by Bart Busschots
On the front page of the first issue of the Advocate there was a small article which stated that Windows Vista would be deployed on all machines in NUIM by the end of 2007. This did not seem very likely to me so I spoke to Eberhard Albrecht, the head of User Support in the Computer Centre about Vista. Mr. Albrecht tells a very different story.
There are serious problems with rolling out Vista on the college network that need to be overcome before it becomes the default operating system on campus. Firstly, Vista has very high hardware requirements so many machines will never be upgraded to Vista because they are not physically capable of running it properly. Secondly, a lot of testing will be required to ensure Vista 'plays nice' with the campus network and services. All software used on campus will have to be tested with Vista because a lot of software has problems with the new Microsoft operating system. There are complications with the new licensing model Microsoft have introduced with Vista. Finally, staff will need training to use Vista.
Vista is currently very new and has no proven track record. Although Vista was designed to be the most secure operating system Microsoft have ever released there is no way to know if they have succeeded until Vista has been in widespread use for some time. It's common practice not to switch to a new Microsoft operating system until at least one service pack has been released fixing the teething problems which invariably surface.
At this stage it should be clear that there is a lot of work involved in moving a large organisation like NUIM over to Windows Vista. You also need to bear in mind that all this work is on top of the regular day-to-day work of the the computer centre. Mr. Albrecht expects testing of Vista to get under way this summer. From some time in 2008 users who specifically request Vista should be able to get it on new machines. Some time after that when all the problems have been ironed out Vista could become the default for all new machines purchased. The computer centre will definitely not be installing Vista on the PACRs for the next academic year (2007/8) and possibly not even the one after that (2009/9).
This may seem all seem very slow but major changes to a large network need to be taken slowly. Mr. Albrecht pointed out that NUIM are in line with other universities when it comes to Vista. At the moment no university in Ireland supports it and most, like NUIM, are also not providing Vista installation DVDs to staff. In large networked organisations changing operating system is a very big deal. It never happens fast and is always a phased process. In NUIM we currently use Windows 2000 and Windows XP. There are still a few Windows 98 machines on campus but they are no longer supported by the Computer Centre and where possible these machines are being upgraded to Windows XP. Vista is coming, but slowly, and certainly not by the end of 2007!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
The Fear Factory: Are people’s attitude towards Nuclear Power justified? by Sarah Kennelly
The Fear Factory:
Are people’s attitude towards Nuclear Power justified?
This week Sarah Kennelly investigates the prospect of Nuclear Power as an alternative to Fossil Fuels.
We are all aware of the ever increasing demand for energy across the globe. Currently, our primary energy supply comes from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. More and more we are searching for more efficient, cleaner, renewable sources to fulfil this role. There is one source of power that is clean, efficient and reasonably readily available, which already supplies 17% of the worlds power, but has the potential to supply a whole lot more. This source is nuclear power, but it is often immediately dismissed as being too dangerous and not environmentally friendly. The word “nuclear” seems to carry with it such a bad reputation that it cannot be included in everyday conversations without inciting fear. One such example of this is in the naming of MRI scans, the proper name being Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging. What has caused this fear of nuclear power and is it really justified?
People don’t often know or understand what actually goes on in a nuclear reactor or how the energy is produced. Nuclear fission is the main process involved in generating nuclear power. Most power stations use Uranium for this, but Plutonium can also be used. There is a mass of Uranium in the core of the reactor. This sample is bombarded with neutrons. When a neutron strikes an atom of Uranium, it is absorbed by the atom. This causes the Uranium to undergo induced fission. What this simply means is that the Uranium atom splits into two smaller atoms and releases two or three neutrons. These neutrons go and collide into more of the Uranium atoms and a chain reaction occurs. This process releases energy in the form of heat. This heats water into steam, which goes on to drive a turbine and generate electricity. This is an extremely efficient process. Just one pound of Uranium produces the same amount of energy as roughly one million gallons of gasoline.
There are no pollutants released directly into the atmosphere from nuclear reactors.
So let’s take a look at how fossil fuels perform, taking coal as a typical example. The coal is burned and the heat from this is often used to heat water to steam which then drives a turbine. However, as already pointed out this is an extremely inefficient process in comparison to nuclear fuels. But there is more to it than that. It is common knowledge that burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gasses and carbon dioxide. Environmentalists everywhere are constantly battling to reduce the planets production of these gasses which cause global warming. Sulphur oxides and Nitrogen oxides are also released in the burning of coal, these cause acid rain and are harmful to our health. Perhaps the most surprising emission though, and something which many people don’t know about is the emission of radioactive gasses directly into the atmosphere. Uranium and Thorium are released when coal and other fossil fuels are burnt. More importantly, most people are unaware that a coal fired power plant releases more radioactivity into the atmosphere than a properly functioning power plant.
It is certainly true that there are dangers associated with nuclear power, but these dangers are often over exaggerated because of high profile disasters such as the one in Chernobyl in 1986. Modern day reactors are held inside a concrete liner which acts as a radiation shield. This in turn is kept inside a steel containment vessel which prevents leakage of radioactive gas or fluids. The absence of this outer steel container is what made the Chernobyl disaster so catastrophic. The real dangers of nuclear power arise in mining the Uranium, with miners often developing lung cancers. There are also problems with disposing of the spent fuel. This stays toxic for centuries afterwards and needs to be kept somewhere safe, permanently.
While there are dangers associated with nuclear fuel, I feel it can be a much cleaner, safer and efficient energy source than fossil fuels. With our fossil fuel supply quickly running out, we need to look to other sources. Nuclear power is just one of these sources, but it can easily be overlooked due to the general public’s negative opinion of it. There are difficulties to be overcome in relation to it, but I feel the possible benefits certainly justify more research on the matter.
It is often said that people are afraid of things which they don’t understand. So hopefully next time you here the word “nuclear” you won’t just automatically assume it implies danger. Before you make up your mind on the matter of nuclear power, be sure to look at the real facts and decide for yourself if the pros outweigh the cons.
Are people’s attitude towards Nuclear Power justified?
This week Sarah Kennelly investigates the prospect of Nuclear Power as an alternative to Fossil Fuels.
We are all aware of the ever increasing demand for energy across the globe. Currently, our primary energy supply comes from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. More and more we are searching for more efficient, cleaner, renewable sources to fulfil this role. There is one source of power that is clean, efficient and reasonably readily available, which already supplies 17% of the worlds power, but has the potential to supply a whole lot more. This source is nuclear power, but it is often immediately dismissed as being too dangerous and not environmentally friendly. The word “nuclear” seems to carry with it such a bad reputation that it cannot be included in everyday conversations without inciting fear. One such example of this is in the naming of MRI scans, the proper name being Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging. What has caused this fear of nuclear power and is it really justified?
