In which we discover that radio astronomy can cause insanity

Last Thursday's lecture in Modern Astronomy was by Dr Enno Middleberg, whose scientific speciality is radio astronomy, using the 64m telescope at Parkes as well as the Compact Array at Narrabri to look at cool things in the universe. When I say cool things, I mean that he explained that the kinds of things you see in the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum are much cooler and thinner than the hot, dense objects you see in the visual part of the spectrum, using optical telescopes. Some of the recent discoveries in radio astronomy in Australia have included the first double pulsar and a supermassive spiral galaxy about 20 times bigger than the Milky Way.

Dr Middleberg showed us a lovely movie of The Dish, not the one with Sam Neill, but a webcam at the site in Parkes that takes a shot of the telescope every 30 seconds and turns it into a movie every 24 hours. It's fun -- it looks like the telescope is dancing the night away!
He also admitted, when trying to answer questions about some of the technical details of the Compact Array:

"There is an infinity of miraculous steps involved, and if you arrive at a place where you understand it all, you'll go mad!"

That explains a lot.

Hand Crafted by me

Here's the latest publication I had a hand in. I didn't do much, but there are about half a dozen projects in this book that I made. They're not attributed to the various creators, so I'll 'fess up: the ones I made are on pages 22, 56, 60, 148, 164, 166, 168.

Foodie heaven on my doorstep

Some of you will know how I love to boast about the foodie haunts I frequent in my neighbourhood: Fratelli Fresh, Danks Street Depot, Simon Johnson, Bitton, Allpress, Hung Ha Bakery... I could go on. But my pride in these matters is vindicated! In last Tuesday's Good Living section of the Sydney Morning Herald, there was a report on a new outlet in Gardeners Road, Alexandria (just around the corner from me). I quote:

"-- they call it Alexandria, but there's more than a sniff of Beaconsfield to the location."

I never thought I'd see the day when foodies would try to muscle in on my tiny, forgotten suburb as a desirable destination. And just to prove that I'm generous, I'll say that they are welcome to do it, as long as the bakery turns out to be as promising as the article suggests.

Religious symbols

I find myself quite incensed about all this fuss over a woman who wants to wear a cross pendant to work. The constant media comparison of her right to openly display her religious affiliation with the rights of Muslims to wear hijab or Jews to wear yarmulkas is all well and good, but I have an objection.
The difference between the two cases, to me, is that one is a voluntary witness to faith, while the others are compulsory observances according to doctrine. I have never heard or read any theological argument for the wearing of jewellery in the form of a cross: there is no instruction from Jesus, any prophet or apostle or even a Pope or archbishop that says, "Thou shalt wear a piece of jewellery to prove thou art a Christian".
There are, as I understand it, doctrinal reasons in the respective faiths for the wearing of hijab or a Sikh's turban or a yarmulka. In the case of hijab, for example, it is a scriptural command, although the interpretation of the necessary level of coverage may vary. In the case of the yarmulka, the coverage has already been reduced to a symbolic state, but it is worn to obey a Talmudic command.
For these reasons, I have little sympathy for the airport employee who wants to wear her cross pendant at work (and it should be noted that she is not being banned from wearing it, only from having it visible). If she is so concerned about displaying her faith for all to see, she had much better do it by acting as a Christian than flashing a bit of expensive metal around. After all, wasn't it the founder of her faith who derided those who tried to make a visible show of religion: "By their works shall ye know them" (Matthew 7.16). To paraphrase the old saying that was drummed into me at Sunday School: "Wearing a WWJD bracelet does not make you a Christian, just as living in a garage does not make you a car."
I hate to say it, but it was people like this woman, who thinks she is making a public stand for her religion, who caused me to question -- and, although other reasons came into it, ultimately reject -- my former faith. I think she should get off her high horse and live her beliefs in humility, not just walk around wearing its trappings like the Pharisees beating their breasts in the temple (Matthew 6.5-6).

Ah well, as I have said before, plus ca change.... If Jesus could see her now, he'd be turning in his grave.

