed to be smaller star forming galaxies in the process of merging. This galaxy seems to be a progenitor for a large cluster dominating cD galaxy, like the ones seen in the nearby Universe.

What is very interesting is the large star formation rate in the structure of 100Msun / year, with such a high star formation rate it doesn't take that long to form all of the stars in a large elliptical galaxy. This feeds nicely into my own research which involves measuring the ages of stars in large elliptical galaxies, we generally seem to see that large elliptical galaxies formed most or all of their stars before a redshift of about 1.

In conclusion everything seems to fit very well with a hierarchical merging formation for these large galaxies, exactly as we would expect.

More Daily Show: 2

The more I see of Jon Stewart the more I like, I wish he was running for President.
I know you guys at work don't really understand my obsession with the politics in the states, but the more I see of the way things are over there, the more I think "There but for the grace of God". Plus the daily show is damn funny.

Giving the Devil a shoeing, or Bill O'Reilly if you prefer his real name.
Or dealing with the state of journalism (crossfire).
Or the gay marriage debate.
The minimum wage.

The Onion

Just came across this from The Onion.

WARNING: Nerdy.

Plus check out the "stories" on the right. One in particular is genius.

Crank Watch: Case 2

I think its about time I got back to my usual pastime of crank watching (and baiting).

The reasons for choosing crankhood as an occupation are legion; simple mistakes followed by bloody minded insistence on your own correctness (a la Arp), madness, social disfunction, inflated opinion of oneself (I'm smarter than Einstein etc.), the desire to be noticed, the chance to earn the respect of a bunch of poorly-washed barely-literate loons and of course the need to spend some time doing something other than surfing the 'net for porn.

However in my personal opinion the worst reason is obvious: religion. It's surely madness to base an attempt at a scientific theory on some religious beliefs. I'm glad to say that most of the major organised religions have come to the conclusion that science tells us how the world works, they tell us how the afterlife works. Nowadays they generally don't get involved in claiming how the world works, mostly due to the fact that time after time they get proved wrong, best not to argue with the science and just worry about the moral implications.

Well some people are unfortunately not that enlightened. I've just come across a bunch of geocentrists! yeah I thought no one could be that nuts either, but there you go, never underestimate the stupidity of strangers. Check out their website here. Their basic reason for believing that the Earth is the centre of the Universe is that it says so in the Bible, good start. But just look down their list of other reasons for why it is valid!

Kepler murdered Tycho Brahe because he was a geocentrist! Now there's a story and a half. Interestingly modern investigations do seem to show that Brahe died from mercury poisoning, still quite a leap to blame Kepler.

Most of their other reasons are simply due to the fact in GR you can choose any reference frame you want, so if you are stupid enough you can choose one where the Earth is stationary. This does of course have implications, the most obvious being that the Universe must be rotating round the Earth once every 24 hours. So for distant galaxies that rapidly builds up to speeds greater than light, now technically this is allowed as it is space that is rotating not the galaxies, but come on! Whats more likely, that one insignificant planet is moving or the entire Universe has been arranged perfectly such that everything moves around it? Honestly. Just check out the monster "discussion" of the theory at the bad astronomy bb.

Apparently telecopic observations show that the Earth is at rest, that's news to me and I've made quite a few telescopic observations.

Also apparently Einstein "invented" relativity to escape the geocentric evidence. So how come it works, perfectly, every single time its tested?


The guys who wrote the book however are a bit touchy, here is a quote from the blog the authors are involved in:

So the devil's drumbeat continues : the modernist claims of credibility invariably return to the strawman of Galileo vs. geocentrism. One can take it to be the logo of modernism, its defining mark and the signature stamp of the demon, the bludgeon by which orthodox dissent is beaten into silence.

Well, what did they expect the Spanish Inquisition? I doubt it, No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. Sorry couldn't resist. Check out the rest of the madness here.

Disclaimer No Cranks were harmed in the making of this post, we'll not physically, though a few egos were bruised, probably.

