The Independent heading off-topic

Just a quick post in a break in a grant panel meeting at STFC in Swindon.  In today's Independent, in their "10 best" section, they featured 10 astronomy-related smartphone apps.  Only, they got the headline a bit wrong.  I tweeted about it on the train on the way in this morning, and it's generated quite a few responses.  The twitter picture was pretty low resolution, so if you click on the one attached to this post, you can read the details of the apps, which is a bit hard in the twitter version.

Great South Run - done!

As advertised, today I went to Portsmouth and ran the 10 mile (16km) Great South Run.  My results are here.

I took a train from Guildford to Portsmouth, with only yesterday's Independent Magazine to keep me entertained, since I did not want to have too much baggage.  I got off at Fratton station and wandered down to the sea front.  I spent the time leading up to when I was supposed to start by trying to find somewhere to go to the toilet, finding the Mind tent, to say hi to the staff there.  We'd been in touch a bit in the run-up about money-raising and it was nice to see them - and I fed myself up with a banana, which is supposed to be what runners eat before going running (though was nothing to do with my usual running routine).

There was a worrying squall that passed just before the race was due to start, but fortunately the heavy rain stayed away for the run.  It was windy, though.  Presumably thanks to the coming storm which is dominating the news, there was a lot of wind.  It really made the last couple of miles difficult, when we were running against a 30mph wind.  It was all pretty hard work, but I'm pleased that I finished it without stopping, and raised some money for Mind.  I don't think I'll be doing it every year, but since I did it 5 years ago, maybe I should think about doing it again in 2018.  Maybe.  Thanks again to all those who sponsored me.  

Who is allowed to have a good pension?

As a UK university lecturer, I am enrolled in the USS pension scheme.  I pay in, knowing that I will need a pension one day, but find the whole thing a bit too abstract to worry about in terms of whether it will all work out in the end and pay up.  Perhaps I should be worried.  My dad was banjaxed by the failed Equitable Life scheme and such pension failures do happen.  So perhaps I ought to be worried today by the news that there is an apparent shortfall in my pension scheme.  It sounds like it might just be a bit of a scare story from a couple of journalists who had asked one person to look at the scheme, but as I say, I find the possibility of problems with my income in 30 years time a bit too abstract to take seriously.  

What did irk me about the whole news story, though, was the comment from David Willetts.  It is a repeat of a mantra that has been used by both sides of the coalition government (Nick Clegg more than anyone else) over the last few years.  According to the BBC news story above, he said "It would be wrong to expect students to bail out pension deficits to support pension schemes that are far more generous than students are likely to enjoy when they're older." On the face of it, it doesn't sound outrageous, but is it fair?

It is my recollection (though I don't have the links or evidence to hand - any relevant comments would be welcome, below) that there was a lot of such statements a few years ago from the new coalition when public sector pensions were taking quite a battering.  These were all pejoratively called "gold-plated" pensions, and it was considered unfair for the hardworking taxpayer to fund such schemes when many of them may not get such a good pension themselves.  I think that's a crass argument which is nothing more than a greedy and envious way of promoting a race to the bottom - at least for the dreaded public sector worker.  But let's say that public sector workers should have crappy pensions to ensure that no hardworking taxpayer is forced to fund a decent pension for someone else.  Does it apply to the private sector too?  Are people like David Willetts saying that the chief executive of Tesco shouldn't have a good pension because it wouldn't be fair of hardworking people who shop at Tesco to fund it?  Presumably in that case, the holy market saves the Conservative, so that they can say that people just shouldn't shop where they don't want to pay for pensions.  

Now, in the current era when the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have changed University education so that it is no-longer the taxpayer that pays, but the "customer" they still make the argument that it is not fair for students to fund good pensions for lecturers.  Surely now the customers can choose to go wherever they like.  You can't have it both ways, Willetts. You've forced a market on us, now leave you anti-public-sector spite out of it.  Am I missing something?