On seeing stars and hearing voices

On Saturday night, the Dude and I went up into the mountains to escape the city lights and look at the galactic ones instead. The night started out quite clear and warm, and we were fortunate to be able to see some pretty spectacular sights through a collection of telescopes of different shapes and sizes.
We saw Jupiter, and three of its Galilean satellites (although the owner of the telescope, a far more experienced stargazer than I, said he could see the fourth one lurking at the edge of the planet's atmosphere). Some of the cloud bands were visible, but I didn't spot the Bad Astronomer's eponymous storm -- the Oval BA. After Jupiter sank below the treeline we watched Scorpius following in its wake. The Southern Cross was also headed for the horizon but we took a quick look at Alpha Centauri and were able to discern that there were two stars through the telescope, despite the fact that it looks like a single star to the naked eye.
The Dude was fascinated by the nebulous Milky Way -- he's been to one of these viewing nights before, but I guess it didn't come to his notice in the past. He also enjoyed seeing globular clusters, nebulae and galaxies through the telescopes.
We saw Uranus, as well, and the Dude amused some of the more senior stargazers with his off-hand comments when they enthusiastically inquired what he thought of it. "Did you see it?" "Yeah," he shrugged nonchalantly. What more reaction could you expect from a self-conscious pre-teen, on the cusp of grunting adolescence? He was actually quite impressed, as he revealed the next day when he told His Dagginess all about what we had seen.
The last sight we saw before the sky clouded over was the Andromeda galaxy, rising above the treeline on the northern horizon. Our host informed us that it it is the most distant thing that you can see with the human eye, although we needed binoculars that night.
This stargazing event was run by my former astronomy teacher, who began the evening with a quick tour of the sky and was patiently happy to answer all sorts of questions from the assembled throng. This was one of the best parts of the night, as he imparted interesting information and opinions: I always enjoyed his classes because he has the ability to relate esoteric information without being patronising, and he is possessed of a speaking voice of such a lovely mellow tone that one could listen to him for hours without tiring of hearing it (in fact, I have listened to him for hours...)
Thinking about the pleasant sound of his voice drifting through the clear, dark night brought about a Proustian moment of sorts. It made me remember other voices I have loved to listen to: such as my grandfather (for whom the Dude is named) praying in his deep, sonorous voice at the breakfast table, while our linen napkins lay on our laps and our heads were bowed over the pristine china and silverware; or my dad using his "radio voice" as he read the news on the air -- I recall the way he would lower the tone of his normal speaking voice to achieve the proper solemnity required by the broadcast; my uncle, too, has a voice I love to listen to, although I've never sat in on one of his university lectures I imagine his students might have been privileged to enjoy his dulcet tones in that way.
I like the tones of His Dagginess' voice, too. Maybe I just have a soft spot for baritones.

Post-footy blogging...

... or, a bit of a stitching update.
Here is my current project. It's been ages since I crocheted, but when my Upstate Sister spotted this cute little retro baby outfit I promised to make it for Spike, who is due to join us any time in the next month or so. Here are the colours I picked for Spike's version (they look muddier in this scan than in real life):

Plus ca change...

I've been a regular reader of Hemlock's Diary for about a year now. It's often full of local politics, but there was an eerie feeling of familiarity in this week's blog. If nothing else, it's nice to see that we're not the only nation in the world with a pathetically short-sighted elected government.

Grand final musings

I'm not going to bemoan the fact that we went all the way to the 'G to watch the Swannies lose by one lousy point, because it was actually a great game, fantastic atmosphere, beautiful day...

Here's my lasting grand final day memory:

After World Citizen 3000 cooked us a lovely consolatory dinner at his home, we wandered around the corner to a local Saudi Arabian cake shop for dessert. When we arrived, still wearing our footy colours, we saw a family of West Coast supporters in the store, indulging in some celebratory cakes (it was after dark, even though it is Ramadan). Giving a wry smile and a nod as we passed them, we were surprised when they greeted us in a friendly manner and struck up a conversation. This family had travelled over from Perth for the game, just as we had travelled from Sydney. We congratulated them on their team's success, they commiserated with us on our disappointment, we all agreed that the two teams are in a period of great rivalry that makes every match a nail-biter and it's all good. We parted with the words, "See you next year for the decider." Smiles all 'round.

