Day 3: Over the Sea to Skye

Tuesday morning and it was time to move on to Harris.   I packed everything in the car (including a Stornoway black pudding which Guillian had very kindly bought for me as a souvenir of my visit) and headed southwards about 7.30am.  I encountered the Outer Hebrides "rush hour" just as I was crossing from Lewis to Harris...

..but managed to arrive at the Sir E. Scott Secondary School in plenty of time for their morning session - particularly as I learned that they start at the civilised time of 0930 (which apparently is to allow time for pupils to get in from the far-flung reaches of Harris).

First up was a session with about 60 First year to Third year pupils on detecting exoplanets and searching for life in the Universe.  I managed to video this lecture, so once I get the chance to edit the video files I'll post it on you tube.  

My host at Sir E. Scott was Angus Morrison, long-time friend (from their UG days) of my friend and colleague Alec Mackinnon from Glasgow University.  We swapped stories about the "old days" at Glasgow, and their mutual friend Lewis Mackenzie - coincidentally the same name as my current Masters project student who is working with me on designing software for the forthcoming transit of Venus.

Talking of which, the second group I spoke to at Sir E. Scott, who were all upper school pupils from Fourth year upwards, were a lively bunch with whom I just did an informal Q&A, during which we talked about everything from fundamentals of quantum mechanics to how we measure distances to far away galaxies.  For the first topic it gave me a chance to recommend the excellent book "How to teach quantum physics to your dog" (which I got for Christmas) and for the second topic I chatted about the "Cosmic Distance Ladder" and how ultimately that depends on us knowing the size of the Earth and the distance from the Earth to the Sun - at which point enter trigonometry!   We used the classroom to re-enact the famous Venus Transit observations of 1769, with two of the pupils taking the roles of Captain Cook and King George III, and one of the pupils getting to be Venus.  The illustration worked well, with the timings of when Venus crossed in front of the edges of the "Sun" (two Intermediate 2 pupils, Ella and Eilidh, at the back of the classroom) very different for Captain Cook and the King.  I'll try to repeat this, and film it, during one of my forthcoming talks, as I think it'll be a nice practical activity for schools to try themselves in the run up to the June 2012 Transit of Venus (of which much more to come...)

At 12.30pm it was time to move on to the ferry terminal, ready to catch the Uig ferry.

The crossing was very smooth and we got into Uig about 1530, right on schedule.  Then it was off to Portree, first to call in at the Library - location for my public lecture on Tuesday evening.  There I met Morna Maclaren, head librarian and (again, what a small world!) mother of one of our P&A staff Donald Maclaren of the MCMP Group. We scoped out a good space to use for my talk, and made sure that I could project my slides onto the wall.  Morna said that there had been a lot of interest in my talk and that "anything over 20 was a good turn out for Portree".

After a very nice meal in the Isles Inn with Prof John Brown (Astronomer Royal for Scotland), his wife Margaret and their friend Keri from Broadford (who is studying astronomy at the OU and aspiring to stay in the field - maybe working on exoplanets), it was back to the library for my talk. As 7pm approached the people kept piling in and Morna struggled to find them all seats and good view of the screen - we even had to put some folks upstairs in the "gods".  The final number attending was 97, which I was assured was a record for library events!!!   Despite one computer projector breakdown midway through the talk seemed to go down very well.  I think we could have kept the questions going for hours, but everyone seemed to go home happy.

So now it's onwards to Wednesday 14th, when I'm back in Portree High School all day, and it's time to celebrate Einstein's birthday.

May the force be with you

Martin

Day 2: Isle of Lewis

The Story So Far...

It's 6pm on Monday March 12th, and I'm almost done with the first full day of my "Island Universe" tour.  Today I'm in Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, where so far I've given 4 talks, on 4 different topics, to about 340 schoolchildren from S2 to S6 (i.e. 12 to about 17 years of age).