Aside from anything else, why is it pensions that are being targeted?   Why not just salary?  "It is unfair that a taxpayer should have to fund the salary of a doctor, which will be much more than most taxpayers will ever earn."  "It is unfair of someone, who is required to have a bank account, to fund the lifestyle of bankers" "It is unfair that taxpayers, who through no fault of their own have been born in the UK, and don't even live in Havant and haven't voted for him, should have to fund the top-few-percentile salary of David Willetts."  The whole argument just doesn't make sense.  It is nothing but the politics of envy.  There may be other reasons to attack particular pension schemes, but this is a crass one unworthy of anyone in public office.

Look! There's a job going in nuclear theory

Many years ago, when I was looking into possible PhD opportunities I spoke to quite a few people at the institution I studied in.  It has a huge physics department, with many areas of research being covered.  I spoke to people about what they thought the key future areas were, and spoke to people whose areas I had been enjoying as an undergraduate (my initial draw into physics - everything astro - was sidelined during my undergraduate degree because of my choice to study a joint Physics and Philosophy degree, and I couldn't take the first year optional astronomy course as a result).  

I was really keen to work with one of the professors who was working on statistical mechanics of neural networks, and I chatted to him, but he was about to go on sabbatical and wasn't taking any students that year.  I was taking the optional advanced nuclear and particle physics option in my undergrad course, and the particle physics lecturer tried to solicit me to apply to work in his area.  That was very kind of him - I think it happened because he set a kind of unofficial homework problem at the end of a class and I was intrigued by it and came back with the answer next class, for which I was handed a bottle of wine from the St John's College cellars... but I sort-of worried that working in particle physics would involve being a tiny cog in a very large machine and potentially a very unrewarding experience.  Yet I did like the world of the microscopic, with all the quantum physics that it entailed.

It therefore seemed like a good idea to work in nuclear physics - involving lower energy phenomena than particle physics, and correspondingly smaller research teams.  I don't really regret it.  Well, not too much.  There's lots of interesting stuff in nuclear physics, but what it lacks is jobs.  Especially in theoretical nuclear physics.  I'm one of something like 8 people in the country employed in a permanent nuclear theory position.  Jobs don't come up very often here.  Anyway - I'm lucky, I have a job.  Even if it is based in Guildford.  

I had an email this week advertising this rarest of things - a permanent (or at least tenure-track) job in theoretical nuclear physics.  It's at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  It's a place I know well, since I did a post-doc there and spent lots of time out there while doing my PhD.  So - if you are one of the few people in the world looking for a permanent position in nuclear theory, Knoxville may well be your place.  Tell them I sent you - you can find the job advert here. 

The picture in the post  is of the Knoxville skyline.  The sunsphere is at the left.  It was built for the 1982 World's Fair, but as is well-known, it has more recently been used as a wig store.

Hinkley C go-ahead

The UK headlines today are full of the news that a new nuclear plant will be built at the site of the existing Hinkley Point power station in Somerset.  The news media seem largely to have concentrated on the joint political aspects of the fact that it is being built by the French state (via their EDF operation) with major investment from the Chinese state, and on the fact that the deal promises a minimum price that the National Grid will buy the energy at - which is around twice the current wholesale price. 

On the latter point, I don't really know if that is a good deal or not.  As I understand it, that price is not index-linked, so it is a long-term gamble on the side of both participants in the deal.  Presumably a UK civil servant, the Chinese government and someone at EDF all think it is a good enough deal to go ahead.

As for the fact that the contract has gone overseas - well, it has long been government nuclear policy, and no-one should be surprised.  Perhaps most worthy of recording is that on the Today program on Radio 4 this morning, the Energy Secretary Ed Davey said that with investment in UK nuclear education and training, the next nuclear build would be a UK design, not a French one.  I won't hold my breath on that, but it would be nice to see.

Frustratingly the government are proud of the fact that this is "the first time nuclear power stations in this country will be built without money from the British taxpayer."  That might be nice if it were not for the fact that it is the British taxpayer who will be paying for the electricity, with the profits going to the French and Chinese taxpayer.  Why is that something that a government minister should be crowing about?  Of course, the quote above was from Ed Davey, who is a Liberal Democrat.  If a Conservative were giving their opinion, the "British taxpayer" would have read "hardworking (sic) British taxpayer".