Next, a local couple walked into the cake store. They looked confused so we showed them where to get a ticket so they could be served in their turn. The male then asked, "Are youse from Sydney?" When we said we were, he replied in a sullen tone, "I'm glad your team lost. And I hope Melbourne wins the rugby league grand final tomorrow." [So did we, but we didn't tell him that.]

Now I ask you, who is my brother? Is it the Muslim family from Perth who were friendly and cheerful despite their absolute right to gloat at our expense, or the Melbourne man who was full of hatred for us Sydneysiders despite the fact that he supported neither of the teams involved?

Just so that I'm not too negative about Melbourne, another memory of the day is a train trip on which there was a spirited discussion about saving water. Two women on their way to the football were discussing a local council's use of recycled water and were joined by another woman across the aisle who is a waste-water engineer for another local council. As His Dagginess noted: "This would never happen in Sydney: all we talk about is road tunnels and tolls." Go Melbourne! Gotta love that city.

Of Charlie and Granny

Sydney Swans player Adam Goodes wins the Chas Brownlow medal.
His Dagginess, Beche-la-mer and the Dude are going to the Grand Final in Melbourne.
Two packets of Luscious Strawberry TimTams are on their way to the Upstaters in NY.





All is right with the world.

Love this...

101 uses for a John Howard.
Thanks to World Citizen 3000.

In which we learn that MASH is not just a TV show, or His Dagginess' favourite dish, and find that planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets

Last night's astronomy lecture was delivered by the King of the Acronym, Quentin Parker. This excitable fellow is based at the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) and uses the UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) at Coonabarrabran to look at planetary nebulae (PNe). He talked us through MASH, SHS, 2MASS, 2dF and 6dF sky surveys, not to mention the rave review he gave to SuperCOSMOS (I can't even remember what that is an acronym for -- he spoke too fast for me to write it all down! Something about coordinates, size, shape, mass and objects, I recall, but I can't remember what the other O stood for).
Planetary nebulae are his bag. It was the 18th-century English astronomer William Herschel who gave PNe their name, because through the telescopes of the time these pretty objects appeared similar to the flat, luminous disks of the planets in our solar system. With better optics and understanding, we now realise that a PN is actually a stage in the life cycle of a star similar to our own sun: in fact, our solar system will one day have its own pretty PN when the sun, nearing the end of its hydrogen-burning phase, blows up into a big ol' red giant then puffs off its outer layers and shrinks down to a white dwarf.
The problem with PNe is that there just isn't enough stuff in them. When an astronomer looks at a PN and the white dwarf star at its centre, and adds up all the mass she can see, she ends up with just a fraction of the original mass of the star, which must be in a range around the size of our sun (otherwise you would get a supernova rather than a PN). This results in the MMM: missing mass mystery. Fortunately, the King of the Acronym has been using the UKST to MASH the SHS with SuperCOSMOS and discover the answer to the MMM in PNe. And you can see the pictures here.

Hairy Dude with medal

Click here.

More footy blogging

Okay, so I had this dream the other night that I was playing midfield for the Sydney Swans, and I was really frustrated because Chris Judd kept beating me to the ball....

This reminded me of the time His Dagginess had a similar dream:

"I was playing in the ruck for Richmond, and I tapped the ball down to Joel Bowden on the wing. Then I woke up and thought, 'WTF! What is Joel Bowden doing playing on the wing?' It didn't occur to me to think, 'What am I doing playing in the ruck for Richmond?'!"

Hmmmmm. Maybe it's a good thing there's only a week and a half to go until the Grand Final. It's all getting a bit obsessive around here.

