There has been a lot of controversy about research work done on the H5N1 bird flu virus. In particular there is some discussion about if the results should be openly published.

The fear

The fear is that the experiments based on mutations of the H5N1 bird flu virus could be used by terrorist groups. The experiments show how the virus could mutate into a form that would spread easily amongst humans.

There are two papers submitted to Nature, one written by Kawaoka (Wisconsin-Madison) and the other by Fouchier (Erusmus Medical Centre). You can read a Q&A from Nature publishing group here.

The US National Security Advisory Board for Biotechnology (NSABB) has asked Nature to remove some of the information that could be useful to terrorists. World Health Organization in Geneva has stated that more discussion is needed.

There is also the opinion that the dissemination of the full work is important if we want to tackle the natural threat of bird flu.

I am far from an expert in this area and cannot offer an informed professional opinion about this specific issue. I suggest people start by reading the BBC report.

The wider issue

The problem is that not disseminating the work in full goes against the ethos of modern science. Progress is made only by sharing ideas and results. The scientific community will pick up on parts of a given work and further develop them. This is how progress is made and prevents scientists “re-discovering the wheel” every time then engage in research.

Science is there for the benefit of wider society. This is not just in practical medical or engineering terms, but also culturally. Couple this with the fact that most fundamental science is paid for by public tax money, scientists have a moral duty to disseminate their work.

But…

The debate really starts when scientific work can clearly be perverted and used for harm. One has to think about the greater good.

It is an unfortunate fact that human conflicts drive science and invention. We must reconcile our position with the assertion that all scientists and engineers involved in “war work” are developing terrible things for a greater good, at least as they see it.

So that said, we still have the issue of scientific censorship by governments and other agencies. Generically, scientists will want to publish their work, with the greater good in mind.

Now what?

We need academic and scientific freedom. However, that does not mean a “free for all” attitude and we do have many safeguards about conducting ethical research.

It could be possible that some research, principally the details are just so sensitive that they do pose a real threat. Scientists, governments and society have to think about this.

Maybe we need a wider debate about ethical dissemination.

Well, as a new years resolution I decided to go without coffee or caffeinated drinks.  It is now just about a month without caffeine, or at least with nothing like the dose previously consumed.

I am not sure what effect this has had on my mathematics.

Paul  Erdös once remarked “in Hungary many mathematicians drink strong coffee”.

Alfréd Rényi stated “a mathematician is a machine which turns coffee into theorems”.

So, I think we can claim a link between coffee and mathematics!

Anyhow,  as of February I will be doing more mathematics in coffee houses.

Here are a few comments on understanding engineers. I will tell you that an engineer sent them to me.

 Understanding Engineers: One

Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said, “Where did you get such a great bike?”
The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, “Take what you want.”
The first engineer nodded approvingly and said, “Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit you anyway.”

Understanding Engineers: Two

Understanding Engineers: Three

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.
The engineer fumed, “What’s with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!”
The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such inept golf!”
The priest said, “Here comes the green-keeper. Let’s have a word with him.”
He said, “Hello George, what’s wrong with that group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?”
The green-keeper replied, “Oh, yes. That’s a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime.”
The group fell silent for a moment.
The priest said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.”
The doctor said, “Good idea. I’m going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there’s anything he can do for them.”
The engineer said, “Why can’t they play at night?”

Understanding Engineers: Four

What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?
Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers: Five

The graduate with an engineering degree asks, “How does it work?”
The graduate with a science degree asks, “Why does it work?”
The graduate with an accounting degree asks, “How much will it cost?”
The graduate with an arts degree asks, “Do you want fries with that?”

Understanding Engineers: Six

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing who must have designed the human body.
One said, “It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.”
Another said, “No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections.”
The last one said, “No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?”

Understanding Engineers: Seven

Normal people believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.

Understanding Engineers: Eight

An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.”
He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you for one week and do ANYTHING you want.”
Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess and that I’ll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?”
The engineer said, “Look, I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that’s cool.”

If you have read Smolin’s and/or Woit’s books arguing against string theory then please read Duff’s response  here.

Duff’s “String and M-theory: answering the critics” is quite accessible and does a good job explaining why people are interested in string theory, both from a physics and mathematics point of view. One major point he makes is the unfair coverage of “anti-string theorists” and  works that are wrong.

For example, Lisi’s theory of everything based on \(E_{8}\).  This theory is mathematically wrong, it does not describe  the correct matter content of the universe.  Also, the use of the exceptional groups  in theories of everything, including string theory pre-dates    Lisi’s work.  I would say that the media and the “blogosphere”  was too quick to hail Lisi’s work and too slow in pointing out the errors.

Duff also points out how quickly the attacks on string theory become personal attacks on string theorists.

Is it important that the general public has a reasonable understanding of string theory and supports such reserach?

I would have to say  yes.

Not that science or mathematics is a popularity contest that will be won via the general media, it will be won via peer-reviewed papers. However, the general public pays for almost all fundamental science research and thus it is vital to keep the public on board. There will always be speculation, disagreements and conflicting points of view in science at the frontiers of our knowledge, but this should not devolve into personal attacks. This only weakens the position of  science in wider society.

