Friday, February 27, 2009

Some guy named Gordon

Just about a week ago I got three copies of the following email about something called the Romanes Lecture.

ROMANES LECTURE

A senior member of the cabinet will be coming to Oxford on Friday 27 February to deliver the Romanes Lecture, which will take place in the Sheldonian Theatre at 1pm. The subject of the lecture will be science.

The prestigious Romanes Lecture continues to attract distinguished public figures and world leaders to speak on topics relating to Science, Art or Literature. Romanes Lecturers in recent years have included the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, Rt Hon Tony Blair and Nobel Laureate, Muhammad Yunus.

Entry is by ticket only. Early booking is recommended.


Apparently other people realized this was code for "The Prime Minister is coming." I was a little less perceptive and just thought, "oh cool, a science lecture in the Sheldonian (a beautiful old Christopher Wren building)." So I went to the talk today and it was indeed the Right Honourable Gordon Brown talking about science. Brown basically discussed how science has driven technological innovation and hence the economy and how Britain (as the leader in science - ha) needs to elevate science's importance and push it in the schools. I can't say I was really impressed by the talk so much as impressed by the fact that he chose science as the topic.

The only concrete thing from the talk that impressed me was a discussion of how they want to offer science teaching jobs to people in high tech fields suffering from redundancies (British for layoffs). It's an appealing idea that you could use the economic slump to entice good scientists and technologists into the classroom, but there are a few problems. First, the current people in those classrooms won't be very happy about the implication that they can't do their jobs well enough. Perhaps more importantly, with the huge surge of funding Obama and Brown are throwing at science, there may actually be plenty of science jobs for the next few years. It will be after the funding surge that we really have the surplus of scientists looking for work.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Tea Party

I've returned from my weekend in Cambridge. Six Techers (including 5 Lloydies) are doing a term of study abroad at Cambridge, plus my friend Vivek (another Lloydie) is there all year on a Churchill Fellowship. I woke up bright and early Saturday and boarded the infamous X5 bus. While the cities are only 85 miles apart, the X5 manages to drive around enough roundabouts to lengthen the journey into a 3.5 hour affair. Apparently back in the day there was a direct train route, but now one has to connect through London to use the train - an expensive and time-consuming affair. At least everyone thinks that the X5 is such a horrible option that it's cheap (I got my round trip ticket for £4.50).

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, so we walked to a nearby hamlet called Grantchester. Apparently the thing to do is to have a tea party at the Orchard Tea Garden there. The special clotted cream ran out right before we got to the front of the line, so I refused to get tea and scones. My friends were a little better at acting British. Ellen has the dainty tea-drinking down, and Matt's tried to blend in with his dorky tweed jacket.





In addition to the tea party, I spent some time wandering around the Cambridge colleges. Matt showed me Dirac's Nobel Prize in St. John's Library, and we checked out Trinity, which was pretty impressive. The word on the street is that Trinity's wine collection is worth more than the University of Cambridge's endowment. Ok, well I don't think that's actually the word on the street, but it's something ridiculous like that. I wanted to stick around for Sunday night's Formal Hall at St. John's. The X5 doesn't run late enough for me to have caught it after dinner, so I did what any reasonable person would do. I caught the 5:30 am Monday morning bus, which got me to Oxford just in time for class today. I tried to give myself plenty of time to catch the bus since I knew I'd miss my class if I didn't get the first bus. As I tried to exit the main gates of Matt's castle, I found the door padlocked. I'd misunderstood his directions and had to go back to another gate. I got to the park next to the bus stop at 5:27 and saw the bus across the way. I usually don't like to stoop to running when I'm in a hurry, but the last thing I wanted to do was watch the bus pull away from the other side of the park. I boarded at 5:29, and we pulled away right at 5:30. I'm pretty sure I was asleep by 5:32.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Off to Cambridge

