..is the relative position of the two teams in 16th and 17th place in the final Premiership table!
Of course, it would have been more satisfying if Sunderland had finished one place lower but then you can’t have everything!
Anyway, that’s the Premiership over for another season. Time to concentrate on the cricket. If the Ashes Tests producing anything like today’s play against New Zealand then it should be an exciting summer!
Follow @telescoperIn my job here as Head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) at the University of Sussex, I’ve been been spending a lot of time recently on trying to understand the way the School’s budget works, sorting out what remains to be done for this financial year, and planning the budget for next year. In the course of doing all that it has become clear to me that the current funding arrangements from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) are extremely worrying for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
Before the introduction of the £9K tuition fees this academic year (i.e. in the `old regime’), a University would receive income from tuition fees of up to £3375 per student and from a `unit of resource’ or `teaching grant’ that depends on the subject. As shown in the upper part of Table C below which is taken from a HEFCE document:
In the old regime, the maximum income per student in Physics was thus £8,269 whereas for a typical Arts/Humanities student the maximum was £5,700. That means there was a 45% difference in funding between these two types of subject. The reason for this difference is that subjects such as physics are much more expensive to teach. Not only do disciplines like physics require expensive laboratory facilities (and associated support staff), they also involve many more contact hours between students and academic staff than in, e.g. an Arts subject. However, the differential is not as large as you might think: there’s only a factor two difference in teaching grant between the lowest band (D, including Sociology, Economics, Business Studies, Law and Education) and the STEM band B (including my own subject, Physics). The real difference in cost is much larger than that, and not just because science subjects need laboratories and the like.
To give an example, I was talking recently to a student from a Humanities department at a leading University (not my employer). Each week she gets 3 lectures and one two-hour seminar, the latter usually run by a research student. That’s it for her contact with the department. That meagre level of contact is by no means unusual, and some universities offer even less tuition than that.
In my School, MPS, a typical student can expect around 20 contact hours per week including lectures, exercise classes, laboratory sessions, and a tutorial (usually in a group of four). The vast majority of these sessions are done by full-time academic staff, not PDRAs or PhD students, although we do employ such folks in laboratory sessions and for a very small number of lectures. It doesn’t take Albert Einstein to work out that 20 hours of staff time costs a lot more than 3, and that’s even before you include the cost of the laboratories and equipment needed to teach physics.
Now look at what happens in the `new regime’, as displayed in the lower table in the figure. In the current system, students still pay the same fee for STEM and non-STEM subjects (£9K in most HEIs) but the teaching grant is now £1483 for Physics and nothing at all for Bands C and D. The difference in income is thus just £1,483 or in percentage terms, a difference of just 16.4. Worse than this, there’s no requirement that this extra resource be spent on the disciplines with which it is associated anyway. In most universities, all the tuition income goes into central coffers and is dispersed to Schools and Departments according to the whims of the University Management.
Of course the new fee levels have led to an increase in income to Universities across all disciplines, which is welcome because it should allow institutions to improve the quality of their teaching bu purchasing better equipment, etc. But the current arrangements as a powerful disincentive for a university to invest in expensive subjects, such as Physics, relative to Arts & Humanities subjects such as English or History. It also rips off staff and students in those disciplines, the students because they are given very little teaching in return for their fee, and the staff because we have to work far harder than our colleagues in other disciplines, who fob off most of what little teaching their supposed to do onto PhD students badged as Teaching Assistants. It is fortunate for this country that scientists working in its universities show such immense dedication to teaching as well as research that they’re prepared to carry on working in a University environment that is so clearly biased against STEM disciplines.