If it's September, it must be footy finals

I am sitting here at my desk with my finger on the redial button of the phone, trying to get through to the hotline to register for tickets to the AFL grand final, on behalf of His Dagginess, who is at work. So I thought a bit of a miscellanaea of football blogging was called for to pass the time.
The medal at left belongs to the Dude, for his contribution to the Newtown Swans Under 11s this season. Since it was presented to him on Sunday, he now gets up in the morning and comes in to my room to wake me with all five medals jingling around his neck (one for each junior year, plus two extras for playing in grand finals) and his five trophies (from his Auskick years -- that's under eights for those not in the know) are currently on temporary display in the living room. He has signed up to play again next year already: I love that about him, that although he's by no means a star of the team he gets in there and does his best every week. How inspiring! (I also love it that he is defying his orthopedic surgeon's prediction that he would be left too far behind his peers to compete in physical sports by this age. Imagine how good he would be if he wasn't handicapped by his talipes!)
Yesterday I was discussing the footy with a colleague I have known for many years in many different capacities and publishing companies. He always has unique insights into the game because he is a real "footy fan" rather than a follower of any particular team. Anyway, we came up with the theory that having an alternate strip is the secret of success on the football field. I have always thought that the Swans play better in their stripey socks, and this year they have been wearing them all season (and doesn't Ted Richards make them look good?). Fremantle, too, have a striking clash jersey and look how well they are doing this year! This is not just a frivolous theory, though: my colleague and I think it is because the white jersey/striped socks give the team greater visibility on the field, thereby making it easier to spot a teammate for more accurate kicking or handballing. I mean, when Freo were wearing their purple strip and Melbourne their navy blue on Saturday night, you could hardly tell the teams apart!
And here's another footy rant, about the grand final ticket registration. Today we had to call a hotline to register for the waiting list to purchase a grand final ticket, before we even know if our team is in the grand final. For this, we had to pay a registration fee of $7 per ticket, non-refundable, of course. There are four clubs still in the running; if 20,000 members of each club register to be on the waiting list for tickets at $7 per ticket, Ticketmaster have just made $560,000 clear profit (they didn't even have to employ staff as the whole process is automated). Come in, spinner!
Last, but not least, here are some jokes for His Dagginess' dad:
Q: Why were Richmond fans happy that round 22 was so late this year?
A: Because they finally got to see their team play in September!

Q: Why does the AFL have a final eight?
A: So Richmond can come ninth.

His Dagginess

New pseudonym for the Fun Policeman (formerly known as the Voice of Reason):
Henceforth he will be known as "His Dagginess".

This arises from a conversation we had yesterday, discussing the fact that His Dagginess has just laid out good money to immortalise our family names in football fandom by buying a bit of inscribed concrete. I wouldn't mind if he'd just had his own surname inscribed for posterity, but no, he had to include mine as well! My response was, "In future, can you please exclude me from your acts of dagginess?"

Later that day, I received a sulky email telling me how shattered he was by my insult. So? It's not like it's written in stone! Ugh!

In which it is discovered that jet skis may have a useful purpose after all, and that having 11 dimensions is much better than four

I've signed up for another lecture series at Sydney University Continuing Education: this one is called Topics in Modern Astronomy. Each week a guest speaker will discuss their particular area of expertise. The first was a talk by Joss Hawthorn, of the Anglo-Australian Observatory, on Dark Matter. Here's what I learned:
How jet skis can be used to explain Special Relativity
Imagine a jet skier travelling north at 100km/h, and another one travelling east at 100km/h, and draw a graph of their paths over a period of time (such as a second). Now imagine another jet skier travelling north-east and draw his (we will assume it's a male) path on the graph: the plots of all three are the same length but if you read the graph back to the axes, the third jet skier is not travelling at 100km/h, but appears to be going slightly slower than the two that are travelling along the axes. Now change north to Time and East to Space and there you have special relativity: the faster you travel through space, the slower you travel through time.

Why the universe is easier to understand the more complicated it gets
Joss Hawthorn is very excited about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which Dr Brian Cox talked about in the Science Week lecture that the Dude and I attended. The problem with dark matter is that it is dark (duh!), not just to our eyes, but across the entire electromagnetic spectrum: it just doesn't show up on any detector we've been able to build so far because it doesn't interact with baryons (the stuff that stars -- and people -- are made of). So how do we know that dark matter is there? Because we need it to be there, to explain why the universe is shaped the way it is.
One theory about why we can't see it is because it exists in one of the seven other dimensions that are predicted by string theory. So the great minds of our time are busy trying to work out how to see into those other dimensions: Joss Hawthorn reverently refers to the work of Ed Witten, who he claims is the greatest thinker since Einstein, and Stephen Hawking should eat his heart out.
This is why they are building the Large Hadron Collider, where -- when they turn it on in 2008 -- they will smash gold atoms together and make pretty pictures of the results. Here's my drawing of the picture Joss drew on the blackboard of what the results might look like:










So that's all clear then? Good.