Space News

Wow, I think this is the first post actually about research in astronomy.

I came across this space.com article about research into quasars. Its pretty good, I'm really only posting this because I seem to spend an awful lot of time arguing with Arpians about whether Quasars are in fact supermassive black holes in galaxies very far away (they are) or if they are objects ejected from nearby galaxies (they most certainly are not). This work just puts another nail in the coffin of Arps ideas, its actually getting pretty crowded on that coffin lid, I'm not sure they'll be able to fit many more nails in.

Anyway back to the science, the research led by Xinyu Dai and Christopher Kochanek of Ohio State University looked at a pair of quasars that have been gravitationally lensed by an intervening galaxy. This lensing allowed them to measure the size of the accretion disc of the Black Hole (BH) accurately, finding that the accretion disc is around 14AU (that's 14 Earth orbital radii to us). Its also emitting X-Rays, telling us that the accretion disc is very hot, as you would expect as gas rapidly spirals into the BH.

More Daily Show

I keep coming across these videos on YouTube, The Daily Show just gets better. Or maybe its just that they have had more material of late.

Jon Stewart on Larry King.
The Daily Show.
Bush on Oil.
On Stem Cells.
On Gaydar.

The Definition of Irony

I must admit to having a few problems with irony myself, but today I think I have found an example that perfectly sums up this tricky concept.

The simple version is that some redneck is demanding that the book Fahrenheit 451 be banned from schools, the book itself is all about a world where books are banned. Now I'm fairly certain that the irony will be lost on the moron making the complaints, which apparently centre on the fact that the book describes the burning of books including the Bible. So what is the best way to deal with a book that shows the evil of censorship and totalitarianism, simple ban it. To read more about this particular cretin, have a look here.

FOX News?

Just come across a great video about FOX news and their tactics. This one is a classic, there is a huge scandal in the US at the moment about a Republican congressman who has been sending lewd emails to underage boys. Obviously this is pretty bad news for the Republicans a month before elections, but have no fear! their friends at FOX news have a cunning plan. Its so simple its brilliant, simply say he is a Democrat!

I think Joseph Geobbles described this tactic best

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

Check out this video its great.

Good Night 3.

Some people have asked for a bit more detail on the goings on over the pond. Here are some CNN stories that explain some of the details.

At youtube here.
And here.
And here.

and a page with quotes from Harry Reid the ranking Democrat in the senate. Sorry I don't have the originals, too busy at the minute. Click here.

I guess the sad thing is that it has already happened here, to a certain extent, and there just following our mistakes. I guess it makes a change to the usual way around.

Good Night 2

So it appears that I wasn't the only one that noticed the bill currently doing the rounds in the states (the one that allows torture and effectively ends habeus corpus).

As usual the Badastronomer is on the ball. Check it out here.

Ashingtonese - Part 3

Another installment of Adams Ashington dictionary.

"Bought" in English is to acquire something with money, but in Ashington it was a Sesame Street character. "Bought disnt like Oarnie nay mare"

"All" - means everything whereas in Ashington it is a title similar to a duke. "The all of Lancaster is a posh cunt"

"Herb" in English is something used to enhance the flavour of food, whereas in Ashington it is part of a cooker. "The cooking herbs ahaad."

"Snare" is something used to trap an animal, in Ashington it is frozen precipitation that usually falls in winter. "Ya bugger the snare's starting to torn t' slush"

"Add" means to combine two or more things to get a total, in Ashington it a term used to describe someone in their dotage "Berb started t' gan a bit funny when he got add"

"Term" is an academic time period, in Ashington it is the name of a gentleman. "Term backed fowa winnaz at Cambois dergs yistiduh"

"Torn" in English means to rip something i.e paper in Ashington it means to move or cause to move in a circular direction wholly or partially around an axis or point. "Dennis waasn't able t' torn eez wife owa in bed, she waaz owa muchuva heffa nooa days"

Good Night

Its been a dark week in the world, but one news story stood out for the magnitude of its implications and the little response it seems to have generated.