People don’t often know or understand what actually goes on in a nuclear reactor or how the energy is produced. Nuclear fission is the main process involved in generating nuclear power. Most power stations use Uranium for this, but Plutonium can also be used. There is a mass of Uranium in the core of the reactor. This sample is bombarded with neutrons. When a neutron strikes an atom of Uranium, it is absorbed by the atom. This causes the Uranium to undergo induced fission. What this simply means is that the Uranium atom splits into two smaller atoms and releases two or three neutrons. These neutrons go and collide into more of the Uranium atoms and a chain reaction occurs. This process releases energy in the form of heat. This heats water into steam, which goes on to drive a turbine and generate electricity. This is an extremely efficient process. Just one pound of Uranium produces the same amount of energy as roughly one million gallons of gasoline.
There are no pollutants released directly into the atmosphere from nuclear reactors.
So let’s take a look at how fossil fuels perform, taking coal as a typical example. The coal is burned and the heat from this is often used to heat water to steam which then drives a turbine. However, as already pointed out this is an extremely inefficient process in comparison to nuclear fuels. But there is more to it than that. It is common knowledge that burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gasses and carbon dioxide. Environmentalists everywhere are constantly battling to reduce the planets production of these gasses which cause global warming. Sulphur oxides and Nitrogen oxides are also released in the burning of coal, these cause acid rain and are harmful to our health. Perhaps the most surprising emission though, and something which many people don’t know about is the emission of radioactive gasses directly into the atmosphere. Uranium and Thorium are released when coal and other fossil fuels are burnt. More importantly, most people are unaware that a coal fired power plant releases more radioactivity into the atmosphere than a properly functioning power plant.
It is certainly true that there are dangers associated with nuclear power, but these dangers are often over exaggerated because of high profile disasters such as the one in Chernobyl in 1986. Modern day reactors are held inside a concrete liner which acts as a radiation shield. This in turn is kept inside a steel containment vessel which prevents leakage of radioactive gas or fluids. The absence of this outer steel container is what made the Chernobyl disaster so catastrophic. The real dangers of nuclear power arise in mining the Uranium, with miners often developing lung cancers. There are also problems with disposing of the spent fuel. This stays toxic for centuries afterwards and needs to be kept somewhere safe, permanently.
While there are dangers associated with nuclear fuel, I feel it can be a much cleaner, safer and efficient energy source than fossil fuels. With our fossil fuel supply quickly running out, we need to look to other sources. Nuclear power is just one of these sources, but it can easily be overlooked due to the general public’s negative opinion of it. There are difficulties to be overcome in relation to it, but I feel the possible benefits certainly justify more research on the matter.
It is often said that people are afraid of things which they don’t understand. So hopefully next time you here the word “nuclear” you won’t just automatically assume it implies danger. Before you make up your mind on the matter of nuclear power, be sure to look at the real facts and decide for yourself if the pros outweigh the cons.
The Lunar Eclipse by Joseph Cullen
Did you happen to see it? Saturday March 3rd will certainly be a day to remember for quite some time because that was the night there was an almost perfect Lunar Eclipse for people all around the country to see. Luckily we had a beautiful night with hardly a cloud in the sky as the face of the moon became
covered in a black shadow.
Just in case you’re not sure of what exactly happened, this shadow that covered the face of the moon was caused by the Earth passing between the Sun and the moon and although this happens fairly regularly it’s not everyday that everyone gets such a great view of the event. For those of you who saw it you may have noticed the moon turning a deep red. This was my first time to witness this and it was very strange indeed, to see the familiar moon turning red right in front of me!
The reason this happens is because the sun is hidden behind the earth and although the moon should look black it turns red because light from the Sun actually hit’s the Earth’s atmosphere. Our atmosphere then reflects away the blue part of light and only the red light reaches the face of the moon!
Blue light is reflected away by our atmosphere because of the atmosphere’s composition, this is also why the sky is blue, because the atoms and molecules in the sky reflect he blue light towards the Earth’s surface and the red light away.
covered in a black shadow.
Just in case you’re not sure of what exactly happened, this shadow that covered the face of the moon was caused by the Earth passing between the Sun and the moon and although this happens fairly regularly it’s not everyday that everyone gets such a great view of the event. For those of you who saw it you may have noticed the moon turning a deep red. This was my first time to witness this and it was very strange indeed, to see the familiar moon turning red right in front of me!
The reason this happens is because the sun is hidden behind the earth and although the moon should look black it turns red because light from the Sun actually hit’s the Earth’s atmosphere. Our atmosphere then reflects away the blue part of light and only the red light reaches the face of the moon!
Blue light is reflected away by our atmosphere because of the atmosphere’s composition, this is also why the sky is blue, because the atoms and molecules in the sky reflect he blue light towards the Earth’s surface and the red light away.
Security by Obscurity: DRM Digested by Bart Busschots
With the pending court cases around Europe and Steve Jobs' recent open letter 'Thoughts on Music' there is a lot of talk about DRM at the moment, so, I thought now might be a good time to have a closer look at what it's all about. In this article I'll start by having a look at what DRM is, what effects it has on us, the consumers, and why I feel it will never work. I'll end by having a look at how DRM is counter-productive for the content producers and at some alternatives.
So what is DRM? The acronym stands for 'Digital Rights Management' and as the name suggests it refers to software systems designed to control what people can do with digital media like music and video. The idea is that the content is stored in an encrypted form and can only be played back by software that is approved by the authors of the DRM, the software controls the use of the media in accordance with the rules of the DRM in question. There are two things you should note about this, firstly, this immediately ties the consumer to certain programs, and hence certain platforms, and secondly, this entire system is dependent on the software being based around some form of secret (i.e. security by obscurity).
The motivation behind DRM is to prevent piracy. This is why it has been embraced by content producers like the big music labels and movie studios, they see it as a panacea that will end their perceived losses due to piracy. From the point of view of the consumer however, it is nothing other than an encumbrance. It gets in your way when you want to play back your content on your choice of platform or device, it gets in the way when you want to back up the music or movies you have legally bought, in short, it stops you doing what you want with stuff you have paid for. Because of DRM it is not possible to play the music you buy with any software you want, or with any portable player you want. Instead you have to use specific software which is generally not available on all platforms, and you have to use specific portable players. This is obviously nothing but an annoyance for consumers. In order to make this seem more palatable to the average consumer the large companies have come up with imaginative names for their DRM technologies like Fair Play and Plays for Sure but ultimately all DRM gets in your way, the only question is how much.
Because of the dominance of the iPod and the iTunes store the most common DRM technology you are likely to meet is Apple's Fair Play. I have an iPod, I use the iTunes Store and a lot of my music is 'protected' by Fair Play. Personally I don't feel it gets in my way too much except that I can only play my music with iTunes and on my iPod. I can't play it in Linux, or with the music software of my choice. I'm also a bit of a nerd so I have a lot of computers but Fair Play only lets me play my music on a maximum of five computers. For the average person that is probably enough, but I'm starting to run into problems!
