GW News Day

Well, it has certainly been an eventful last day in India!

Over a hundred people gathered at IUCAA to see this evening’s press conference, which basically confirmed most of the rumours that had been circulating that a Gamma Ray Burst had been detected in both GW and EM radiation. I won’t write in detail about today’s announcement because (a) a really useful page of resources has been prepared by the group at IUCAA. Check out the fact sheet and (b) I haven’t really had time to digest all the science yet.

I will mention a couple of things, however. One is that the signal-to-noise ratio of this detection is a whopping 32.4, a value that astronomers can usually only dream of! The other is that neutron star coalescence offer the possibility to bypass the traditional `distance ladder’ approaches to get an independent measurement of the Hubble constant. The value obtained is in the range 62 to 107 km s^-1 Mpc^-1, which is admittedly fairly broad, but is based on only one observation of this type. It is extremely impressive to be straddling the target with the very first salvo.

The LIGO collaboration is over a thousand people. Add to that the staff of no fewer than seventy observatories (including seven in space). With all that’s going in the world, it’s great to see what humans of different nations across the globe can do when they come together and work towards a common goal. Scientific results of this kind will remembered long after the silly ramblings of our politicians and other fools have been forgotten.

I took part in a panel discussion after the results were presented, but sadly I won’t be here to see tomorrow’s papers. I hope people will save cuttings or post weblinks if there are any articles!

UPDATE: Here is a selection of the local press coverage.

 

As if these thrilling science results weren’t enough I finally managed to meet my old friend and former collaborator Varun Sahni (who was away last week). An invitation to dinner at his house was not to be resisted on my last night here, which explains why I didn’t write a post immediately after the press conference. Still, of got plenty of papers to read on the plane tomorrow so maybe I’ll do something when I get back.

Tomorrow morning I get up early to return to Mumbai for the flight home, and am not likely to be online again until Wednesday UK time.

Thanks to all at IUCAA (and TIFR) for making my stay so pleasant and interesting. It’s been 23 years since I was last here. I hope it’s not so long before I’m back again!

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Homes from Home in Pune

Since I’m coming back tomorrow I thought I’d wander around this morning and take a few pictures of where I’ve been staying most of the last 10 days or so. First, this is a snap of the housing complex which contains my guest apartment.

I’m actually in the first building on the right. Here is the front door.

The faculty at both IUCAA (Pune) and TFIR (Mumbai) live in housing areas provided by their respective institutions, so they form quite a close-knit community. Some of the senior staff in IUCAA are housed just round the corner from my place.

IUCAA is on the Pune University Campus (except that it has its own entrance from the main road that runs along the Northern edge of the campus, where there is a security post. There are a few of these around the IUCAA site itself, so it is very secure and quite private. The campus is large with many tree-lined roads. At its heart, on a small hill, you can find this building:

This is (or was) the Raj Bhavan (`Government House’) and it was essentially the Governor of Maharashtra’s residence during the Monsoon season. Built in 1866, it was a sort of home-from-home when Bombay (the state capital) became too unbearable.

When I was last here in 1994, this was the Main Building of the University and was quite busy. Now, however, it seems to be disused and is in a state of some disrepair, the gardens also need a bit of love and attention. There are many new buildings around the University of Pune campus (including a modern administration block nearby). Since this building is a relic of the old colonial days it may be that it will be demolished to make way for something that better suits modern India. By the way, there’s a stone slab just next to the site of this building that displays the preamble to the Constitution of India, as adopted in 1949.

Anyway, this afternoon and evening promise to be quite busy. There is a press conference at IUCAA at 6.30pm about the gravitational waves discovery I mentioned a few days ago. There will be presentations before a viewing of the live feed from Washington DC then there’ll be a panel answering questions from the press. They’ve asked me to be on the panel, so I might appear in the India media, but as I’m leaving first thing tomorrow morning I probably won’t see any of the coverage!

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Before the Storm…

Nearly at the end of my short visit to India I find myself checking on the UK news. Home thoughts from abroad and all that. Anyway, it’s quite a coincidence that Hurricane Ophelia is arriving,  exactly on the thirtieth anniversary of the famous `Great Storm‘ that wrought destruction across the South-East of England in 1987. The path of Ophelia is rather different from that of the 1987 `Hurricane’, and it looks like Ireland will bear the brunt over the next day or two, as the storm will weaken as it encounters land, though there will be strong winds far outside the path denoted in this map:

 

I hope the damage from this storm  isn’t too bad and that people in its path stay safely out of harm’s way, especially in Ireland. It’s possible the winds may affect my current home in Wales too. I hope I don’t get back tomorrow evening to find the roof has blown off!

Thirty years ago today I was living in Brighton as a graduate student at the University of Sussex. On October 16th 1987 (a Friday) I woke up to find the electricity had been cut off. Without breakfast I struggled out to find the street lined with fallen trees, smashed cars and houses with broken windows. I got to the railway station to get the train to Falmer (where the University of Sussex is located) only to find that no trains were running. I walked home and went back to bed. It took several days for normal service to resume. When I did get up to campus the following week, I found that almost all the trees in Stanmer Park had come down and were combed flat on the top of the hill.

The Great Storm of 1987 , according to weather forecaster Michael Fish, was “not a hurricane” had nevertheless caused enormours destruction. And I had slept through the whole thing…

Here’s the infamous weather forecast broadcast on the Thursday evening:

and here is the BBC News from the following day:

 

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