Oh. Well, just in case, here is a link to the Millenium Simulation at the Max Planck Institute, showing what the universe would look like if you could see the dark matter. Very pretty.

Stay tuned for next week's lecture on wide-field astronomy.

Gawd, I love this city!

For non-Herald readers, the title of this post is a frequent quotation from Peter Fitzsimon in his newspaper columns, The Fitz Files. And it pretty well sums up how the Fun Policeman (okay, okay, I'm thinking about another pseudonym) and I felt last night.
It was a balmy spring evening in Sydney, the sky was clear of clouds for the first time in a week and we were strolling across the forecourt of the Opera House, having enjoyed a production of The Tempest by the Bell Shakespeare Company. The waves of the harbour were lapping gently against the quay, as many as six or seven stars were visible through the light pollution of the city (okay, it's not a perfect city), and all seemed right with the world.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

The play? It was a lovely, simple production. John Bell was brilliant as Prospero, naturally. Miranda and Ferdinand were suitably gormless, and Ariel sang beautiful, melancholy songs with a remarkable voice. I remember debating, many years ago, whether Ariel was meant to be played as a male or a female, and I suspect Shakespeare himself intended the gender of his airy spirit to be indeterminate. This Ariel was unequivocally played as a female, and Bell has added an undercurrent of hints that she might be half in love with Prospero to the master/servant relationship. Caliban was one of the best on stage, I thought; he was played by a tall, lanky and remarkably good-looking young man, so the ugliness of the character had to come from the actor's skill rather than costume or make-up. He did, however, sport an impressive mohawk, which the Dude was jealous he didn't get to see.

The Tempest must be on the HSC curriculum this year, as a large contingent of teenagers trooped into the theatre just before the lights went down (there was no curtain to go up) and immediately raised the noise level by about 300 per cent. The FP has decided that the collective noun for a group of teenagers should be a "spectacle", because -- in his opinion -- they are constantly trying to draw attention to themselves by talking or laughing louder than necessary, or making a fuss about things that aren't worth making a fuss about. As we have lived with teenagers (and occasionally their friends/boyfriends, thus experiencing the phenomenon of a spectacle of teenagers in our own home) for the past seven years, we know what they're like.

Hip hop hooray

Have I mentioned how much I like the Hilltop Hoods? I'm not normally a fan of hip hop, but they got my attention when the Dude and I first saw the video clip of "Clown Prince" (click on the link to their website above, go to the video tab and you can see the clip and hear the song). Then I bought the album to listen to on the 24-hour plane trip to New York. Now I'm hooked on "Conversations from a Speakeasy", while the Fun Policeman (who keeps begging me for a new pseudonym, by the way) loves the eponymous single from the CD, "The Hard Road". Okay, there's a bit of a language issue, but they have a kind of funk feel to some of their tracks that I really like. Top it off with the really refreshing sound of the Aussie accents and it's quite cool (or fully sick, or whatever I am supposed to say to sound young).

It's your round (if you're hangin' at the back of the bar)
So just bounce (like you're bangin' in the back of your car)...

Cafe wisdom

Printed on my take-away cappuccino cup, from Bitton Gourmet in Erko:

take away coffee
and what other pleasures are left?

Clever clogs

This ad has been appearing for a few weeks now on the puzzle pages of the Sydney Morning Herald (and perhaps, I assume, in other major dailies). It's just a photograph of a life-size pen, of the kind that you might choose to use to complete the crosswords, sudoku and other puzzles on the page. How effective is it? Well, twice now I have been sitting at the table doing the crosswords, put down my coffee cup and absent-mindedly tried to pick up the photograph of the pen to write in a word.
Not only that, but yesterday I caught the Dude doing it too. (So it's not just my 40-year-old senility kicking in, or my 40-year-old eyes going.)
Here are my excuses:
1. Haven't finished morning coffee yet so brain is still fuzzy.
2. Same brand of pen I have in my home office, so obvious mistake.
3. Clever advertising campaign.