Apart from being just annoying DRM can also have much more negative affects on consumers and their machines. Two examples in particular spring to mind. The first is the fiasco when Sony intentionally shipped music CDs that contained software to hack every PC that the CD was inserted into. The idea was to prevent that machine ripping the CD. The software that was installed was a root-kit and it had the nasty side-effect of leaving the PCs it was installed on open to malicious attack. Basically, in the name of DRM Sony illegally hacked people's computers and installed dangerous software. They were forced to pay some fines and replace the CDs but personally I think they got off FAR too lightly for a criminal act like that.
The other example is Windows Vista which has really gone DRM mad to the point that it is seriously getting in people's way. When you are playing DRMed content in Vista almost 100% of your machine's resources are diverted to protect that content, this means you can't do anything else on your machine other than watch the content, forget about multi-tasking, that's a thing of the past if you want to enjoy DRMed content! For all the details you could possibly want on the DRM technologies in Vista and full details on why it's bad for users check out episodes 74, 75 and 77 of the Security Now podcast.
It's obvious that DRM is not in the interest of regular people like you or me. We gain no advantage from being encumbered by DRM, only problems. Hence, the only possible reason for its existence is to keep the content providers happy. They believe that it is protecting them. It is certainly true that Apple could never have gotten permission to sell music online without implementing DRM, the big four record labels would never have stood for it! So, the reason we have ended up where we are is that the content providers believe DRM protects them. The question is, does it?
I'd say the evidence is pretty clear on that, and the answer is a resounding NO! If you don't believe me, fire up your favourite peer-to-peer file sharing software and search for what ever 's in the charts at the moment. It's easy to get at pirated content. It's everywhere! So why has DRM failed? It has failed because it is fundamentally flawed. The problem is that it depends on some form of secret to work. That secret means interoperability is not practical because secrets get out too easily when lots of people know them. It also means that any computer that can play DRMed content has software that KNOWS the secret installed on it, so smart hackers/crackers will always be able to figure it out. Windows Vista is a great example. It's jam packed full of the latest and greatest DRM technologies but it wasn't even out a wet week before reports came out claiming that the DRM had already been cracked! Bottom line, all DRM gets cracked because the ability to un-encrypt the protected content HAS to be on your machine. The reason no un-crackable DRM has yet been invented is because it's impossible to do! Security by obscurity is a fundamentally flawed concept.
Because DRM doesn't work, and indeed can't work, it is actually having the inverse effect to what it was intended to do. It is NOT preventing piracy, but rather, encouraging it! Consumers have a simple choice, they can either pay to have content they cannot use as they wish, or they can get un-restricted content for free. Which is the more appealing? Would you rather pay for music you can only play on one player and on one brand of portable player and on no more than five computers, or would you rather have content that you can use with any software, on any Operating System, on any portable player, and on as many machines as you want? This is why it's high time DRM came to an end. All DRM has managed to do is annoy people. It has not prevented piracy and never will. The more the content creators treat you and me and everyone else as criminals, the more people will fight back, and the less likely they will be to part with their hard-earned cash for restricted content.
So what's the solution? I think it's pretty simple, make it easy to buy music that consumers can actually use as they wish and you'll soon see a rise in legitimate music purchases and a fall in piracy. Since DRM can't be made interoperable without distributing it's secret and hence weakening it, the simplest option is of course to bin DRM and just give out totally un-restricted content. That may sound extreme but sites like eMusic are doing just that and it's working well for them. There are also other less drastic options for fighting piracy that do not restrict the consumer. I recently purchased an un-DRMed movie online. The download I got has a unique watermark in it that ties my copy of the movie to me via my credit card. If that copy is put on bit torrent or some other peer-to-peer network I'll be held responsible. However, I have a DRM free movie that I can use on any computer, with any operating system, and any player I want. The only requirement on me is that I not be a criminal. Sounds fair to me!
So what is DRM? The acronym stands for 'Digital Rights Management' and as the name suggests it refers to software systems designed to control what people can do with digital media like music and video. The idea is that the content is stored in an encrypted form and can only be played back by software that is approved by the authors of the DRM, the software controls the use of the media in accordance with the rules of the DRM in question. There are two things you should note about this, firstly, this immediately ties the consumer to certain programs, and hence certain platforms, and secondly, this entire system is dependent on the software being based around some form of secret (i.e. security by obscurity).
The motivation behind DRM is to prevent piracy. This is why it has been embraced by content producers like the big music labels and movie studios, they see it as a panacea that will end their perceived losses due to piracy. From the point of view of the consumer however, it is nothing other than an encumbrance. It gets in your way when you want to play back your content on your choice of platform or device, it gets in the way when you want to back up the music or movies you have legally bought, in short, it stops you doing what you want with stuff you have paid for. Because of DRM it is not possible to play the music you buy with any software you want, or with any portable player you want. Instead you have to use specific software which is generally not available on all platforms, and you have to use specific portable players. This is obviously nothing but an annoyance for consumers. In order to make this seem more palatable to the average consumer the large companies have come up with imaginative names for their DRM technologies like Fair Play and Plays for Sure but ultimately all DRM gets in your way, the only question is how much.
Because of the dominance of the iPod and the iTunes store the most common DRM technology you are likely to meet is Apple's Fair Play. I have an iPod, I use the iTunes Store and a lot of my music is 'protected' by Fair Play. Personally I don't feel it gets in my way too much except that I can only play my music with iTunes and on my iPod. I can't play it in Linux, or with the music software of my choice. I'm also a bit of a nerd so I have a lot of computers but Fair Play only lets me play my music on a maximum of five computers. For the average person that is probably enough, but I'm starting to run into problems!
Apart from being just annoying DRM can also have much more negative affects on consumers and their machines. Two examples in particular spring to mind. The first is the fiasco when Sony intentionally shipped music CDs that contained software to hack every PC that the CD was inserted into. The idea was to prevent that machine ripping the CD. The software that was installed was a root-kit and it had the nasty side-effect of leaving the PCs it was installed on open to malicious attack. Basically, in the name of DRM Sony illegally hacked people's computers and installed dangerous software. They were forced to pay some fines and replace the CDs but personally I think they got off FAR too lightly for a criminal act like that.
The other example is Windows Vista which has really gone DRM mad to the point that it is seriously getting in people's way. When you are playing DRMed content in Vista almost 100% of your machine's resources are diverted to protect that content, this means you can't do anything else on your machine other than watch the content, forget about multi-tasking, that's a thing of the past if you want to enjoy DRMed content! For all the details you could possibly want on the DRM technologies in Vista and full details on why it's bad for users check out episodes 74, 75 and 77 of the Security Now podcast.