I am of course talking about the end of freedom and democracy across the pond. Somehow don't ask me how Bus has managed to have a bill passed that fundamentally changes the powers of the President. There are several points of major concern, the first is that although technically recognising the Geneva conventions the bill allows the President to decide what they actually mean, no need to ask all the other nations that signed up to a common standard, if he thinks hanging upside down is ok, then its fine.

The second is actually worse, and amazing that he got away with it. It authorises the President to detain whoever he sees fit, for as long as he sees fit, regardless of the status of the individual (citizen, foreign national etc.). It also makes it clear that Federal judges are to keep their noses out of such business. Good bye Habeus Corpus.

The third part is also astonishing as it pardons the Bush administration and anyone connected to it for any war crimes that they may have ordered since 9/11. So when the records are opened and we learn of the torture chambers in far away lands directly run by Cheney and his crew, where do we look for justice?

This bill is so obviously unconstitutional it can't possibly stand, but for a while at least the number of "free" peoples (a term I beleive Bush himself is keen on) is reduced. I think it is ironic that whist apparently spreading freedom abroad he does as much as he can to destroy it at home.

I think Churchill best sums up my feelings at this time, with his famous adress to the French people after the fall of France. To the people of the USA.

Good night then: Sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. brightly it will shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn.

Only a Matter of Time

First off apologies, it has been a very long time since my last post, but I do have an excuse, 4 telescope proposals and a new website to work on. Expect a link any to it anyday.

Anyway back to the main point of this blog, bad science, and crackpot theories.

I read something this morning that has thoroughly saddened me. Check it out at the BBC here. The basic gist of it is some idiots have decided that because the US is having such fun with all this Intelligent Design bullshit perhaps we should have a bit over here too. They're using essentially exactly the same tactics as in the states, claiming that "many" scientists do not agree with Evolution and that this means there is some "controversy" over whether or not it is right. What crap.

If your really interested in "Truth in Science" look at their website here. It amazes me that people that lack the ability to think rationally can come up with such pretty websites, or devise clever misinterpretations to fool the unwary. Lets have a look at some of them shall we?

First the many scientists disagree with evolution bit that they all spout, where does this come from? Well from here. Well, well, well its run by the famous Discovery Institute, those honest brokers of knowledge and truth, or more accurately the most right wing Christian nuts you are ever likely to run into. Seeing this I think your probably doubtful about their "scientists" as I was, but lets look at the list of scientists that disagree with evolution, there are 600 of them. Here is where you can find the pdf of the list of scientists. If you look at it you may notice something I did, the vast majority of those "scientists" are people whose only qualification to be called such is a PhD, and in the vast majority of cases in a subject totally unrelated to biology. Most of them are probably bloody bankers now. Hmm this is really the best you can do guys? Out of many millions of PhDs in the world, you find 600, most of whom have no connection to the subject in question. Well done, slow hand clap all round. I think if you looked at this statistically they have probably succeeded in proving evolution the most widely accepted theory in history.

The rest of the Truth in Science is essentially the same old rubbish, find one tiny inconsequential problem that still isn't fully understood and claim that it disproves evolution. Just check out their section on the evidence for evolution, which is mostly just an attempt to mention problems, they never actually talk about the successes of evolution. Distort and Distract, distort and distract. I'd love to see them show us a peer reviewed paper which presents evidence for ID, yeah right.

More Great Break.com

Some more classics from Break.com

John Stewarts The Daily Show: Alright most of you don't get as pissed off by Fox "News" (read as propaganda) as I do, but watch this and maybe you'll start to.

The Astronomers Dream?: Better than a MacPro? Add a cup-holder and it very well may be? If you're curious about the question marks, see above.

More Linkage

More great linkage from the badastronomer blog.

Here.

You remember Eric Idles galaxy song from "The Meaning of Life"? Well neither did I, until I heard it again, anyway someone with more time to spare than even me has put a flash animation to the tune.

