The Manchester Museum & Science Week

I really like the University’s museum here in Manchester. It is on Oxford Rd. about 2mins. walk from the Physics and Astronomy buildings. It is very nice to eat your lunch while wandering around looking at the various exhibits! From ancient Egypt to dinosaur bones to ancient money it’s all very interesting!
One nice thing I noticed today: it’s Science Week here in Manchester and in the museum there are a few people telling and showing people about magnets. I thought it was quite nice to see a small child (who couldn’t have been more than explain to one of the demonstrators what he discovered. He reckoned the North poles don’t like the South poles and they try very hard to avoid each other. He asked the demonstrator why this was … that boy might be a scientist one day me thinks …

Evan

Heart-breaking football …

A sad week for the Irish and British teams in Euro Qualifiers – looks like none of them will qualify for the championships next year. Ireland’s campaign is fizzling to a less than mediocre end with a VERY poor quality display i drawing with Cyprus to follow a draw with a poor german side. I am left once again wondering how Robbie Keane plays so well for Spurs but not for the Republic!!
As might be expected someone will have to pay the price for such a disappointing qualifying campaign. It seems that Stan might be getting his P45 sooner rather than later if this news report regarding emergency FAI meetings is to be believed. Maybe it is for the best.
My recommendation is to ask some rich Irish businessman with a love for football (and there are plenty) like JP McManus or John Magnier to take over the FAI, get Jose Mourinho in as manager and let him sort out the lacklustre performances! We need his special powers me thinks …

Besides the Republic’s dire qualifying Norn Iron seem to have collapsed too – maybe even more disappointing as they started so well beating Spain and Sweden giving everyone hope that they would do it! Well it is not to be it seems despites the efforts of Super Healy.

In Britain, well Wales have been terrible in Ireland’s group and were never going to do anything. England are in a very tough group but i thought they would pip Russia for second behind the dominant Croatians. A loss in Moscow with only one game left (against Croatia!) means they are out bar a miracle (in the form of Russia losing to Andorra and even that might not be enough!). Scotland have been playing the best of the British teams – in a group with both World Cup finalists and Ukraine (tough or what!) they lead the group until this week. They have even beat France twice. If they had managed to beat Georgia a draw against Italy would have seen them through. A draw against the World Champions is a big ask but the loss in Georgia means that the Scots too are staying at home.

Ah well … I guess I will cheer for … eh … Austria … no wait they’re crap … oh i’ve got it! Greece to retain their championship!!

Evan

RRATs

The slides for my talk on RRATs is now available on the Estrela Workshop website here. I don’t think it is stated in the talk but RRATs stands for Rotating RAdio Transients.
Does anyone out there know if nerves go away after you have given x amount of talks? Also what is the value of x?

Evan

Keywords: pulsars, RRATs, radio transients, neutron stars

Estrela Workshop

This week is the 2nd Estrela* Workshop and it is here in Manchester (no nice trip to Europe for me this time …). The workshop involves talks by lecturers and students, a trip to Jodrell Bank (later today) and a chance to mix with the other students in the network throughout Europe.
The new student talks are tomorrow and I have decided to talk about RRATs – the things I have been reading about for the first month of my PhD. I think I have read as much as I can read about them until some new work (which i know to be in preparation) is published. So I will be moving on to the next few topics that I need to review for my literature review. It is probably useful to talk about RRATs as in writing the talk I have been able to collect my thoughts and ensure I understand what is going on.
I do not have much experience giving talks but I guess I must take every oppurtunity to give talks – apparently they get easier with experience …

* Estrela is a European Network of universities/institutes which JBCA is part of – it includes ASTRON, JIVE, MPIfR, IRA and Onsala also.

I’m back …

Well after a long break from blogging i am back with my first post in a while. I have a number of half written blogs on various things which i will post in time. I am now about a month into my PhD. It is tough to find oneself so lost at the beginning. Every so often however some of the haze lifts and it’s a good feeling. There is still a lot of haze however

I will post something proper soon. Best not to write in anger as I will be mourning over the poor performances of the Irish rugby team for the next few days …

Evan