It's obvious that DRM is not in the interest of regular people like you or me. We gain no advantage from being encumbered by DRM, only problems. Hence, the only possible reason for its existence is to keep the content providers happy. They believe that it is protecting them. It is certainly true that Apple could never have gotten permission to sell music online without implementing DRM, the big four record labels would never have stood for it! So, the reason we have ended up where we are is that the content providers believe DRM protects them. The question is, does it?
I'd say the evidence is pretty clear on that, and the answer is a resounding NO! If you don't believe me, fire up your favourite peer-to-peer file sharing software and search for what ever 's in the charts at the moment. It's easy to get at pirated content. It's everywhere! So why has DRM failed? It has failed because it is fundamentally flawed. The problem is that it depends on some form of secret to work. That secret means interoperability is not practical because secrets get out too easily when lots of people know them. It also means that any computer that can play DRMed content has software that KNOWS the secret installed on it, so smart hackers/crackers will always be able to figure it out. Windows Vista is a great example. It's jam packed full of the latest and greatest DRM technologies but it wasn't even out a wet week before reports came out claiming that the DRM had already been cracked! Bottom line, all DRM gets cracked because the ability to un-encrypt the protected content HAS to be on your machine. The reason no un-crackable DRM has yet been invented is because it's impossible to do! Security by obscurity is a fundamentally flawed concept.
Because DRM doesn't work, and indeed can't work, it is actually having the inverse effect to what it was intended to do. It is NOT preventing piracy, but rather, encouraging it! Consumers have a simple choice, they can either pay to have content they cannot use as they wish, or they can get un-restricted content for free. Which is the more appealing? Would you rather pay for music you can only play on one player and on one brand of portable player and on no more than five computers, or would you rather have content that you can use with any software, on any Operating System, on any portable player, and on as many machines as you want? This is why it's high time DRM came to an end. All DRM has managed to do is annoy people. It has not prevented piracy and never will. The more the content creators treat you and me and everyone else as criminals, the more people will fight back, and the less likely they will be to part with their hard-earned cash for restricted content.
So what's the solution? I think it's pretty simple, make it easy to buy music that consumers can actually use as they wish and you'll soon see a rise in legitimate music purchases and a fall in piracy. Since DRM can't be made interoperable without distributing it's secret and hence weakening it, the simplest option is of course to bin DRM and just give out totally un-restricted content. That may sound extreme but sites like eMusic are doing just that and it's working well for them. There are also other less drastic options for fighting piracy that do not restrict the consumer. I recently purchased an un-DRMed movie online. The download I got has a unique watermark in it that ties my copy of the movie to me via my credit card. If that copy is put on bit torrent or some other peer-to-peer network I'll be held responsible. However, I have a DRM free movie that I can use on any computer, with any operating system, and any player I want. The only requirement on me is that I not be a criminal. Sounds fair to me!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
And then there were eight
Bart Busschots
It's time to update our text books and websites etc. as we now have eight planets rather than nine. No, aliens didn't torpedo one out of the skies, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) have finally decided on a definition for a planet within our solar system and Pluto doesn't meet the criteria so it's been demoted to being a Dwarf Planet. Since the first time I ever gave it any real thought I've always felt that it was a mistake to call Pluto a planet. In fact I've blogged about this before: What exactly is a planet? At first I wasn't sure about the wording of this new definition but on reflection I think it was the best we could have hopped for and I'm now going to try convince you of that too!
Technorati Tags: Pluto, Planet, IAU
The New Definition
So what is this new definition? Well, I'll give you the official wording first and then translate into English for you!
The IAU therefore resolves that planets and other bodies in our Solar
System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
(1) A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the
Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid
body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around
the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid
body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d)
is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".
So what does that really mean? Well, it means that to be a planet you need to satisfy the following:
* You must be round,
* Go round the Sun but not another planet,
* And you must dominate your neck of the woods (i.e. you have to be 'the daddy' in your neighbourhood).
The first two criteria are pretty self-explanatory but the last one is worth looking into a little more. Firstly, why is it there? Well, if you're made of mostly ice like most of the objects out beyond Pluto you really don't have to be that big to become round. Certainly no where near as big as objects made of rock need to be. Without this final criteria we could end up with hundreds of planets.
But what does it really mean? What it boils down to is that that you have to be very big to be a planet. Large objects have such a large gravitational influence that they clear themselves a space within the solar system. Objects that were in that space either get pushed aside or pulled into the large object. This means that the planets all orbit alone without other large objects near by. This is where Pluto fails. There are lots of objects with orbits very close to Pluto's.
Not a Line in the Sand
Something that I think almost everyone agreed was that it would be a bad idea to just draw a line in the sand and pick an arbitrary size and say "if you're bigger than this you're a planet if you're not you're not". This would have a been a stupid way to do this because we would have ended up picking a size like 1,000km which is only a nice number because of the units we happen to use for length. This would have no actually physical meaning and would lead to some interesting debates on objects that were approximately 1000km across but with an error in our best measurement of a few tens or even hundreds of km. What the IAU set out to do was to pick a definition that was based on physics and they have done so, there are no numbers mentioned anywhere in the definition.
Not a Siler Bullet
Anyone looking at the definition will of course be able to see that it is no silver bullet. You won't just be able to enter the details of any new planet candidate into a formula and get out an answer of "Planet" or "non-Planet". There will still have to be a debate in the IAU for each new planet candidate and a vote will still have to be taken on it. It will still be a judgement call. However, it will now be a judgement call based on three criteria rather than a judgement call based on no criteria. I don't think it is possible to come up with a silver bullet in this case so I'm happy that we now have a focus for all future debates on the planetary status of an object in our solar system.
But What About Pluto?
Pluto will now be relegated to the status of Dwarf Planet but it has been honoured as the prototype object for this whole new class. This makes sense. Making Pluto a planet in the first place was a mistake as I explained in my previous posting on defining the word 'planet'. I'm not going to go over those same arguments again here because it's ground that has been covered many times before. This mistake has now been rectified. It was also not the first such mistake and Pluto is not the first object to be demoted. Ceres is the biggest and brightest of the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and hence it was the first of it's kind discovered. It was regarded as a planet for a number of years but as time went on more and more similar objects were discovered and it was realised that Ceres was not a planet but the biggest of a huge population of smaller bodies. When Ceres was relegated a new term was coined as a fudge to lighten the blow; "Minor Planet". This is all very similar to what has happened here with Pluto. It was the first of a whole new class of object to be discovered and as more of it's kind were found people realised it was a mistake to call it a planet and it has now been demoted and made the first of a new kind of object. It was also given a consolation prize like Ceres, only this time the term was Dwarf Planet rather than Minor Planet. An interesting twist is that this resolution further demotes Ceres to a Small Solar System Body and retires the term Minor Planet all together.