String does  have many attractive features and seems to be our best hope at understanding the Universe.  The best response to  the critics is come up with an alternative!

Today at CERN scientists will present reports on the progress of the hunt for the Higgs boson.

I await the news…

For now read the BBC report here.

CERN’s public website can be found here.

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Update

Both the Atlas and CMS experiments at CERN independently suggest that the Higgs has been observed and has a mass of about 125 GeV.  However, the statistical uncertainly in the data means that the Higgs has not truly been discovered.

There will be further experiments and lots of data analysis before the claim of discovery will be made.

Optimistically,  some time next year we may have confirmation of the Higgs.

Find out about the press release  here.

Read the BBC News report here.

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Now we await news of supersymmetry.

We all know that art,  symmetry,  beauty and mathematics are well intertwined.  Since 1998 the Bridges Organization organised an annual conference bringing together mathematicians and artists. All very interesting stuff and shows that mathematics can be appreciated by those who are not traditional mathematicians.

The next conference is July 25-29, 2012 at Towson University, located in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area.

I guess I will now have to go away and create some interesting computer graphics or something! (Not that I think I will be attending this conference)

The European  Physical Society has initiated a drive to get the United Nations to proclaim 2015 as the International Year of Light.

Light plays a central role in human activities in science, technology and culture. Light itself underpins the existence of life, and light-based technologies will guide and drive the future development of human society. Light and optics have revolutionized medicine, have opened up international communication via the Internet, and continue to be central to linking cultural, economic and political aspects of the global society. Advances in lighting and solar energy are considered crucial for future sustainable development.

Follow this link to the full statement.

I think making 2015 the International Year of Light is a great idea. Of all the physics, understanding light and more generally electromagnetic radiation,  has had a huge impact on society as well as all branches of  science and engineering.

2005 was the International Year of Physics, 2009 was the International Year of Astronomy and 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry. It seems fitting that 2015 be the year of light, lets see why…

• 1815  Fresnel published his first works on light as a wave.
• 1865 Maxwell mathematically described electromagnetic phenomena via his now famous equations.
• 1915 Einstein developed general relativity, which shows that light is fundamental in understanding space-time and gravity.
• 1965  Penzias and Wilson discover the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR).

Let us hope the United Nations agree on the importance of  light in all our lives and declare 2015 The International Year of Light.

Have a look at the jokes collected by  Volker Runde,  follow this  link.

Some of them are very funny, made me laugh anyway.  See what you think.

Professor Marcus du Sautoy offered a rather sobering view of the results of OPERA on the BBC last night. The BBC iPlayer version is available to view  until the 31st October, follow this link.

Until now I have resisted posting anything about the superluminal speed of neutrinos as measured by OPERA. There are plenty of blogs about this.  All I really want to say is that Marcus du Sautoy does a great job in approaching the topic from a science/maths point of view and does not “fan the flames” of the media hype.  His programme, in my opinion combats some of the hysteria and plain rubbish out there.

Please take the time to watch it.

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du Sautoy’s Oxford homepage

Wikpedia article about du Sautoy

We all have to give talks as part of our work from time to time.  In fact giving talks is  very important. Let’s face the truth, people won’t read your papers.  People working on very similar and related things might. Placing a preprint on the arXiv helps,  but generically people won’t get past the title and if you are lucky the abstract. Giving talks at conferences and seminars is the only way to get people to notice your work and importantly YOU.

My general advice (and I have no great insight) is simple,

1. Select very modest goals and maybe 3 or 4 key points.  Most of the audience will not be experts in your precise field, unless you are at a specialist conference.  For departmental seminars you will have to take great care in what you say and how you say it. You want people to learn something and also see that you are great at communicating.
2. Open with setting the context of your work.  People need to know how it all fits in. They want to know if what you have done relates to their work.
3. Be slack with unimportant details.  You can remove terms in equations that play no significant role. Just use words like “+ small terms”.  You can suppress indices.  Don’t be frightened of using analogies or examples to get a point across.  The ethos does  have to be exactly correct,  just close enough to what you are really doing, but you must say this.
4. Never run overtime. The audience will hate you for this. It is disrespectful to keep going past your allotted time.  It can also show that you do not take talking seriously and have not though out your talk at all.

Geroch way back in 1973 wrote some notes called “Suggestions For Giving Talks”.  He gives plenty of sound advice for giving talks. The notes are available on the arXiv  here.  I suggest anyone giving a scientific talk take a look at it.  I know it has helped me.

Other things online I have found useful and full of good advice include

• How to talk mathematics, by Halmos.
• Talks are not the same as papers, by Tao.
• Giving an academic talk, by Shewchuk.

There is much advice online, so have a quick ” google”.

To improve you talking skills one should do do two things

1. Give as many talks as possible.
2. Attend as many talks as possible.

Only with practice will you improve.  You can also take inspiration from good speakers and avoid imitating the bad ones. We have all been to talks by very well respected people, only to be disappointed by their presentation.  Learn from the masters, both good and bad.

Finally, if you have to give a talk soon, good luck.