I’m in the middle of a couple of posts about the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe and have found that I keep referring to things I posted back on my old blog a long time ago. This became so frequent that I’ve decided to post a slightly edited version of these here, and in my next post, as preludes to some newer material that I’m getting to.

Antimatter is just like ordinary matter in every way, except that every quantity you can think of (apart from mass and spin), is reversed. As an example, the electron is a particle with a specific mass and carrying a specific amount of negative electric charge. The antiparticle of the electron is a positron, which has the identical mass to an electron, but precisely the opposite charge. The thing about particles and their antiparticles is that, if one puts them together, the net value of any quantity (called a quantum number by physicists) carried by the pair of them is zero. Therefore, a particle and an antiparticle together are merely mass which, thanks to Einstein’s E=mc², can be converted entirely into energy. As a result of this, when matter and antimatter come together, they annihilate, producing energy in the form of light (photons).

We know so much about antimatter for two reasons. The first is that it is a natural part of quantum field theories, which we use to describe matter, and which are among the best-tested theories in all of science. The second is that we can make and investigate antimatter in large amounts. For example, the purpose of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago is to make vast numbers of antiprotons to study how they annihilate with protons.

Antimatter is important in cosmology because of the extreme temperatures and densities of the early universe. One consequence of such an extreme environment is that there is so much energy around that any kind of matter (including antimatter) can be created. Therefore, in the early universe, one expects there to have been equal amounts of both matter and antimatter and then, as the universe cooled, for these particles to find each other, annihilate, and leave our present universe with very little matter around (and an equally small amount of antimatter).

This is clearly at odds with what we observe in the universe, where we have relatively large amounts of matter and essentially no evidence of primordial antimatter. In fact, this asymmetry between matter and antimatter can be made quantitative (for baryons such as protons and neutrons) through observations of the abundances of light elements in the universe (Big Bang Nucleosynthesis - BBN) and also from the pattern of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). Thus, there is clear quantitative evidence that the universe is composed of matter, with negligible antimatter.

This all constitutes a puzzle for cosmologists. How did the universe evolve from early times, in which there were equal numbers of baryons and antibaryons, to the present universe, in which there is a precisely measured baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU)?

Potential solutions to this puzzle provide a wonderful example of the interplay between particle physics and cosmology. A beautiful feature of many theories beyond the standard model of particle physics is that, when considered in the context of the expanding universe, they automatically contain such a dynamical mechanism that can, in principle, explain the origin of the BAU. The generation of the BAU through one of these mechanisms is what is known as baryogenesis. This isn’t enough of course; we don’t yet know which, if any, of these theories might be the right one. However, upcoming experiments, such as those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), provide the exciting possibility of either ruling out some of them or providing significant evidence for one of them.

Over the course of my next few posts I’ll try to explain how some of these mechanisms work, and how they illustrate the particle-cosmology connection.

This morning has me packing and preparing for a trip to England, to take part in the annual editorial board meeting of the New Journal of Physics and then to spend a few days visiting my family. A additional bonus is that a good friend of mine, a historian, will be in London at the same time, and I’m looking forward to getting well and truly screwed by the exchange rate when we sample some of London’s culinary delights. I expect that, as usual, our conversation will turn to some of the comparisons and contrasts between our fields.

So it was fun to see that Sky & Telescope is reporting on work by Don Olson and collaborators at Texas State University, in which they claim to have laid to rest the historical question of precisely when Julius Caesar landed in Britain. The Roman invasion has had open questions associated with it because although Caesar approached the white cliffs of Dover, Celtic warriors armed with spears (no doubt chanting “Romanes Eunt Domus“) deterred him from landing. The choice of an alternate site was guided by the tides, and it is this that has apparently opened the door to astronomers.

Olson calculated that the complex tidal patterns in August 2007 would mimic extremely closely those in August of 55BC, and performed several experiments in the English Channel during that month. He was fortunate to have at his disposal modern astronomical technology, the use of which was pioneered by Newton, and which has been perfected more recently by G. Smith - the so-called apple. Dropping this “apple” into the ocean from the pier at Deal (where Caesar is thought to have landed), Olson and team were able to understand the dates on which it would have been reasonable for the tides to bring the Romans from Dover to Deal. The answer appears to be August 22-23. As the BBC reports

This is the beach preferred by most historians but rejected by tide experts in the past. A modified reading of Caesar’s reference to the “night of a full Moon” also leads to the August 22-23 date, Dr Olson claimed.