Conclusions
This new definition is no silver bullet. It still leaves a lot of room for debate and doesn't even begin to tackle what to call objects orbiting other stars. However, are we better off than we were before? I would say we are. Before we had no definition beyond "it's a planet if the IAU say it is", now we have a set of criteria that define a planet. True, each planet candidate will still have to be debated but now there is a focus for that debate which is something we've never had before. Finally, I think this finally un-does a 70 year old mistake and re-instates our eight real planets.
Bart Busschots is studying for a PhD with the Computer Science Department in NUI Maynooth, focusing mainly on eLearning.
It's time to update our text books and websites etc. as we now have eight planets rather than nine. No, aliens didn't torpedo one out of the skies, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) have finally decided on a definition for a planet within our solar system and Pluto doesn't meet the criteria so it's been demoted to being a Dwarf Planet. Since the first time I ever gave it any real thought I've always felt that it was a mistake to call Pluto a planet. In fact I've blogged about this before: What exactly is a planet? At first I wasn't sure about the wording of this new definition but on reflection I think it was the best we could have hopped for and I'm now going to try convince you of that too!
Technorati Tags: Pluto, Planet, IAU
The New Definition
So what is this new definition? Well, I'll give you the official wording first and then translate into English for you!
The IAU therefore resolves that planets and other bodies in our Solar
System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
(1) A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the
Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid
body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around
the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid
body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d)
is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".
So what does that really mean? Well, it means that to be a planet you need to satisfy the following:
* You must be round,
* Go round the Sun but not another planet,
* And you must dominate your neck of the woods (i.e. you have to be 'the daddy' in your neighbourhood).
The first two criteria are pretty self-explanatory but the last one is worth looking into a little more. Firstly, why is it there? Well, if you're made of mostly ice like most of the objects out beyond Pluto you really don't have to be that big to become round. Certainly no where near as big as objects made of rock need to be. Without this final criteria we could end up with hundreds of planets.
But what does it really mean? What it boils down to is that that you have to be very big to be a planet. Large objects have such a large gravitational influence that they clear themselves a space within the solar system. Objects that were in that space either get pushed aside or pulled into the large object. This means that the planets all orbit alone without other large objects near by. This is where Pluto fails. There are lots of objects with orbits very close to Pluto's.
Not a Line in the Sand
Something that I think almost everyone agreed was that it would be a bad idea to just draw a line in the sand and pick an arbitrary size and say "if you're bigger than this you're a planet if you're not you're not". This would have a been a stupid way to do this because we would have ended up picking a size like 1,000km which is only a nice number because of the units we happen to use for length. This would have no actually physical meaning and would lead to some interesting debates on objects that were approximately 1000km across but with an error in our best measurement of a few tens or even hundreds of km. What the IAU set out to do was to pick a definition that was based on physics and they have done so, there are no numbers mentioned anywhere in the definition.
Not a Siler Bullet
Anyone looking at the definition will of course be able to see that it is no silver bullet. You won't just be able to enter the details of any new planet candidate into a formula and get out an answer of "Planet" or "non-Planet". There will still have to be a debate in the IAU for each new planet candidate and a vote will still have to be taken on it. It will still be a judgement call. However, it will now be a judgement call based on three criteria rather than a judgement call based on no criteria. I don't think it is possible to come up with a silver bullet in this case so I'm happy that we now have a focus for all future debates on the planetary status of an object in our solar system.
But What About Pluto?
Pluto will now be relegated to the status of Dwarf Planet but it has been honoured as the prototype object for this whole new class. This makes sense. Making Pluto a planet in the first place was a mistake as I explained in my previous posting on defining the word 'planet'. I'm not going to go over those same arguments again here because it's ground that has been covered many times before. This mistake has now been rectified. It was also not the first such mistake and Pluto is not the first object to be demoted. Ceres is the biggest and brightest of the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and hence it was the first of it's kind discovered. It was regarded as a planet for a number of years but as time went on more and more similar objects were discovered and it was realised that Ceres was not a planet but the biggest of a huge population of smaller bodies. When Ceres was relegated a new term was coined as a fudge to lighten the blow; "Minor Planet". This is all very similar to what has happened here with Pluto. It was the first of a whole new class of object to be discovered and as more of it's kind were found people realised it was a mistake to call it a planet and it has now been demoted and made the first of a new kind of object. It was also given a consolation prize like Ceres, only this time the term was Dwarf Planet rather than Minor Planet. An interesting twist is that this resolution further demotes Ceres to a Small Solar System Body and retires the term Minor Planet all together.
Conclusions
This new definition is no silver bullet. It still leaves a lot of room for debate and doesn't even begin to tackle what to call objects orbiting other stars. However, are we better off than we were before? I would say we are. Before we had no definition beyond "it's a planet if the IAU say it is", now we have a set of criteria that define a planet. True, each planet candidate will still have to be debated but now there is a focus for that debate which is something we've never had before. Finally, I think this finally un-does a 70 year old mistake and re-instates our eight real planets.
Bart Busschots is studying for a PhD with the Computer Science Department in NUI Maynooth, focusing mainly on eLearning.
Just how far can we see?
Just how far can we see?
Well, on a clear night with just the naked eye you can see for 23,651,826,181,450km (2.5 million light years) to the Andromeda galaxy. With modern telescopes and advances in science and technology we can see many times further than this, and the further we look into space, the further back in the history of the universe we see. Not only do we want to look deeper into space, we want to be able to observe it in greater detail. Seeing further and in more detail requires larger and larger mirrors in telescopes. However there is a simple mechanical limit to how large a mirror can be made. Too large a mirror will deform and bend under its own weight, warping the light that falls on it.
For almost three quarters of a century the largest, most powerful telescope in the world was the Leviathan which was built by the third Earl of Rosse in Birr, Co. Offaly in 1845. This telescope’s mirror is 72 inches in diameter and with this, the third Earl of Rosse was the first to observe the spiral structure of many nebulae and also observe individual stars within them. Following on from this work, Edwin Hubble realised that these nebulae were in fact galaxies completely separate to, and often much larger than our own.
The largest ground based telescope today is the Keck telescope located atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The Keck is revolutionary in its design in that it consists of 36 hexagonal mirrors all working together in an array so that the telescope has an effective diameter of 10m. Each mirror is small enough to be supported by itself and can be moved independently to a precision of four nanometres (250,000 times thinner than a human hair) to give the optimal shape of an overall much larger mirror. With the Keck we have been able to see further than ever before from our planet. And yet we are still limited in our view of the universe. To get into really fine detail and to see further still we need to go above and beyond the atmosphere of the earth. Perhaps the most well known telescope in space is the Hubble Space Observatory, a telescope with a mirror 2.4m in diameter orbiting 589km above the earth’s surface. Hubble has produced some of the most breathtaking images in astronomy, including the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field” – an image which looks deeper into space than any other image ever taken. Hubble and the Keck have also observed the single most distant object seen to date – a faint galaxy 13 billion light years away. They are seeing this galaxy as it was 13 billion years ago, when the first galaxies were being formed.