To get another angle on this argument, consider the comments made by senior members of the legal profession who are concerned about the drastic overproduction of law graduates. Only about half those doing the Bar Professional Training Course after a law degree stand any chance of getting a job as a lawyer in the UK. Contrast this with the situation in science subjects, where we don’t even produce enough graduates to ensure that schools have an adequate supply of science teachers. The system is completely out of balance. Here at Sussex, only about a quarter of students take courses in STEM subjects; nationally the figure is even lower, around 20%…
I don’t see anything on the horizon that will alter this ridiculous situation. STEM subjects will continue to be stifled as universities follow the incentive to invest in cheaper subjects and will continue to overproduce graduates in other areas. The present Chief Executive of HEFCE is stepping down. Will whoever takes over from him have the guts to do anything about this anti-STEM bias?
I doubt the free-market ideologues in Westminster would even think of intervening either, because the only two possible changes are: (i) to increase the fee for STEM subjects relative to others; and (ii) to increase the teaching grant. Option (i) would lead to a collapse in demand for the very subjects it was intended to save and option (ii) would involve increasing public expenditure, which is anathema to the government even if it is an investment in the UK’s future. Or maybe it’s making a complete botch of the situation deliberately, as part of a cunning plan to encourage universities to go private?
I’m back in Cardiff for the day, mainly for the purpose of attending presentations by a group of final-year project students (two of them under my supervision, albeit now remotely). One of the talks featured a famous quote by the statistician George E.P. Box:
Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
I agree with this, actually, but only if it’s not interpreted in a way that suggests that there’s no such thing as reality and/or that science is just a game. We may never achieve a perfect understanding of how the Universe works, but that’s not the same as not knowing anything at all.
A familiar example that nicely illustrates my point is the London Underground or Tube map. There is a fascinating website depicting the evolutionary history of this famous piece of graphic design. Early versions simply portrayed the railway lines inset into a normal geographical map which made them rather complicated, as the real layout of the lines is far from regular. A geographically accurate depiction of the modern tube network is shown here which makes the point:
A revolution occurred in 1933 when Harry Beck compiled the first “modern” version of the map. His great idea was to simplify the representation of the network around a single unifying feature. To this end he turned the Central Line (in red) into a straight line travelling left to right across the centre of the page, only changing direction at the extremities. All other lines were also distorted to run basically either North-South or East-West and produce a much more regular pattern, abandoning any attempt to represent the “real” geometry of the system but preserving its topology (i.e. its connectivity). Here is an early version of his beautiful construction:
Note that although this a “modern” map in terms of how it represents the layout, it does look rather dated in terms of other design elements such as the border and typefaces used. We tend not to notice how much we surround the essential things with embellishments that date very quickly.
More modern versions of this map that you can get at tube stations and the like rather spoil the idea by introducing a kink in the central line to accommodate the complexity of the interchange between Bank and Monument stations as well as generally buggering about with the predominantly rectilinear arrangement of the previous design:
I quite often use this map when I’m giving popular talks about physics. I think it illustrates quite nicely some of the philosophical issues related with theoretical representations of nature. I think of theories or models as being like maps, i.e. as attempts to make a useful representation of some aspects of external reality. By useful, I mean the things we can use to make tests. However, there is a persistent tendency for some scientists to confuse the theory and the reality it is supposed to describe, especially a tendency to assert there is a one-to-one relationship between all elements of reality and the corresponding elements in the theoretical picture. This confusion was stated most succintly by the Polish scientist Alfred Korzybski in his memorable aphorism :
The map is not the territory.
I see this problem written particularly large with those physicists who persistently identify the landscape of string-theoretical possibilities with a multiverse of physically existing domains in which all these are realised. Of course, the Universe might be like that but it’s by no means clear to me that it has to be. I think we just don’t know what we’re doing well enough to know as much as we like to think we do.
A theory is also surrounded by a penumbra of non-testable elements, including those concepts that we use to translate the mathematical language of physics into everday words. We shouldn’t forget that many equations of physics have survived for a long time, but their interpretation has changed radically over the years.
The inevitable gap that lies between theory and reality does not mean that physics is a useless waste of time, it just means that its scope is limited. The Tube map is not complete or accurate in all respects, but it’s excellent for what it was made for. Physics goes down the tubes when it loses sight of its key requirement, i.e. to be testable, and in order to be testable it has to be simple enough to calculate things to be compared with observations. In many cases that means a simplified model is perfectly adequete.