Worth a look for the song more than the animation. Lets see how many of you can spot some errors in it.

Good News

The good people at Gemini (South) have been busy taking my data over the last couple of days, so far they have got about 2/3 rds of my allocation. So 12 hours in the bag, hopefully the last 6 will get done in the next day or so, assuming the weather doesn't improve too much, wow an astronomer actually wanting bad (ish) weather, thats new.

This data was from the first proposal I wrote and involves looking at the spectra of S0 galaxies. Now if only the people at Gemini (North) get a chance to look at my northern sample I'll really be in business.

Another pretty picture

I've finally knocked up a picture of something other than an S0 galaxy, this is of another early-type galaxy, so still a bit dull looking. The galaxy NGC 3923 is an elliptical galaxy with some fairly obvious shell structures (click on the image for a larger version). I'm working on some Gemini data for this galaxy now, hopefully we will have the paper sorted in a month or two. This picture was created from g', r' and i' images from the GMOS instrument on the Gemini-South telescope in Chile.

Interesting things to note in this picture other than the shells are the two cool redshift ~0.3 spiral galaxies towards the south east, and again plenty of Globular Clusters in the halo of the galaxy.

S0 What 2.

I've just made up another picture using the brilliant(ly named and in use) Stiff. This one is of another S0 galaxy NGC 4417, sorry about all the S0's I'll make up something more interesting soon I promise.

NGC 4417 is a fairly standard edge on S0 located in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, I may include it in my proposal but it seems to have a very weak disc so it may not be worth it.


Most of the very small blue dots you can see in the halo (the diffuse light) of the galaxy are probably Globular Clusters, the other main area of my research.

Note: For those who are interested the image was made from data taken by the very good people involved in the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. The picture was created from two images, a F435W exposure and a F850LP exposure, clearly you can't get three colours needed for a picture from two filters, so I made another image (the green one) by averaging the two pictures. This is the reason why the image seems a bit less colourful than other images, but overall I still think its fairly pretty. Check out the thousands of background galaxies around the main galaxy.

The black line across the middle is the gap between the two CCDs in the ACS instrument. The Virgo Cluster Survey didn't dither the images to fill in the gaps, because it would take up too much time.

I have a higher resolution TIFF if anyone is interested. But its a pretty hefty 52Mb.

S0 What?

Every once in a while in this job you come across something that is totally cool. While compiling a target list for a proposal I'm working on I came across this little baby.

NGC 5866, its an S0 (thats S-zero) galaxy, and as such usually looks pretty dull, especially when you only have one observation in a single filter, like below.


You may notice more than a passing resemblance to my own favourite S0 NGC 3115, check out an image I made of it here (Note this was not made with the HST, it was done on the ground through some poor seeing and thats why by comparison it looks crap).

When you point the HST at NGC 5866 and take images in three different bands you can get this though:


For a really cool zoomable version of this picture, as well as more details on the galaxy get over to here. Try zooming into the strong dust lane, its incredible how fine the detail is.

I'm actually interested in the discs of galaxies like these, you can see the disc just peaking out from behind the dust towards the 5 and 11 O'Clock positions, it's very blue which is very interesting. Now the blueness could just be an artifact of the way the image was made from the different filters used to image the galaxy, so I downloaded the original files from the HST archive and had a bit of a play around, the short story is that the disc probably is blue. But I also found a couple of other observations in different bands (filters) that with a bit more work should let me make an image that reveals a bit more. I'll keep you posted.

As most of the astronomers know, a stellar population that is blue can look like that for one of two reasons, because its made up of young stars, or its made up of very old stars which have very few elements heavier than Helium. Both these cases would be interesting, but my moneys on it being a young stellar population, a metal poor disc just doesn't make that much sense when there is all of that dust around, we'll find out if I get the observing time I want.

I'll explain why its interesting after the proposal deadline. :)

Nut of the Week.