Yet we are still pushing to see further back in time and in greater detail. How far will we be able to push this? Right back to when the very first stars “switched on” and began emitting light? One telescope which hopes to do just this is NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope which is due for launch in 2013. It will be similar in design to the Keck, being composed of 18 hexagonal mirrors which will give an overall mirror diameter of 6.6m, significantly larger than Hubble and without the atmospheric distortions that affect the Keck. Construction of the 18 mirrors was completed last week and they are currently being ground and polished, before being assembled in NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This telescope hopes even to be able to shed light on the origins of life on other planets.
So just how far can we see? 13 billion light years so far, but we are constantly pushing this boundary further back. The James Webb telescope will look further than ever before and who knows what light it will be able to shed on the origins of our universe, but it will no doubt be an exciting time for astronomers and scientists everywhere.
Sarah Kennelly is the President of the Physics and Astronomy Society, Astro2 and is currently in her final year of Physics with Astrophysics.
Well, on a clear night with just the naked eye you can see for 23,651,826,181,450km (2.5 million light years) to the Andromeda galaxy. With modern telescopes and advances in science and technology we can see many times further than this, and the further we look into space, the further back in the history of the universe we see. Not only do we want to look deeper into space, we want to be able to observe it in greater detail. Seeing further and in more detail requires larger and larger mirrors in telescopes. However there is a simple mechanical limit to how large a mirror can be made. Too large a mirror will deform and bend under its own weight, warping the light that falls on it.
For almost three quarters of a century the largest, most powerful telescope in the world was the Leviathan which was built by the third Earl of Rosse in Birr, Co. Offaly in 1845. This telescope’s mirror is 72 inches in diameter and with this, the third Earl of Rosse was the first to observe the spiral structure of many nebulae and also observe individual stars within them. Following on from this work, Edwin Hubble realised that these nebulae were in fact galaxies completely separate to, and often much larger than our own.
The largest ground based telescope today is the Keck telescope located atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The Keck is revolutionary in its design in that it consists of 36 hexagonal mirrors all working together in an array so that the telescope has an effective diameter of 10m. Each mirror is small enough to be supported by itself and can be moved independently to a precision of four nanometres (250,000 times thinner than a human hair) to give the optimal shape of an overall much larger mirror. With the Keck we have been able to see further than ever before from our planet. And yet we are still limited in our view of the universe. To get into really fine detail and to see further still we need to go above and beyond the atmosphere of the earth. Perhaps the most well known telescope in space is the Hubble Space Observatory, a telescope with a mirror 2.4m in diameter orbiting 589km above the earth’s surface. Hubble has produced some of the most breathtaking images in astronomy, including the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field” – an image which looks deeper into space than any other image ever taken. Hubble and the Keck have also observed the single most distant object seen to date – a faint galaxy 13 billion light years away. They are seeing this galaxy as it was 13 billion years ago, when the first galaxies were being formed.
Yet we are still pushing to see further back in time and in greater detail. How far will we be able to push this? Right back to when the very first stars “switched on” and began emitting light? One telescope which hopes to do just this is NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope which is due for launch in 2013. It will be similar in design to the Keck, being composed of 18 hexagonal mirrors which will give an overall mirror diameter of 6.6m, significantly larger than Hubble and without the atmospheric distortions that affect the Keck. Construction of the 18 mirrors was completed last week and they are currently being ground and polished, before being assembled in NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This telescope hopes even to be able to shed light on the origins of life on other planets.
So just how far can we see? 13 billion light years so far, but we are constantly pushing this boundary further back. The James Webb telescope will look further than ever before and who knows what light it will be able to shed on the origins of our universe, but it will no doubt be an exciting time for astronomers and scientists everywhere.
Sarah Kennelly is the President of the Physics and Astronomy Society, Astro2 and is currently in her final year of Physics with Astrophysics.
Drugs...Let's be realistic
I am continually appalled at the number of people who know nothing of the basic truths about street drugs, even those in counselling, or health advisory. The pathetic government leaflets in waiting rooms or student guidance rooms, giving "The FACTS about Drugs” provide so little that it can lead to misinformation for interested or worried people in our drug culture. Biased and unbiased information is widely available – check out www.erowid.org. Here’s a very short Do’s and Don’ts of some substances.
Chemicals
The Ecstasy experience is all about the love buzz (synthetically produced and somewhat shallow, but affectionate). Coming up causes rushes up the throat and legs, and then looseness of the jaw and mouth muscles begins, until limp limbs are so relaxed that one is driven to dance and chat. Come down may outweigh the positive experience, depending on your susceptibility to the seratonergic response – irritation and lethargy on the comedown, and baseline depression may result a couple days later. Excessive use is guaranteed to mess with your brain, and your stomach. The active drug MDMA, found in powder form or pure crystals (clear/white to yellow/pink, depending on the level of impurities), is mixed with lots of different powders or speeds or rat poisons to make pills. Speckled pills are generally dipped in some kind of psychedelic.
Drink water, but not excessively. It’s easy to develop obsessive compulsions, so don’t worry too much. Have a pint all the time to share with your friends, and someone fill it up whenever it’s empty. Have a bit of chocolate, a square or something every hour to maintain blood sugars. Keep an eye on jaw-clenching, chewing gum may help but it can be mentally controlled if you choose to.
Allergic reaction is highly unlikely but can kill. If you’re willing to take the risk, start with a half, with an experienced friend administering it who’ll tell you if you’re too demented to take more.
Coke is a light amphetamine with a subtlety which may be more favourable than the strength of E, and shorter lasting. The second ingredient is kerosene, and any coke you get around here is likely to be very impure. Addictive and detrimental. Speed: The Drug of the Awake.
Psychedelics
The choice to use a psychedelic should coincide with a sense of responsibility and a readiness to accept reality beyond your knowledge. Don’t treat psychedelics like pills, or else prepare for trouble. Schizophrenic or other psychiatric disorder risks shouldn’t touch them, obviously. And people with addictions or depressions shouldn’t go near them outside of a healing, clinical atmosphere.
For example, Magic mushrooms may bring your thoughts to a super-fast level, and may open your brain into areas you didn’t know were there – causing an immediate need to restructure your perception, how you thought the world worked. This may be awesome or awful. Aside from the spiritual revelations connected with all psychedelics, expect hallucinations to come in forms of multi-colours, constant shifting of what your brain may otherwise perceive as ‘solid’, and so behaviour dives into an area of random apparent unconnectedness. Read Hunter S. Thompson.
LSD is more synthetic, derived from psilocybin mushrooms and can be much more powerful. Don’t mess with this unless you’ve tripped before, and then tread carefully. Don’t double drop, even eat only half a tab at first. Beware of the stamp too, like pills, some are good, and some are alright, but some are bad and this can cause a bad trip, or worse.