Another quote by George Box expands upon this point:
Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
In any case, an attempt to make a grand unified theory of the London Underground system would no doubt produce a monstrous thing so unwieldly that it would be useless in practice. I think there’s a lesson there for string theorists too…
Many modern-day physicists are obsessed with the idea of a “Theory of Everything” (or TOE). Such a theory would entail the unification of all physical theories – all laws of Nature, if you like – into a single principle. An equally accurate description would then be available, in a single formula, of phenomena that are currently described by distinct theories with separate sets of parameters. Instead of textbooks on mechanics, quantum theory, gravity, electromagnetism, and so on, physics students would need just one book. But would such a theory somehow be physical reality, as some physicists assert? I don’t think so. In fact it’s by no means clear to me that it would even be useful..
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The Eurovision Song Contest, cultural Marxism's flagship spectacle, is a highlight in every communist's calendar, or should be. We proudly present part 1 of the official Proletarian Democracy preview of all the entries. The following score system applies.
1: Austria - Natalia Kelly - Shine
When hurt is all you’re feeling, your heart is slowly bleeding
The only memories to hold on to…
Not long ago I posted a short item about the physics of vortex rings. More recently I stumbled across this video that shows how University of Chicago physicists have succeeded in creating a vortex knot—a feat akin to tying a smoke ring into a knot. Linked and knotted vortex loops have existed in theory for more than a century, but creating them in the laboratory had previously eluded scientists. I stole that bit shamelessly from the blurb on Youtube, by the way. I’m not sure whether knotting a vortex tube has any practical applications, but then I don’t really care much about that because it’s fun!
Follow @telescoperSo farewell, then,
Wigan Athletic.
You weren’t
Athletic enough,
Apparently.
Keith’s mum says
Wigan is not
In the Midlands.
But she’s wrong.
Obviously.
by Peter Coles (aged nearly 50).
Follow @telescoperThis poem will be a bit of a puzzle to younger readers, so I’ll just explain that Messrs Hall & Knight mentioned in the poem were the authors of a famous textbook about algebra “Elementary Algebra for Schools” that first went into publication in the 19th Century (1885, I think) and is still in press over a century later. It’s a classic book, fully meriting a celebration in verse, even if it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek!
When he was young his cousins used to say of Mr Knight:
‘This boy will write an algebra – or looks as if he might.’
And sure enough, when Mr Knight had grown to be a man,
He purchased pen and paper and an inkpot, and began.
But he very soon discovered that he couldn’t write at all,
And his heart was filled with yearnings for a certain Mr Hall;
Till, after many years of doubt, he sent his friend a card:
‘Have tried to write an Algebra, but find it very hard.’
Now Mr Hall himself had tried to write a book for schools,
But suffered from a handicap: he didn’t know the rules.
So when he heard from Mr Knight and understood his gist,
He answered him by telegram: ‘Delighted to assist.’
So Mr Hall and Mr Knight they took a house together,
And they worked away at algebra in any kind of weather,
Determined not to give up until they had evolved
A problem so constructed that it never could be solved.
‘How hard it is’, said Mr Knight, ‘to hide the fact from youth
That x and y are equal: it is such an obvious truth!’
‘It is’, said Mr Hall, ‘but if we gave a b to each,
We’d put the problem well beyond our little victims’ reach.
‘Or are you anxious, Mr Knight, lest any boy should see
The utter superfluity of this repeated b?’
‘I scarcely fear it’, he replied, and scratched this grizzled head,
‘But perhaps it would be safer if to b we added z.’
‘A brilliant stroke!’, said Hall, and added z to either side;
Then looked at his accomplice with a flush of happy pride.
And Knight, he winked at Hall (a very pardonable lapse).
And they printed off the Algebra and sold it to the chaps.
by E. V. Rieu (1887-1972)
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