“The scientists were right about the tidal streams and so were the historians about the landing site,” he explained.

So there’s a bit of something here for both my historian friend and me.

I’ve been glancing over with some enjoyment and much nostalgia a multi-part Science Course that The Guardian ran back in late April and early May. Created in association with Science Museum and split into seven parts, this is an attempt to provide, extremely briefly, a snapshot of human scientific knowledge.

The seven sections are: The universe; Life & genetics; The earth; Humans; Energy; Building blocks; Experiments for kids, and each section is split into a host of different subtopics which span pretty much all the major subjects (although, as with any such endeavor, I’m sure there will be people who feel that something vital is missing).

There are a number of things that struck me about this effort. Perhaps foremost is that it is just wonderful to see a national daily newspaper devoting this much time, effort and space to science. Another notable feature, as far as I could see, is that they have chosen to focus on the science and not on the scientists. While I’m not against reporting that serves to show the public that scientists aren’t the humorless automatons they are often portrayed as, there is something refreshing about getting the egos and the myth of the lone genius out of the picture and focusing on the remarkable truths about the universe that the collective efforts of humankind have revealed. There is a real sense of wonder here.

But I think what grabbed me most, and what stirred those nostalgic feelings in me, was what a kid might take away from this. The vast scope of science presented here; the feelings of awe; the idea that by grasping some portion of this one would actually understand why things are as they are, and not have to rely on the authority of others. These all take me back to reading the newspaper as a child; to watching the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures; to reading science magazines; and to my parents gathering my brother and me up for our weekly trip to the library. These were some of the first experiences that I concretely remember thinking of as revealing the excitement of knowledge. I never got over it.

It doesn’t matter if all the details of what you are reading or watching are perfectly correct, and it doesn’t matter if you know who did what and when. These are details you will sort out later if they become important. What matters as a kid is that you be able to grasp why scientists do what they do, and understand the power of the scientific method. In her introduction to the Experiments for kids section, science writer Gabrielle Walker writes

Real science isn’t about textbooks, it’s about experiments that
are surprising, exciting and — yes, even a bit dangerous.

Doing them means taking risks, getting stuck in, finding out for yourself — using your imagination.

Kids should do scientific experiments too, for the same reason that they should write stories as well as reading them or do sport as well as watching it. Experiments encourage kids to be curious, creative and confident. Jokes make us laugh because the punchline takes us by surprise. The best experiments do the same.

And it’s true. Science is a part of culture, and as a child, while I did my fair share of reading and writing stories, and playing and watching sports, I loved mathematics, but also derived tremendous enjoyment from my little chemistry set, and the toy microscope I received one Christmas. If you could make something go “bang”, change color, or both, it was always a lot of fun. Science is something you do.

There are many influences that can cultivate one’s desire to understand more about the world, whether one becomes a scientist or not. Curious parents who care about education and decent, enthusiastic teachers are most certainly important, and I was so lucky to have those (definitely the former, and mostly the latter). But the ways in which science and scientists appear in our culture have a major influence. Science news shouldn’t be a quirky niche area. If it weren’t, perhaps more people would be able to develop informed opinions about some of the major issues facing society. Wouldn’t it be a step forward to read about, and have people understand, the scientific challenges and issues surrounding nuclear power, biofuels, solar energy, genetically modified foods, evolution, etc.?

We’ll only ever get there by making science an integral part of culture, rather than an obscure art. Although I think most scientists will find some flaws with its approach, the Guardian Science Course brought a smile to my face as I remembered the easy access to popular science I had as a kid growing up in England, and the way this access influenced how I viewed science. They should be applauded for trying to play their part in recognizing science as a central part of society.

We’ve written on a number of occasions here (and elsewhere) about the importance of good, reliable science journalism. Now, writing in his Bad Science column in The Guardian, Ben Goldacre points to an extremely concrete reason, with important ramifications for society, to encourage quality science writing.