I'm up early this morning to catch a bus to Cambridge. I have trouble remembering how I survived on this type of sleep cycle in high school. Sorry that you still have to do it, Rebecca. At least I'm getting my first (non-all-nighter) sunrise in years.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Changing Caltech



I remember this view when it wasn't marred by the red monstrosity. Back in the day only Millikan looked ugly.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Smuggled Food

It's been another fairly uneventful week in Oxford. To spice things up a bit, last night I broke out my box of jello. The Brits sell jello as a brick of superconcentrated gel that is lacking in all of the delicious artificial flavoring I crave. Luckily, over Christmas my momma gave me a box full of real Jello, which I smuggled into the UK. My East Coast friends think I'm weird since they don't understand the brilliant concept of Jello salads, but I'm sure all of the other Midwesterners are jealous.



On the academic front, I've been reading some tensor calculus lately. It sort of makes me angry that I didn't even have to study it at Tech. It's pretty sad that I was 23 years old before I realized that tensors would allow one to just write down all of those handy div, grad, curl relations in different coordinate systems. Why were Christoffel symbols not included in Core somewhere? Tech's obviously become too easy. I'm also trying to read a little more Condensed Matter Field Theory before I start up research (up until this point I've just been pretty free to read books without doing research). Technically I'm supposed to start working on a project around April, but I'm visiting with a few people this week to throw around ideas.

I still need to get out and do a little more traveling this term. I am hoping to visit Green's windmill in Nottingham (yes, this is the Green of Green's Theorem, Green's Functions, etc. fame). Apparently he was a miller who studied math(s) on his own and didn't enter Cambridge as an undergrad until he was 40 years old. I think I may also take a short trip to Cambridge next weekend.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Middle of Term

Well it should now be clear that I'm in the middle of term based on my infrequent posting and lack of travels. I'm not particularly busy like I was at Tech, but somehow the daily routine seems unworthy of comment. I go to a lecture or two, read a little, tinker around with some code, cook dinner, then read a bit more. It's a good routine, just not one that makes for riveting blog posts.

We have had some notable weather as of late. A few recent mornings I awoke to a blanket of snow, but now the snow has just morphed into cold rain. It's a good thing I dropped 15 quid on a sturdy umbrella.

Now for some pseudo-random good things that have happened lately.

1. I will soon be purchasing a new camera thanks to an insurance check.

2. I couldn't find an alfredo sauce in the grocery store tonight, so I tried to whip up a white sauce from scratch. It actually worked fairly well. Thanks Tom Mannion.

3. I shared some good food and good jazz with my friend Andrew Hammond tonight.

4. I'll be visiting the States in late March and early April. I have a conference in the San Francisco area, but I'm also going to swing visits to Missouri and Pasadena.

5. I've discovered an earth-shattering result. It looks as if a 2d Ising Model has a phase transition. I bet no one's ever noticed this before.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Snow!

Ok, so it's not all that much snow in Oxford, but it is still pretty.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Our House is a Very Very Very Fine House

I don't know that I officially shared my plans to stay in Oxford for a second year. There was some uncertainty since I am anxious to start my PhD program before I go gray. Luckily, my blonde hair fools me into thinking I have plenty of time. My course of study has been officially changed to a 2 year M.Sc. by Research in Theoretical Chemistry. It's a pretty sweet deal since right now I still have a lot of time to read whatever I want (a little stat mech, some field theory, and more complex analysis for those interested).

An even sweeter deal is that I have found a place to stay next year. My room this year is conveniently in the middle of the City Centre, but unfortunately there is no common space (aside from the kitchen and bathroom) in my house. Since Univ (my College) kicks me out to far away housing next year anyways, I decided to get a house with a few of my close friends. This way I will have a much homier place, complete with a nice kitchen and living room. This past week, Ben, Scott, Clara, and I succeeded in securing a place for next year. It's pretty exciting. We got a four bedroom flat that's probably about a mile outside of City Centre down the Cowley Road. It's a pretty vibrant area of town, and with a bike it isn't far at all. Plus, the flat is right next to the best grocery store.