Bear in Mind

A few posts ago I mentioned that I would be running in this year's Great South Run in Portsmouth, and a blog post soliciting sponsorship would appear in due course.  So, here it is.  I'm running to raise money for the mental health charity MIND.  Mental health problems have been a problem for both me personally and close family members and friends, as one might expect from a range of problems that directly afflict 1 in 4 people in any given year.  I'm not sure what the age profile is for prevalence of mental health problems, but as someone who works in a University in a role which has its pastoral aspects, I have seen plenty of students suffering over the years.  It seems that around the time of going to University can often be the time when mental health problems become overbearing for some,  and I like to think that my own experiences make me especially sympathetic to those students who have come for me as help.

From personal experience I am aware of some of the help that MIND provide, in the form of providing activities and support groups, and it is no small part to charities such as MIND that the long-standing stigma attached to mental health problems is being challenged, and changing for the better.

On more physical side of health, I was never much of an athlete at school.  I was always among the last to be picked in the playground when football teams were selected, and I'm not sure that I ever managed to run a whole circuit of the 300m racetrack in secondary school without stopping.  The annual cross-country race was a thing of terror for me.  As at many schools, across many areas, my lack of ability in this area led to a lack of interest from the teachers, and I was content to more or less minimise my athletic exposure.  Only much later did I attempt to redress this, and five years ago I practiced for, and then ran the 10 mile Great South Run.  I've kept up running a bit sporadically since then, though never for distances approaching 10 miles.  In preparation for next week I ran 7 miles this morning (see graphic attached to this post), and I have little doubt that I'll be able to do 10 miles next weekend.  The Archers omnibus will help me through much of it... So, I'm partly doing the run for myself, but I'm asking for sponsorship not for a sponsored nap, or beer-tasting session, but for something that will be no cakewalk for me.  I've paid the entrance fee, and any sponsorship you pass my way will go straight to MIND.  So... if the hard sell has convinced you, the page to go to for donations is here.

Welcome, Alba

It has, figuratively, been a very long day.  At 02:30 this morning I called the maternity ward of the local hospital to ask for advice on my partner's state, and the advice was to come in to hospital to check on the stage of her labour.  So we did.  The check revealed that things were good to go, and so after a few hours (of which I will skip the graphic details) our baby daughter was born.  She is doing well, as is her mother.  Unfortunately I missed the birth of my first daughter, and it was quite an experience to see the birth this time.  Quite amazing, as I'm sure anyone who has stood and watched without that difficult pushing role will attest.  At least daughter #1 did declare that today was "the most exciting day in my life so far".  

It was well that she was born today - induction would have begun tomorrow and despite my physicist's expertise with both mathematical and electromagnetic induction, I understand neither have much to do with the induction of labour, which is - well - more laborious than non-induced labour. Anyhow, there she is in the picture attached to this post.  She's called Alba, and I could write a separate (and more interesting) post about the dynamics of the discussions between my partner and me about baby names, but I will not turn this one into that.  Now I'm back at home while Alba and Natasha are staying overnight in the hospital.  As if there is some strange causal effect of being off work, I'm watching "The Karen Carpenter Story" on a TV channel called Movie Mix that I'd never even noticed on my freeview TV before.

I made sure I bought a copy of the newspaper today to file away as a momento.  I still have a copy of a paper from a few days after I was born containing an announcement of my birth.  It contains interestingly gender specific job adverts, such as "Slaughtermen required.  Piece rates, good wages and conditions," though "Butcheress counter assistants" and "Saleslady required for wholesale fancy goods warehouse" or "Retired Lady and Gentleman required to take care of toilets in a city discotheque." Since I don't really follow a local newspaper, I guess I'm not going to do the same about Alba, but hey, I'm writing a blog post all about her, albeit without the readership of the Glasgow Evening Times. 

Well, finally, I looked up birthdays of famous people born on this day, and so, for Alba, here's a rather morose sounding song with what appears to be a more upbeat and relevant message: