Why I’m a convert to particle physics
Thanks to Professor Brian Cox, I find myself having to answer all sorts of tough questions about the seasons of the Sun, Mars in retrograde and why a day on Venus actually lasts a year.
My youngest and I are preoccupied with his programme, Wonders Of The Solar System. It takes me back to my own growing up, when I was obsessed with the moon landings. That ‘small step’ was a highlight of my young life.
So far, Wonders Of The Solar System has brought us twisters, the Northern Lights and, best of all, a total eclipse in Varanasi which Cox memorably described as ‘the solar system coming down and grabbing you by the throat’.
Professor Brian Cox, presenter of the BBC series Wonders of the Solar System, memorably described witnessing an eclipse in India as 'the solar system coming down and grabbing you by the throat'
While Cox may do a fine job of popularising astronomy, he is deadly serious about his subject. I saw him last week at a talk organised by Westminster Skeptics. Those who were there for pretty pictures of the rings of Saturn would have been disappointed.
Instead Cox, Nick Dusic of the Campaign for Science and Engineering and the Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris were putting forward some very sound arguments for not cutting our science budget.
The Royal Society report, The Scientific Century: Insuring Our Future Prosperity, also makes the economic case for investing in our scientific community. As Sir Martin Taylor, chairman of the report’s advisory group, says: ‘History shows us that new technologies drive economic development – look at the industrial and digital revolutions.’
And this is why France has just invested £31billion in the knowledge economy and why President Obama has announced a £15billion science stimulus. The Americans are quite open about wanting to steal our finest minds. Our finest minds are wary of research stagnating again, as it did in the Eighties, so the cutting of university
budgets by £600million is hardly reassuring.
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We need a far more sustainable approach to research and development. Not all scientific developments have immediate applications, although they may benefit our health and wealth in years to come. Particle physics research, for instance, has applications not just in the development of energy sources but also in treatments for cancer. What we learn in space helps us on Earth.
If Britain is to continue to be seen as the hub for international science, then the budget needs to be ring-fenced. Why? Because private funding will not train the maths and science teachers we need, nor will it ensure that scientific knowledge is collective and in the public domain.
Slicing a little out of the small budget – the total Research Council budget is just £3.2billion – will not do much to ease the Government’s deficit. Compare this with the £36.9billion that has been spent to recapitalise the banks.
Cutting research when India and China are investing heavily is insane. Innovation creates jobs, knowledge and opportunities. We still punch above our weight in this field, even though in real terms Labour’s increase in spending has been eaten up by other cuts.
Sometimes, too, research that may not seem immediately applicable needs to be encouraged. Cox cited as an example Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the World Wide Web at Cern.
Berners-Lee’s supervisor gave him the go-ahead for his vague but ‘interesting’ proposal. We now have the internet because such a chance was taken.
Evan Harris decried the short-term thinking of politicians when so many valuable projects are long-term. If we want to stem economic decline, then not providing fellowships for our young scientists and allowing our top people to be lured abroad is not the way to do it.
Scientists, too, have to make themselves heard. They cannot assume that the public understand their often esoteric world. They have to bring it to us. Cox may have his head in the stars, but he is doing just that.
Instead of asking whether we can afford our current level of research and development, we need to ask how we can afford not to fund our scientists properly. To cut this budget is surely the falsest of economies.
The queen of ‘don’t give a damn’ chic... don’t you just love her, girls?
Attitude: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
Women secretly love Carla Bruni because she gives men a run for their money and doesn’t appear to care.
Almost as punishment, an unflattering picture was published as if to say no women can be that beautiful and that free.
Then another picture of her emerged this week showing her phenomenal legs. The sale of this portrait was said ‘to challenge our concepts of desirability’.
Not from what I have seen. There is nothing difficult about Carla’s looks, it’s her ‘Frankly I don’t give a damn’ attitude that is the challenge.
So Marco Pierre White is now to promote Bernard Matthews’ delish ‘turkey products’.
His divorce must indeed be expensive because we know, thanks to Jamie Oliver, that the source of all evil is a Turkey Twizzler which used to be made by said Mr Matthews.
Does Marco really guzzle this ‘meat’? Has he totally lost his sense of taste? Either that or he has lost his bootiful mind.
Drugs policy? Let’s have a panic
Not much science is present in the debate on drugs. Until this week our rulers had not heard of mephedrone, a legal high known to many young people. The sad deaths of two young men who had taken it led to rabid calls for its banning before their bodies were cold.
We don’t yet know exactly how they died and it is probable they had also taken other drugs as well as that other dangerous legal high: alcohol.
These new pharmaceuticals often don’t show up in drug tests. If this is banned it will still be manufactured and sold and something incredibly similar will be on the market soon.
The media that joins in this predictable hoo-ha is awash with cocaine and booze. The repetitive nature of the questions asked feels like being with a child on Ritalin. ‘Why do teenagers want to take risks? Why do people want to get off their heads?’ stops real questions being asked.
Will China pursue this market? Is the rise of mephedrone and also binge drinking connected to the decline of relatively safe but illegal MDMA?
Someone needs to join up the dots here. But hey, why have a drugs policy when you can have a drugs panic?
Don’t die of ignorance? Don’t ban something you have never heard of. The Establishment is woefully ignorant which is why, in the war on drugs, drugs continue to win.