There are all kinds of reasons to be concerned about and interested in science journalism. Are important issues getting the right amount of coverage? Is there a reasonable balance to the stories? Do journalists rely too much on the opinions of a few friendly experts, or do they seek out diverse expert views? Do university press releases drive coverage rather than inform it? Do funding agencies pay to much attention to research and authors who receive press coverage? I could go on and on. Some of these issues are mostly of interest to academics, but to some extent they all directly affect not only the public’s understanding of current scientific progress, but also their ability to make an informed decision to support (or not support) future scientific endeavors.

But there is another, more direct reason to hope for strong coverage of science. Goldacre reports on several studies showing that when it comes to health issues, the public pays a remarkable amount of attention to press coverage of a given question. Among other things, he notes that

A 2005 study in the Medical Journal of Australia looked at the impact of Kylie Minogue’s breasts on mammogram bookings. They rose by 40% during the two-week publicity peak, and six weeks later they were still up by a third. The increase among previously unscreened women in the 40-69 year age group was 101%. These surges were unprecedented.

…A systematic review from the Cochrane Collaboration found five studies looking at the use of specific health interventions before and after media coverage of specific stories, and each found that favourable publicity was associated with greater use, and unfavourable with lower.

One might think that this is an extremely positive thing, since to a large extent the public seems to trust scientific results, and holds science is high regard. However, the main point of Goldacre’s column is to discuss a recent analysis, by former journalist Gary Schwitzer, of 500 mainstream media health articles from the US.

The results were dismal. Only 35% of stories were rated satisfactory for whether the journalist had “discussed the study methodology and the quality of the evidence”: because in the media, as you will have noticed, science is about absolute truth statements from arbitrary authority figures in white coats, rather than clear descriptions of studies and the reasons why people draw conclusions from them.

Only 28% adequately covered benefits, and only 33% adequately covered harms. Articles routinely failed to give any useful quantitative information in absolute terms, preferring unhelpful eye-catchers like “50% higher” instead.

So it turns out that what the public really trusts is whatever journalists tell them about science. This is why it is so important to do everything we can to support good science journalism, and to resist the temptation to contribute to poor efforts by overly sensationalizing our own work when speaking to journalists about it.

But it isn’t easy, given the juicy data the article also contains about how New York Times coverage skews citations!

Here at Cosmic Variance we’ve been having a bit of an internal review of our comments policy and have decided to implement a few new guidelines. These are intended to improve the quality of the discussion, minimize any insulting or inappropriate behavior, and generally make the comments section a more interesting and hospitable place.

Our existing comments policy reads

“We love comments and aim to cultivate a lively and enjoyable space for discussion. To this end, we will not hesitate to delete comments or ban commenters who are excessively impolite or who otherwise derail the discussions. Disagreement with anything we may say is welcome, so long as it is civil and constructive. We’re all about light, not heat.”

We’d like to clarify and supplement this with

1. Since our comments section is not intended for protracted discussions of individuals’ pet theories or personal hobby-horses, we will be deleting comments that attempt to reorient the discussion towards such directions. When we are talking about science, questions from non-experts are especially welcome. However, this blog is not the proper venue for non-experts to present their revolutionary new theories of the Universe, and attempts to start such discussions will generally be deleted without warning. The blogosphere is a big space, and people are always free to start their own blogs to discuss such theories. In fact, many have already.
2. Frank and challenging discussions are a good thing. Indeed, disagreement with the substance of posts or comments is acceptable and even encouraged, as long as it is constructive and polite. A review of most comment threads provides ample evidence that many different viewpoints are allowed. Nevertheless, “criticize” and “disagree” are not the same as “insult”, and we do not think it is appropriate to use the comments section to truly insult others. We will be deleting comments that do that.
3. We will do what we can to ban commenters who repeatedly violate these, or any of our other guidelines. Blogging is our hobby, not our job, and we have little desire to enter into detailed discussions about why this or that comment is inappropriate. Better to be safe than sorry.

To be frank, we feel that a number of personal disputes, off-topic comments and people using our comments section to conduct public discussion of their own pet theories and issues is lowering the quality of the discourse, and we would like to avoid this as much as possible in the future. We won’t be perfect at this, so bear with us, and hopefully this policy will serve its purpose.

An important event of the early summer was the graduation of my most senior graduate student - Alessandra Silvestri - who successfully defended her thesis on May 15th, and who is leaving the nest at the end of the summer to take up a postdoc in the Physics Department and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at MIT. Congratulations to Alessandra!