It is important to take psychedelics with people who’ve taken them before, preferably a guide or shaman, as those who choose to eat psychedelics must be prepared to face their fears. You are dealing with a force that expands your mind and releases memories and thoughts you might be suppressing or never knew you had. Salvia Divinorum is a sage that is highly recommended as a prerequisite before any longer-lasting psychedelics. If you smoke salvia extract (5 or 10 strength) in a bong, be sure to intake as much as you can within about 2 minutes (a friend should administer it and remove the device on completion). What this does is both highly unpleasant and astoundingly enlightening. Physically, there’s a strange tingling sensation followed by complete confusion, followed by psychedelia. Pick your music, lie down, and relax. It lasts about 7 minutes but light effects can last a while after. Salvia is quick and safe in comparison to things like LSD, which may last 8 hours or more, and gives a vital insight into the psychedelic world. Addiction is nigh-on impossible due to the nature of the trip.
Expect the unexpected. But expect nothing.
Dope
Marijuana in its pure form is a very simple and pleasant narcotic. Its active ingredient is THC, which relaxes the body and lifts mood. Negatively, it causes lethargy and interference in short-term memory. Weed is the pure state, from which hashish is made. Good hashish is soft and oily, bubbles slightly if burned. Powdery flat-press and pollen are common in this country, which are lower in the hierarchy. Finally comes soap-bar, which most people call hash. However, it more closely resembles a mix of ketamine (horse tranquilizer), plastic and shit which have doping effects, whereas the actual quantity of THC may be exceedingly low. It is addictive and damaging to the brain, and can lead someone as far away as possible from the goodness of the wholesome marijuana experience. Stick to purity.
Let it never be said that marijuana is not mentally addictive! A stoner may lose everything through laziness and lack of vision. In moderation, however, it can offer a reality-change positive and pleasant enough that one can maintain active social engagement. Moderation is too often exceeded, unfortunately, giving the drug a bad rap. As a mild psychoactive, people at risk of mental disorders should approach with extreme caution for long-term effects.
Moderation is the key. With more serious experiences, read up on everything you can, because open-minded learning is what matters. Forget social politics beyond maintaining your ever-important self-confidence.
You are you, you are here.
Peace.
Love.
Any particular questions or comments can be directed to agraphia@gmail.com.
Chemicals
The Ecstasy experience is all about the love buzz (synthetically produced and somewhat shallow, but affectionate). Coming up causes rushes up the throat and legs, and then looseness of the jaw and mouth muscles begins, until limp limbs are so relaxed that one is driven to dance and chat. Come down may outweigh the positive experience, depending on your susceptibility to the seratonergic response – irritation and lethargy on the comedown, and baseline depression may result a couple days later. Excessive use is guaranteed to mess with your brain, and your stomach. The active drug MDMA, found in powder form or pure crystals (clear/white to yellow/pink, depending on the level of impurities), is mixed with lots of different powders or speeds or rat poisons to make pills. Speckled pills are generally dipped in some kind of psychedelic.
Drink water, but not excessively. It’s easy to develop obsessive compulsions, so don’t worry too much. Have a pint all the time to share with your friends, and someone fill it up whenever it’s empty. Have a bit of chocolate, a square or something every hour to maintain blood sugars. Keep an eye on jaw-clenching, chewing gum may help but it can be mentally controlled if you choose to.
Allergic reaction is highly unlikely but can kill. If you’re willing to take the risk, start with a half, with an experienced friend administering it who’ll tell you if you’re too demented to take more.
Coke is a light amphetamine with a subtlety which may be more favourable than the strength of E, and shorter lasting. The second ingredient is kerosene, and any coke you get around here is likely to be very impure. Addictive and detrimental. Speed: The Drug of the Awake.
Psychedelics
The choice to use a psychedelic should coincide with a sense of responsibility and a readiness to accept reality beyond your knowledge. Don’t treat psychedelics like pills, or else prepare for trouble. Schizophrenic or other psychiatric disorder risks shouldn’t touch them, obviously. And people with addictions or depressions shouldn’t go near them outside of a healing, clinical atmosphere.
For example, Magic mushrooms may bring your thoughts to a super-fast level, and may open your brain into areas you didn’t know were there – causing an immediate need to restructure your perception, how you thought the world worked. This may be awesome or awful. Aside from the spiritual revelations connected with all psychedelics, expect hallucinations to come in forms of multi-colours, constant shifting of what your brain may otherwise perceive as ‘solid’, and so behaviour dives into an area of random apparent unconnectedness. Read Hunter S. Thompson.
LSD is more synthetic, derived from psilocybin mushrooms and can be much more powerful. Don’t mess with this unless you’ve tripped before, and then tread carefully. Don’t double drop, even eat only half a tab at first. Beware of the stamp too, like pills, some are good, and some are alright, but some are bad and this can cause a bad trip, or worse.
It is important to take psychedelics with people who’ve taken them before, preferably a guide or shaman, as those who choose to eat psychedelics must be prepared to face their fears. You are dealing with a force that expands your mind and releases memories and thoughts you might be suppressing or never knew you had. Salvia Divinorum is a sage that is highly recommended as a prerequisite before any longer-lasting psychedelics. If you smoke salvia extract (5 or 10 strength) in a bong, be sure to intake as much as you can within about 2 minutes (a friend should administer it and remove the device on completion). What this does is both highly unpleasant and astoundingly enlightening. Physically, there’s a strange tingling sensation followed by complete confusion, followed by psychedelia. Pick your music, lie down, and relax. It lasts about 7 minutes but light effects can last a while after. Salvia is quick and safe in comparison to things like LSD, which may last 8 hours or more, and gives a vital insight into the psychedelic world. Addiction is nigh-on impossible due to the nature of the trip.
Expect the unexpected. But expect nothing.
Dope
Marijuana in its pure form is a very simple and pleasant narcotic. Its active ingredient is THC, which relaxes the body and lifts mood. Negatively, it causes lethargy and interference in short-term memory. Weed is the pure state, from which hashish is made. Good hashish is soft and oily, bubbles slightly if burned. Powdery flat-press and pollen are common in this country, which are lower in the hierarchy. Finally comes soap-bar, which most people call hash. However, it more closely resembles a mix of ketamine (horse tranquilizer), plastic and shit which have doping effects, whereas the actual quantity of THC may be exceedingly low. It is addictive and damaging to the brain, and can lead someone as far away as possible from the goodness of the wholesome marijuana experience. Stick to purity.
Let it never be said that marijuana is not mentally addictive! A stoner may lose everything through laziness and lack of vision. In moderation, however, it can offer a reality-change positive and pleasant enough that one can maintain active social engagement. Moderation is too often exceeded, unfortunately, giving the drug a bad rap. As a mild psychoactive, people at risk of mental disorders should approach with extreme caution for long-term effects.