It's been a fun, if tiring, day and my voice is holding up well.  I've even managed to fit in a flying visit to the standing stones at Calanais - of which more below.

It already feels like I've been on the road for a while, and yet it's only about 24 hours since I left the mainland at Ullapool on board the MV Isle of Lewis, on a rather dreich Sunday evening, and headed for Stornoway.

The crossing of the Minch was relatively uneventful:  the boat was a lot quieter than when we made the same crossing last summer - as part of our family holiday around the Hebrides - and most of its occupants seemed to be a bit the worse for wear after (presumably) a sleep-deprived and possibly alcohol-fuelled weekend.  No such dissipation for me, as I spent the journey putting together my talk slides so I'd be all set to hit the ground running on Monday.

Only sticky moment on the crossing was just after we'd berthed in Stornoway, and the CalMac ferry staff spent about 15 minutes trying to open the bow doors!  Fortunately the wee man in the overalls just visible in the top left of the photo below seemed to have the knack and got the mechanism to work - just as I was beginning to think there was a chance we might be stuck on board all night...

Having finally driven off the ferry I was met by my friend and former colleague Dr Guillian McArthur, who was a grad student in solar physics at Glasgow when I came back to work there in 1998 and is now a physics teacher at the Nicolson Institute.  It was good to catch up with Guillian, particularly as another of the "astros" from the late 1990s - my old office mate Scott McIntosh had been featured on the recent BBC Horizon programme on solar storms. (You can still download that programme here - at least if you're in the UK).

Monday morning I was up bright and early and off to the Nicolson Institute, where I spent the first period getting set up for the talks throughout the rest of the day.  Then it was into a rapid succession of 50 minute presentations:

• "Putting the Iron in Irn Bru" (on stars and the chemical elements - with thanks to Prof John Brown, of whom more on Tuesday from Portree, for the idea of the talk title many moons ago).
• "The Runaway Universe" (on cosmology, and a bit of a dry run for my public lecture at An Lanntair tonight).
• "Gravitational Wave Astronomy" (an extra "treat" for the Advanced Higher students, and a good chance to talk about some of the content that might be finding its way into the Curriculum for Excellence Advanced Higher in a few years).
• "ET Life: Is there Anybody Out There?" (a good cross-science topic for the Second Years, building on ideas about exoplanets they'd met in their First Year, and covering the basics of how we find exoplanets - using the physics of spectroscopy and Newton's laws that they'll meet in later years).

Overall I think it was a successful day, with seemingly lots of enthused pupils and quite a few really good questions (including one about "where does God fit into all of this?" - I figured I might get one or two of those questions in the Western Isles!)  didn't film the lectures today but am planning to film all of them (and some other topics besides) over the course of the "Island Universe" tour, so watch this space for news of where you can find the video files on You Tube and other sites.

Straight after the end of the school day I zoomed off to Calanais, to visit the megalithic stone circle that I first heard about from the legendary Professor Archie Roy in my very first ever Astronomy lecture as a callow 1st year undergrad in October 1984.  That seems like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

The standing stones were deserted at first, which made it quite easy to get a photo of them without any signs of civilisation (or 21st century people) in view.  I did, however, bump into one visitor who, like me, was there to take some photos.  At first she was worried that she might disturb me if I was "there for some meditation" but I assured her that astronomers don't really go in for that kind of thing at megalithic stone circles.  Turns out that she knew of Archie Roy, and also of the work of Alexander Thom - Scottish engineer and academic whose work on archaeoastronomy, and the possible alignments of megalithic monuments with astronomical events like the solstices, I had learned about through my friendship and association with Archie over the years.  It's a small world, as they say....(although I suppose the chances of randomly bumping into someone who knew Archie and Thom when you're actually visiting a stone circle are bound to be significantly enhanced!)

Now back in Stornoway, mentally gearing up for my An Lanntair talk, which I was pleased to see was advertised at the Calanais visitors centre.