Alessandra’s thesis - Modified Gravity: Cosmic Acceleration and the Large Scale Structure of the Universe - contains, among other things, results obtained in a series of papers in which she, with collaborators, studied how one might search for an observational signature of modified gravity as the origin of cosmic acceleration, as compared to dark energy, or a cosmological constant.

While it is relatively easy to obtain the correct expansion history of the universe - how its size changes over the course of time - from all kinds of cosmic acceleration models, differences typically manifest themselves in the details of how structure grows, and how that structure influences the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). There are a number of different important effects, but one that is particularly interesting, and unusually easy to explain, is the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect.

Here’s how it works. In the early universe, expansion ultimately stretches the wavelengths of photons enough that their energies are too low to ionize hydrogen atoms. This is called decoupling, and after this point the universe is electrically neutral, light essentially ceases to interact with matter, and the leftover photons stream through the universe. Today they form the CMB.

During the photons’ journey across the universe (ultimately to our detectors) they pass through overdense regions of matter that are in the process of becoming more dense, due to the attractive nature of gravity. In passing through such a growing overdensity, the photons gain energy as they fall into the associated potential well, and lose energy as they climb out of it (this is general relativity after all, and gravity affects light just as it would affect massive particles). For a static potential well, these effects would, of course, cancel, just as a ball rolling from one side of a symmetrical bowl to the other will reach precisely the same height that it started at. However, in reality two competing effects occur - the well is growing due to gravitational attraction, and is becoming shallower due to the expanding background. Thus, there is the possibility of an overall change in the photon energy, depending on how the universe is expanding.

The collapse of an overdensity can be thought of as the evolution of a small matter dominated portion of the universe. If the background evolution is matter dominated, this is cancelled by the expansion rate and the overall effect is zero, as for a static potential. However, if the background evolution differs from matter domination then there is a net effect. This adds up as the photon traverses multiple wells, and is known as the ISW effect.

Since we now know that the late time evolution of the universe is not matter dominated, but rather is accelerating, the ISW effect provides one possible insight into the nature of this phenomenon. And since cosmic acceleration is occurring in the most recent epoch (and to distinguish the effect from a related one occurring at early times, during radiation domination), we refer to this incarnation of the effect as the late-time ISW effect (or Rees-Sciama effect). Because acceleration is so dominant, the net effect is that the potential decays while the photon traverses the well, meaning that the photon emerges with a slight net blueshift, compared to how it entered.

Now, because the details of how structure forms depend not only on the background evolution, but also on how the different energy components of the universe cluster, and on the equations obeyed by the overdensities themselves, the size and sign of the late-time ISW effect depends on the origin of cosmic acceleration. For example, modified gravity theories typically introduce a scale-dependence into the growth function that may be used to distinguish such models from dark energy or the cosmological constant model. Thus, in principle, the late-time ISW effect is a powerful tool.

In practice this is very difficult to carry out, since the dominant effect is on large scales in the universe, where cosmic variance (the statistical effect, not us) gets in the way of interpreting any possible signal. Nevertheless, by cross-correlating the microwave background measurements with data from large scale structure surveys, one can make progress.

Cosmic acceleration is a huge mystery, but modern cosmology also provides us with a remarkable set of tools with which to probe it, and to constrain our theoretical approaches. The late-time ISW effect is one of these tools, and is a nice example of how the CMB - an amazing discovery in its own right - is now being put to use in many different ways to explore the details of our cosmological models.

Hi again!

It has been almost six months since I last posted at Cosmic Variance, which most certainly marks me as highly neglectful. I wasn’t intending to take such a break. In fact I had hoped that a byproduct of my new commitment to travel less would be more consistent blogging. However, as it turns out it has been a rather stressful few months, and only now do I feel that I can make an attempt to once again write somewhat regularly.

The primary source of my stress is something about which I can’t really complain; I have been making an important career decision. This has now come to an end and, after being on leave in the Astronomy Department at Cornell next semester, I will be leaving Syracuse in January to become a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania.

I have had a wonderful eight years at Syracuse, in a supportive department and university and with wonderful colleagues and students. These factors, and the deep friendships I have within the department, made this a very difficult decision to make. However, now that I have made my decision I am obviously extremely excited about my new position and am looking forward to my future at Penn. There will be plenty to write about this in the coming months (including at least one more surprise), but I wanted to use this post merely to explain my absence and hopefully to get back into the swing of writing.