Moderation is the key. With more serious experiences, read up on everything you can, because open-minded learning is what matters. Forget social politics beyond maintaining your ever-important self-confidence.
You are you, you are here.
Peace.
Love.
Any particular questions or comments can be directed to agraphia@gmail.com.
Interview with Dr. Créidhe O'Sullivan
An Interview with Dr. Créidhe O’Sullivan of the Experimental Physics Department.
This week I will be interviewing Dr. Créidhe O’Sullivan about her life as a researcher and a lecturer. Dr. O’Sullivan got her PhD at Cambridge University in England before becoming a research scientist at UCC and then NUI Galway. Since 1998 she has been a lecturer with the Experimental Physics Department of NUI Maynooth and does research as part of the Submillimetre-Wave Optics Group of NUIM.
Question: What areas of research are you involved in?
Answer: “My main field is in working with telescopes and looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), that’s the radiation that was left over after the Big Bang.”
Dr. O’Sullivan tells me that measuring the radiation left behind by the Big Bang is very difficult as temperature readings are very faint and either a satellite is required to make the measurements from space or observatories in places like the South Pole.
“These are things that Maynooth is helping with, we’re helping with things like instrumentation for the telescope in the South Pole and the Planck Mission (with the European Space Agency, E.S.A.) which is due to be launched next year.
Q: What motivation was there to start this research in the department?
A: “It’s a curiosity in the research, I mean usually in astrophysics you’re trying to search for things that are really far away and actually quite difficult to measure but the reason why you want to find the answers is usually curiosity because cosmology is such a fascinating subject. We’re looking back to about 400,000 years after the Big Bang which is a short time after the Big Bang before there were stars before there were galaxies to find out how the Universe was made.”
This also pushes technology to keep up with astrophysics and meet the demands of researchers who are always trying to look farther back in time than before.
Q: What benefits are there outside Astrophysics?
A: “Well now we’re looking into medical research and medical imaging which hasn’t really been done before because it’s hard to make this radiation in the lab.”
Astronomers have been working with wavelengths of about 1 millimetre, just between radio waves and visible light and now this research is helping to find tumours and it even has security applications by seeing through skin and clothes to reveal concealed items.
Q: What other research bodies are involved?
A: “QUaD, the telescope in the South Pole, is led by researchers in Cardiff University and also in Stanford. The optics; the design and instrumentation, are an area that Maynooth specialises in.
Q: What do you like about working on this topic?
A: “It’s a fascinating area, cosmology is something you could easily go home and read a book about. You set yourself a problem that’s difficult to do so that’s pushing the boundary. It’s a fast moving area of research now because so many groups have become involved in it around the world. We get to test theories that have been around for a while because only now do we have the instruments to do that.”
Q: Do you attend many conferences?
A: “Yes we’re expected to go to at least one conference per year and publish our results and we give talks at these conferences. We’re expected to publish our work in journals as well.”
Q: Do you have any other interests or pastimes?
A: “Outside work I quite like orienteering, hill-walking and travelling.”
Q: What would you say to undergrads who are thinking about a career in either University based research or industrial based research?
A: “Being a researcher in a university is a really interesting job, you would be doing something that interests you and you’re challenging yourself the whole time. You never get bored, in some ways I think we have a bit more freedom[compared to industrial research] I mean there’s still pressure from funding groups to stick to certain areas but we do have a bit more freedom particularly academically, I mean we’re paid to teach as well. Also business goals for research may be more short term based trying to make a mass producible item that people can buy whereas we’re trying to make precision instruments for use in our field of research and our plans are usually long term ones.”
I’d like to thank Dr. O’Sullivan for taking the time out of her busy schedule to answer these questions.
This week I will be interviewing Dr. Créidhe O’Sullivan about her life as a researcher and a lecturer. Dr. O’Sullivan got her PhD at Cambridge University in England before becoming a research scientist at UCC and then NUI Galway. Since 1998 she has been a lecturer with the Experimental Physics Department of NUI Maynooth and does research as part of the Submillimetre-Wave Optics Group of NUIM.
Question: What areas of research are you involved in?
Answer: “My main field is in working with telescopes and looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), that’s the radiation that was left over after the Big Bang.”
Dr. O’Sullivan tells me that measuring the radiation left behind by the Big Bang is very difficult as temperature readings are very faint and either a satellite is required to make the measurements from space or observatories in places like the South Pole.
“These are things that Maynooth is helping with, we’re helping with things like instrumentation for the telescope in the South Pole and the Planck Mission (with the European Space Agency, E.S.A.) which is due to be launched next year.
Q: What motivation was there to start this research in the department?
A: “It’s a curiosity in the research, I mean usually in astrophysics you’re trying to search for things that are really far away and actually quite difficult to measure but the reason why you want to find the answers is usually curiosity because cosmology is such a fascinating subject. We’re looking back to about 400,000 years after the Big Bang which is a short time after the Big Bang before there were stars before there were galaxies to find out how the Universe was made.”
This also pushes technology to keep up with astrophysics and meet the demands of researchers who are always trying to look farther back in time than before.
Q: What benefits are there outside Astrophysics?
A: “Well now we’re looking into medical research and medical imaging which hasn’t really been done before because it’s hard to make this radiation in the lab.”
Astronomers have been working with wavelengths of about 1 millimetre, just between radio waves and visible light and now this research is helping to find tumours and it even has security applications by seeing through skin and clothes to reveal concealed items.
Q: What other research bodies are involved?
A: “QUaD, the telescope in the South Pole, is led by researchers in Cardiff University and also in Stanford. The optics; the design and instrumentation, are an area that Maynooth specialises in.
Q: What do you like about working on this topic?
A: “It’s a fascinating area, cosmology is something you could easily go home and read a book about. You set yourself a problem that’s difficult to do so that’s pushing the boundary. It’s a fast moving area of research now because so many groups have become involved in it around the world. We get to test theories that have been around for a while because only now do we have the instruments to do that.”
Q: Do you attend many conferences?
A: “Yes we’re expected to go to at least one conference per year and publish our results and we give talks at these conferences. We’re expected to publish our work in journals as well.”
Q: Do you have any other interests or pastimes?
A: “Outside work I quite like orienteering, hill-walking and travelling.”
Q: What would you say to undergrads who are thinking about a career in either University based research or industrial based research?
A: “Being a researcher in a university is a really interesting job, you would be doing something that interests you and you’re challenging yourself the whole time. You never get bored, in some ways I think we have a bit more freedom[compared to industrial research] I mean there’s still pressure from funding groups to stick to certain areas but we do have a bit more freedom particularly academically, I mean we’re paid to teach as well. Also business goals for research may be more short term based trying to make a mass producible item that people can buy whereas we’re trying to make precision instruments for use in our field of research and our plans are usually long term ones.”
I’d like to thank Dr. O’Sullivan for taking the time out of her busy schedule to answer these questions.
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