Sakharov Stories

When I was at secondary school, one of the biggest news stories was the ongoing changes happening in the Soviet bloc.  From perestroika and glasnost, then on to the demise of the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist countries in Eastern Europe.  It was through these stories that I learned the name of Andrei Sakharov for his role as a peace activist. I think I was vaguely aware at the time that he had a background in science, though I can't remember now if I knew he was a nuclear physicists.

Sakharov died while I was still at school, in 1989, in time to see most of the changes.  Now, in 2012, when 1989 is more than half my life ago, I am a nuclear physicist (though an inferior sort to Sakharov), and I note that the journal Physics-Uspekhi has published a series of articles commemorating Andrei Dmitrievich, on what would have been his 90th birthday, yesterday.  The all-round good guys and gals of the publishing arm of the Institute of Physics publish the english translation of Physics-Uspekhi, and being the generous sorts they are, they make all articles free to read for the first month after publication.  There are some nice biographical articles there, by old names from Russian physics, and they are worth a read.  There are some more technical ones, too, which are probably less suitable for a general audience...

Departmental Football Tournament

Yesterday was the annual Physics Department 5-a-side football tournament.  As ever, I took part in the lecturer team, the Hamiltonian Academics.  Not being a great footballer, and the sort who was always picked last at school, I never really excel, but usually enjoy taking part.  Today, my legs are a little sore.

I couldn't help thinking, while standing in goal, of Billy Casper at the beginning of the film Kes.  Fortunately, I got on a bit better that he did.  The scene has been put on YouTube, and is presented below for your delight

The Surrey Physics Blog

In case any of the readers of this blog are interested, I am a contributor to the blog of the Physics Department here at the University of Surrey.  I posted yesterday about finding the roots of cubic equations.

The end, and a re-start?

The big (and sad) news in the world of nuclear physics research is that the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility has ceased operation.  It's a shame, not because science facilities must run for ever, but that HRIBF really seemed in the prime of its life and was doing things that can't be done elsewhere.  As ever in such cases, though, science was not necessarily the highest priority when making the decision.  My (only?) colleague in the world of nuclear physics blogging, Miss Atomic Bomb, has written about it.  She works there.  My slightly tenuous link is that I used to work in its shadow, literally - in the (now demolished) theory building next door!

On the other hand, I flew to Germany today.  Usually when I fly, I pick up a free copy of the FT.  This is not so I can complete the look of an English businessman in a suit and bowler hat, but more because they print interesting news stories that are often not covered much elsewhere.  At £2.50 per issue, I tend not to ever buy it myself, but I enjoy reading it when I do, and more importantly it has what I consider a sufficiently challenging, yet sufficiently easy cryptic crossword to keep my occupied on the plane journey when I've finished reading the news.

Today, the FT carried a story on the expected future price of uranium mining stocks, which apparently have fallen to about half their pre-Fukushima value.  It is reported that Japan is going to restart some nuclear power stations following some stress-testing.  This is happy news for people with an interesting in uranium mining, I guess, and interesting to me as I didn't really see how Japan could do otherwise.

There were actually another couple of stories mentioning nuclear issues - about the talks regarding Iran's nuclear intentions and an editorial speculating about North Korea's.   Perhaps I should be reading the FT more often.  I do live a very short walk from a library at which I can read a free copy.

Anyway, while I have mentioned the FT crossword, I can tell you about the joke that I learned as a child, and obviously didn't understand at the time.  It goes, "What is pink and hard in the morning?"  The answer is "The Financial Times crossword."  I heard a friend of my parents tell it, and I re-told it as "What is pink and difficult in the morning?"  Much less funny.  

Nuclear Tourism

Just a quick post to point out that I've been in Montreal, home of McGill University.  Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics, worked here between 1898 and 1907, and it was here that he performed the work that won him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (though his later work in Manchester ought to have gained him a second prize, in Physics).

There's a small Rutherford Museum in the Physics Department here.  I saw it only through the glass in the locked door to the entrance.  It turns out one can only visit by appointment, and I turned up towards the end of my last day in Montreal.  Still, here's a picture of me standing next to Rutherford, in the lobby of the Physics Department at McGill:

Astro coming to Surrey

One of the most popular "physics with..." courses we offer at Surrey is Physics with Nuclear Astrophysics.  It seems to capture the imagination of applicants, combining, as it does, a couple of the more fundamental areas of physics, linking them with their joint role in the creation of the elements in stars (though the course content is more than just the specialism).

We are able to offer it because of our large nuclear physics research group, which is approximately the largest in the UK, depending how you count.  We do not have such a research group on the pure astro side. At least, not at the moment, but rather excitingly (for me, at least) the University has just advertised for three posts in astrophysics.  I don't know many astrophysicists personally, but I'm sure there are some nice ones out there who'll I'll look forward to having as colleagues.  For those that do not subscribe to THES to see the adverts, there are some details on the University's website.  

An off-topic spot the difference

I wonder if readers have noticed the remarkable similarity in appearance between still-Archbishop Rowan Williams, and the priest sprite from popular 1980s home computer game Jet Set Willy?

Jet-Set Sprite		Re(s)igning Archbishop