Friday 24 February 2017

Bright Club #12

A series of reminder emails are doing their job in reminding me that I am going to be one of the participants in Bright Club #12, which is happening quite soon, on March 9th in the Boilerroom in Guildford.  Bright Club, for the uninitiated is a stand-up comedy event where the performers work in academia.  The name is a bit show-offy for my liking.  Like joining Mensa or something.  But it's a reasonable pun on Fight Club, so okay.  Anyway, if you want to come and see me, and my absent sense of embarrassment standing up and attempting to be funny, along with some other more competent people, then tickets are available here.

I might start a rival event called Shite Club.


Monday 20 February 2017

Fusion 17

I'm at the FUSION17 conference in Hobart, Tasmania.  At the beginning of today's session I tweeted, using the hashtag #fusion17 not realising that it had already been used by a party being organised in Texas this spring break (see attached picture).  Oh well.

The conference is one of a series which has been going for 20 years to bring together people working on nuclear reaction mechanisms which lead to fusion.  That's a somewhat minor part of what I do, though what I do doesn't really fall within any one specialist conference series, so it's about as on-topic as most conferences I ever go to.  The fact that I know quite a few of the people here is probably a sign that I belong sufficiently well enough to attend.  

We're about half way through day one, and as usual, the conference talks have filled me with enthusiasm for the research area, and given me lots of ideas of calculations to perform.  I was also pleased and somewhat embarrassed to see my name in the talk by Michael Thoennessen in which he listed the names of all attendees at the conference who were co-authors on papers which announced the discovery of new isotopes.  I have 4 written next to my name, apparently being a co-discoverer of four isotopes.  I can't claim to have been on the experiment(s) leading to these discoveries, but I was involved enough in some of the calculations associated with them to be on the discovery papers.  

Wednesday 1 February 2017

Erasmus Joint Master Degree in Nuclear Physics

If any readers are looking for opportunities to study for a funded master's degree in nuclear physics, an email I received earlier this week might just have what you are after.  It's a 2-year taught master's degree course entitled (deep breath) Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Nuclear Physics (EMJMDNP).  The email says that "the course is supported by EACEA Agency of European Union with full scholarships (including travel costs and health insurance)"

The degree is co-taught across several universities across Europe, and from what I can see all students will spend some time in each of Spain, France, and Italy.  It looks pretty interesting, and well worth considering as a next step if you have just finished your bachelor's degree and nuclear physics takes your fancy.  Tell them I sent you :-)