It has been a dodgy couple of days for news about my part of England.

Yesterday I watched with pride as my hometown football team - Wigan Athletic - scored three goals in the first half against Blackburn. This then turned to horror as they conceded three, with my pride eventually recovering after they pulled a couple back for a scrappy 5-3 victory (first in thirteen games).

Then (via PZ) I find out that the same type of creationist nonsense that we’re forced to waste time and effort fighting in the U.S. is rearing its empty head in England, and in Lancashire no less! As the Observer reports

The AH Trust, a charity set up last year by a group of businessmen alarmed by the direction in which they see society heading, has identified a number of potential sites in the north west of England to build the £3.5m Christian theme park.

The trust claims it already has a number of rich backers who are keen to invest in the project, which will boast two interactive cinemas, a cafeteria, six shops and a television recording studio, allowing it to produce its own Christian-themed films and documentaries.

Oh the horror! What is going on in my home country? And this isn’t just a place to churn out rip-offs of The Passion of the Christ; they have other issues

‘The church in this country is in crisis and many church leaders living in Australia, America and Canada have openly proclaimed that God has left the church in England,’ the trust states on its website.

‘Evolution has falsely become the foundation of our society and we need the television studio to advocate Genesis across this land in order to remove this falsehood, which presently is destroying the church foundation.’

It just brings tears to my eyes. But I’ll end on a note of pride. Even better than Wigan breaking their losing streak at football is to read this about your hometown

The theme park’s anti-evolution bias and its emphasis on Genesis has raised eyebrows among planning officials, according to Jones, who originally wanted to build the park at the site of an old B&Q store but was refused permission by the council.

‘Wigan council slammed the door in our faces. You mention the C [Christian] word, and people don’t want to know,’

It just warms your heart doesn’t it?

I find it sad that in American politics any candidate needs to devote time to talking about their religious faith, unless they are apologizing for the intellectual weakness it represents, or explaining why they have decided that the separation of church and state is wrong. And this brings us to Mitt Romney’s “statement on faith”, taking place this afternoon.

In Kennedy’s famous original version (it’s worth reading) his intention was to make faith irrelevant, since it was to be seen as a personal issue that should play no role whatsoever in governing the country. Although I find any such religious faith bizarre, it is true that there have been presidents whose beliefs do not seem to have been driving their decisions, and I can certainly live with that. But in Romney’s case, the situation is starkly different. As Andrew O’Hehir writes in Salon, beginning by quoting the speech

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Kennedy told the Houston ministers, “where no Catholic prelate would tell the President — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference … I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.”

Kennedy was seeking to take his then-controversial faith off the table by embracing the constitutional and secular nature of the American republic, and by asking voters to judge him on his own words and deeds rather than as a representative of his church. If Romney were trying to accomplish something similar, one could only commend him. But his task is more perplexing and difficult than that.

Romney needs to appease a constituency that conspicuously does not believe in the absolute separation of church and state, that favors public funding of religious education (or at least certain varieties of it) and has frequently sought to impose theological ideas or religious structures in the public sphere. He’s not trying to convince right-wing evangelical Christians that he would govern as a secular president; he’s trying to convince them that his ideas about religion are close enough to theirs, in some general way, that they should overlook the differences.

Read that first paragraph again and then wipe away your tears as you realize how far backwards our politicians have moved.

O’Hehir then goes on to discuss some of the aspects of Mormomism that will make achieving this difficult for Romney. But the most important part of all this seems to me that Romney should be losing the votes of rational Americans by having brought these issues to the fore himself. That he is one of the many Americans - the religious - who believe in a particular set of supernatural fairy tales should be a strike against him. But that he explicitly seeks to make these irrational beliefs part of his governing philosophy and thereby impose them on others is far, far worse, and should make them fair game. I’d love to see journalists stepping up and doing their part to interrogate Romney and any other candidate on their superstitions whenever one of them decides that those beliefs have a place in the political sphere. Right now that group includes Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, Obama, Clinton, Edwards, and almost everyone else I can think of.

I have a hard time imagining most of these people making a statement that echoes Kennedy’s own

I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.

Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

Over to you, Mitt.

On Wednesday morning I arrived in Melbourne to take up the second half of the Sir Thomas Lyle fellowship I’ve held for the past couple of years. The thirty-something hour total traveling time left me somewhat disheveled and exhausted but, since it was 9:30 am, going to bed would have ruined any plans for efficient jet-lag recovery, and so I showered and headed in to the physics department.

You may recall my post from last year about my time in Melbourne, in which I recounted a delightful Saturday spent with my friend Ray Volkas visiting art galleries and bars (OK, more of the latter than the former) and generally getting to know Melbourne through its tremendous martini, wine and beer joints. Yesterday (also Saturday for me), having pretty much recovered from the trip, I spent an equally fun day, although displayed much more restraint than last time (it may have something to do with the seriousness required of me now that I’m a Reverend – more about that coming in a separate post soon, you can be sure!).

Perhaps the most unusual experience of the day was taking on “The Edge”. During last year’s visit Ray had pointed out to me that construction was nearing the end on what was to be Melbourne’s tallest building – the Eureka Tower. This year, the construction had indeed finished and, like most super-tall buildings these days, it has an observation deck allowing 360 degree views of the city. Certainly this is a fun way to get a look at the city, but I’ve been on observation decks before – including another in Melbourne – and it wouldn’t on its own be particularly notable, were it not for one unusual feature.

The Edge is a glass cube with an occupancy of up to twelve people. While I’m not completely sure about this particular glass, its effect is the same as switchable glasses that are laminates separated by polymer dispersed liquid crystals. Such glass can instantly be switched from opaque to transparent. This works because, in its normal state, the material between the glass is liquid crystal droplets immersed in a polymer. These droplets are randomly oriented and light is very efficiently scattered, so that the glass is opaque. However, when an electric current is applied the liquid crystals align with the electric field and light passes straight through.

So one gets in the cube, the walls and floor are opaque, and it slides slowly (with a number of prerecorded scraping and creaking sound effects) three meters out of the building, as in the picture below taken from the web page.

At this stage, all that one notices is that the walls and floor are a little lighter. Then, of course, someone flips a switch, and the entire cube is transparent, and you are suspended from the 88th floor, almost 300 meters above Melbourne. It is a pretty remarkable experience. If you’ve been on the observation deck for a while before doing the edge, it really isn’t too terrifying, although I think if you got off the elevator (9 meters per second by the way!) and went straight in, it’d be quite disorienting. Still - very fun.

So this was a nice way to pass the afternoon, and then in the evening I went to several very fun bars - Jwow wine bar, Lounge (Upstairs) and Double Happiness - and out for a nice dinner in Chinatown with a fellow Englishman and physicist - Andy Martin. Another successful first Saturday in Melbourne! Thanks guys.

I’m going to spend much of today working, trying to make progress on the project that Ray, his student – Damien George - and I are working on, trying to blend our complementary expertise about extra-dimensional models to address some outstanding questions about brane-world cosmology. I really want to get this project on a firm footing before I leave in two weeks, since Damien is going to spend next semester visiting me at Syracuse and I want to be sure we can hit the ground running when he gets there.

I am, however, going to try to spend part of the day in an Irish pub that I’m pretty sure carries the right television sports channel on which I can catch at least part of the second Indians-Red Sox ALCS game. Sports are, in fact, the only downside of my visit here. I have arrived when, coincidentally, two teams that I follow have reached critical stages of major competitions. The Cleveland Indians, having defeated the Yankees in the ALDS, are now one game in (a loss) to a seven-game series for the ALCS. For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, the ALCS (and the NLCS) are essentially the semi-finals for the World Series. At the same time, the rugby union World Cup is currently on and England - the defending champions – played in the semifinal this morning and knocked out France to reach the final. The problems for me are the time differences, which mean that I might be able to catch a little of the baseball and can’t really hope to watch the rugby. Two further problems are that the Indians knocked out the Yankees, but there are no Yankee fans here for me to rub it in to, and England knocked out Australia in the quarter finals, but nobody in Victoria cares about rugby – it’s all about AFL here – and so I can’t even rub that in! So frustrating!

Anyway, this is a very nice place, where I can mix good work and great fun for the next couple of weeks. I’ll be sure to write again soon.