I'm a scientist, get me out of here!

I'm rather excited, as I've been picked for the next installment of "I'm a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!"

I'll have to try to enthuse various groups of school kids about what I do, and in a better way than my competitors. Should be lots of fun, if a little daunting. Details of the competition are here. I'm up against a range of other scientists, doing lots of interesting sounding things. Now I have to think of all the reasons that nuclear physics is really interesting...

TTFN, BBFH

Nuclear Physics is not an isolated subject, but influences, and is influenced by other areas of physics, other scientific subjects, and wider society. One of the strongest and closest scientific links is in astrophysics, since stars are nothing but giant nuclear reactors. This realisation - that all elements heavier than lithium were created in the stars - does not go back to the days when the chemical elements were identified as such, or when it was realised that the elements are made of atoms with tiny nuclei at the centre. They were both pre-requisites for astrophysicists to finally understand what powers stars, namely nuclear fusion. The bulk of the puzzle was not solved until the 1950s (and indeed the entire picture is still not known) when a seminal work by Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler and Hoyle was published which laid bare most of the nuclear reactions that occur in stars, converting lighter elements to heavier, and responsible for all the heavy elements in our bodies ("we are all stardust.") Last month, one of the co-authors of the famous paper died. Though he wouldn't have called himself a nuclear physicist, he helped define the field.

Celebrity Nuclear Physicist

Since this is a nuclear physics blog, I think it's definitely on-topic to mention that Jim Al-Khalili, theoretical nuclear physicist and colleague of mine at the University of Surrey, was the guest on Desert Island Discs this morning. If you missed it, you can still listen for the next twelve days. He talks a bit about his personal life, and a bit about science, but the most controversial thing he said was that no good music came from the 1980s. I've pointed out this basic error in his thinking before, so I don't know why he would repeat it on Radio 4 ;-)

Labour's ambitions

A recent article in Policy Review by David Lammy makes uncomfortable reading for the future of Science funding in particular, and UK universities in general.

I don't think it's a misinterpretation of the article to conclude that the minister's position is that

• Britain's position in the world is declining. The standard of its universities is linked to its position in the world. Its universities are currently disproportionately good and should be less good.
  
• Expensive-to-run courses (specifically "medicine, engineering and the natural sciences") will be cut by many universities, because they need too much money to run, and no-one wants to fund them, including the government.
  
• The ambition of most universities is too lofty - to be universal in what subjects they offer, and doing blue-skies research that does not directly attract private funding is not commensurate with the government ambition for UK universities.
  

I wish it were a misinterpretation, though.

Missing the "subcritical" point

The Ion Report warned that further cuts in STFC's support for nuclear physics could make it "subcritical." According to a report in today's Research Day (needs a subscription) Lord Drayson said that this point was dismissed because international collaborations are independent of each other and "withdrawing from some does not adversely affect the others."

That is missing the point of what the Ion report said. Without the critical mass in size of UK community, we are not able to provide the broad student training, to run summer schools, the national conference, the vibrant MSc and specialist undergraduate programmes or the specialist training and advice to industry, to law, to journalists and the media. Without adequate funding, people are lost, and along with them the bright PhDs who go off to work in nuclear engineering and industry. Yes, the projects STFC have pulled out of will largely continue, albeit without some UK expertise, but the survival of the nuclear physics community in the UK, which is small by international standards, but packs quite a punch, risks falling apart, and with it, all the added value that it brings to our moderately ambitious country.

Doomsday update

Sometimes, when people ask what I do and I tell them that I'm a nuclear physicist, they look a bit amazed and ask me if I make weapons. It's not terribly surprising since, of all the many uses that nuclear physics has been used to, weapons are the one that has made most impact on culture. Though there are lots of other interesting (and more positive uses) of nuclear physics, weapons will probably always be the most iconic one, and by association, I will have to get used to being vaguely associated with them.

I sort of feel that I came to nuclear physics too late to really be associated with weapons, and I sometimes forget what a powerful influence the threat of nuclear war and nuclear weapons had on the generation before mine. I even spent my first postdoc in Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which was built for the atom bomb project, and visited the museums... but I've never really felt too associated with weapons, though I find the history fascinating. One of the almost romantic hangovers from the cold war era is the Doomsday clock. It was set up by a group of nuclear scientists worried about the problems of the weapons that they created. It perpetually points at a time close to midnight to represent the danger the world is under from threats so serious (originally and particularly nuclear war) that it could spell "doomsday". The clock still exists, and today it was moved back one minute to be 6 minutes from midnight, reflecting an improvement in the global situation, as judged by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. I guess that's good news... and the announcement, which mentions climate change in conjunction with nuclear proliferation, suggests that the era of nuclear war as the primary (perceived) threat to civilisation is over, and we have a new enemy.

Funding cuts - update

So, as mentioned before Christmas, nuclear physicists were awaiting news of potential funding cuts that would come as a result of a shortage of money at the funding counil, STFC.  We were worried that, of all the areas STFC fund, nuclear physics would face disproportionately higher cuts.  We were right.   I could have (perhaps should have) been blogging about this daily - it's too late to do a complete summary now, but my colleague Niels at Manchester has set up an excellent website summarising much of the information about the cuts and the response to it, and I suggest looking there for more comprehensive information.

This afternoon, I happened to look at a Twitter feed not long after STFC tweeted that their director of science programs had just had an op-ed published in New Scientist.  It was something that deserved comment - and it's got it.  Take a look (my comment is by user "drpdstevenson" since I logged in with my AIM credentials)