Just time to build a marble rollercoaster for my talk, part of a demonstration / analogy about how the speed of galaxy rotation curves help us to deduce that there is more to galaxies than meets the eye!...More on that after my talk later tonight.

May the force be with you

Martin

postscript:  Monday March 12th, 10.30pm.  There was an audience of about 120 people at my talk in An Lanntair, so that was a fantastic start to the public lectures side of the tour.  I was also able to film the whole lecture, so will be uploading that to You Tube later in the tour. It was also a pleasure to meet some of the folks from Stornoway Astronomical Society, Andrew McKenzie from the local branch of the IET and the mother of Richard Middlemiss - one of our final year students in Physics and Astronomy at Glasgow who has worked a lot with me on science outreach and other projects and (I learned today) was School Captain on the Nicolson Institute in 2005.

"Island Universes"

Greetings, and welcome to my blog!   

As you'll see from my profile and webpage, I am an astrophysicist from the University of Glasgow.  In October 2010 I was appointed as a Science in Society Fellow for the Science and Technology Facilities Council: the national funding body that supports UK research in astronomy.  

My fellowship project is called "Exploring the Dark Side of the Universe", which says as much about me being a Star Wars fan as it does about my research into cosmology and gravitational waves!  On March 3rd 2012 I gave a lecture on "The Physics of Star Wars", as part of the Festival of Science organised in Bristol by the Institute of Physics:  as you'll see, I had an unexpected guest...

National Science and Engineering Week 2012 

On Sunday March 11th,  which marks the first weekend of National Science and Engineering Week,  I'll be heading off to the Scottish Hebridean islands, for 10 days of schools and public lectures about some of the biggest questions in science, featuring a whistle-stop tour through thirteen billion years of cosmic history:  exploding stars, colliding black holes, dark matter, dark energy and the very latest theories of the Big Bang.  You can find out here where I'll be visiting along the way.

Map of Martin's "Island Universe" destinations

My first port of call is Stornoway on the Island of Lewis, where I'll be giving schools lectures in the Nicolson Institute and a public talk at An Lanntair, on Monday 12th March.  Details of my An Lanntair public talk can be found here.

Here's a quick run-down on where I'll be and when (with links to my public talks):

• Monday March 12th:  Nicolson Institute and An Lanntair, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis (map ref. 1)
• Tuesday March 13th: Sir E. Scott Secondary School, Tarbert, Isle of Harris (map ref. 2), and Portree Community Library, Portree, Isle of Skye (map ref. 3)
• Wednesday March 14th: Portree High School, Portree, Isle of Skye (map ref. 3).
• Thursday March 15th: Liniclate School, Benbecula (map ref. 4) and Castlebay Community Hall, Castlebay, Isle of Barra (map ref. 5)
• Friday March 16th: Oban High School, Oban, Argyll & Bute (map ref. 6)
• Saturday March 17th: Tiree High School, and Scarinish Hotel, Isle of Tiree (map ref. 7)
• Sunday March 18th: An Tobar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull (map ref. 8)
• Monday March 19th: Tobermory High School, Isle of Mull (map ref. 8)
• Tuesday March 20th: Islay High School, Bowmore, Isle of Islay (map ref. 9)

All of the public talks are free and open to all ages.  Weather permitting, I hope to lead some stargazing sessions after each of the public talks, taking advantage of the Hebrides' wonderful dark skies.  Watch out on this blog and on twitter (@martin_astro) for news of what can be seen in the skies during National Science and Engineering week.

I'll be blogging and tweeting on my travels, and hopefully bringing you a flavour of the Hebrides from the many islands and communities I'll be visiting.  I'll also be recording many of my lectures for later broadcast on youtube.  

I'm hugely looking forward to the opportunity to visit some of the most beautiful scenery in the world and talk about some of the most exciting discoveries in science!   For now it's time to start packing, and planning the drive up to Ullapool on Sunday afternoon.

May the force be with you,

Martin