After a quick look at the badastronomyblog I came across this link, its basically by some right wing nut that thinks the dwarf planet formerly known as Xena has been renamed Eris as some sort of dig at the war in Iraq.

His reason? Well, Eris (thats her up there apparently) is the Greek god of strife and discord, and Mike Brown the discoverer works in California and, er, well, thats it really.

Here's a quote, something I note he doesn't bother with that much, I mean what statements is he talking about? I don't know, he hasn't bothered reprinting them.

Come on! The only obvious thing is that he was taking a cheap shot at world affairs (and one can only assume at the USA). Why assume the anti-war vibe? Because of his own statements, coupled with the fact that he is from the California Institute of Technology.. located in far west Moonbat country.


Of course back in the land of the lucid the name was chosen because of all the flap this object has caused in the astronomical community (i.e. the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet). Some of you know I think the definition stinks, mostly because if you follow it exactly the Earth, Jupiter and Neptune are no longer planets either. Whoops.

However this nut, thinks that somehow the name has been chosen to make a point about the War in Iraq, well if it was its pretty lame really, I mean how many of you would have figured that out? Not me thats for sure. How many Americans have a good enough knowledge of Greek mythology to pick that one up? Or maybe that was the point, we're all meant to be laughing at the joke but not explaining it to them right?

What do you mean that's what the email said?

I never got any damn email.

Uh oh, I'm in trouble now.



Seriously though, I think everyone should leave him a message or two, urging him to start back on his medication, I already have.

Ashingtonese: Part 2.

I decided to find a few more examples of the Ashington dialect I came across the above from the free magazine newcastle stuff. They also have some more examples on their website here. For those of you wanting to really learn the lingo, they even have a book.

All this got me thinking, we're from a fairly wide geographical area, does anyone else have any strange pronunciations or uses of words? Im sure Jim(1) must, plenty of druidic sayings for around the sacrifice, I mean campfire. But what does everyone else have? I know Ruth pronounces no like an Aussie (think Noi), despite coming from Chester, but what about the rest of you.

Ashingtonese

My brother (the middle one), is a bit of a scholar of local culture, after perusing his myspace page I came across some gems. The first one is on the correct pronunciation of words in Pitmatic (the accent of south east Northumberland), hopefully this will prove to be of great use to Noam in his continuing attempt to master the mother tongue. Reprinted below are some examples, take it away Adam.


Ashingtonese

In Ashington due to our rich culture (European capital of culture 1923 with Pegswood) we have a diverse dialect and all you non Ashington folk are jealous as fook.

In English "warm" means hotter than cold but in Ashington it is fishing bait.
In English "hornier" means to become increasingly aroused in Ash it is a sports injury.
In English a "bairn" is a child but in Ash it is a stipulation under law that means you cannot do something for a fixed period of time, such as driving.
In English "dared" means to instruct someone to do something to prove that the person carrying out the task has testicular fortitude but in Ash it is the male parent.
In English a horse is an animal that a cowboy would ride but in Ash it is the vehicle used to carry a coffin in a funeral procession.
In English a blurb is a short description of a book but in Ash it is a form of contraception.

If anyone is confused by this I'll post some explanations.

Further to my last post I stumbled across this link. It makes it clear just how ridiculous all the conspiracy theories around 11/9 really are.

Notes from Coffee - Seriously Not Happy

Myself and Jim(1) just went down to coffee where I received one of the greatest disappointments of recent times. As anyone has glanced at this blog will have noted I really don't like conspiracy theories, cranks and pseudoscience. I always assumed that working in a fairly prestigious Physics department would insulate me with having to share air space with the type of morons that believe that drivel, unfortunately not.

During coffee, it proved impossible not to hear a guy at the next table actually considering the mad ravings of Steven E. Jones. If you don't know who he is, he's a mad Physics Professor at the BYU university in the US, he believes that the world trade centres were destroyed not by two fucking huge fully fueled planes hitting them, but by demolition charges set by the government. Apart from that he also believes that Jesus visited the New World, see his "evidence" here. But anyway I'm getting sidetracked. I would link to the paper where his evidence for this theory is to be found, but its been removed and I haven't yet found another copy.

My point is that the whole theory is utterly mental. Why allow terrorists (or your stooges) to fly planes into a building if your going to blow it up anyway? Why not just blow it up and claim terrorists snuck bombs in? I don't get it. Why bother blowing it up if your going to hit it with planes? I'm damn sure that 40 tonnes of jet fuel burning next to steel bars would tend to destroy the structural integrity of a building, even if it didn't actually melt the bars.

Maybe I'm being to harsh on the guy at coffee, but still this is meant to be a place of rational thought. I guess that I should be happy that he was generally derided for his credulity.

Congratulations

Well done to our very own Cosmic Pancake maker Dr. Noam Libeskind. After what he describes as "a pretty cool" viva and three years of hard work, he has now traded in an M for a D for the front of his name. As a celebration we went for a drink afterwards at 3.30pm yesterday. Mysteriously at the same point there was a "hardware fault" that crashed the entire network and meant that people didn't feel so guilty about sacking off work so early. Noam was a little merry due to the fact that he had been too nervous to eat during the day, so very quickly descended into the loud yank that we all know and love.

I blame this merriness for his ensuing poor performance in the evening poker game, where I managed to treble my money in short order. Much fun was had by all, except Noam when I explained that his very nice sunglasses allowed people to read his cards in the reflection. I decided to point this out just as he put them on, so avoiding the temptation.

There has been discussion of keeping a record of our poker wins/losses, if the people involved last night could tell me their winnings/losses from last night I will begin the record.

11/09/06 £3 buy in (big money game)
Mark : + £7
Jim : + £0.55
Noam : - £3
Hugh: + £0.55
Gaz:
John H:
Juilan: - £3

Well now I'm depressed

Just watched Closer on DVD, I saw the play a year or two ago and had totally forgotten just how brutal it actually is. Its refreshing to see a film that actually shows relationships as they can be. Of course Natalie Portman stripping is also a huge plus. If you haven't seen it, you should, unless you've just been dumped by the other half that is.

To make things worse, I'd already watched Lord of War this afternoon, another excellent film that doesn't sugar coat anything. Don't fancy the arms business myself though, think I'll stick to the astronomy business, less need to worry about mad African dictators.

On a related note I see that Zimbabwe is now setting up a Chinese style internet censorship program (here), which means at some point someone sitting in some nondescript cubicle in Harare will come across this blog. Nice thought. So just in case may I take the opportunity to say well done to Robert Mugabe for destroying one of the richest most advanced countries on the continent and setting it back 30 years. Moron. Oh and I do know that in Zimbabwe its illegal to insult the President. However I clearly can't be in Zimbabwe, the power has stayed on here long enough to post this rant. Good luck to everyone in Zimbabwe, the madness has to end at some point.

I think I'll cheer myself up by listening to the new Audioslave album. Uh Oh.

Happy Times

It must be that time of year again because I'm working fairly diligently on a Saturday, I'm sure my astronomer friends know exactly what I mean, but for the rest of you not in the know I'm talking about proposal time. The most stressful time of the year (and it happens twice a year). Astronomers spend their lives either proposing to get time on an instrument or reducing the data they got previously in hopes that that will satisfy the telescope allocation comittee and therefore allow them to get their hands on even more data. Its all a vain hope, you can never satisfy a TAC.

This next month will involve me running around (figuratively, it all happens online), trying to figure out how long it will take on a particular instrument to do what I want, and whether I'd be better off being less ambitious in my goals.

The goal this time is to beat last times allocation, which was 53 hours over 3 proposals, this time it looks like I could well be up to 5 proposals, asking for 120 hours of 8m time. If the coke machine isn't refilled soon we could all be screwed.

P.S. Expect a post about some cranks A.S.A.P.