Report of the 1997 British Association Annual Festival of Science at Leeds
by David N. Barnett
"It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen..." Well, that's not quite true, but it's as good an opening line as any. The week started promisingly, as I'd happened to meet someone at the station who was also attending the festival, and, as such, we were able to share a taxi to Charles Morris Hall, where I, at least, was staying. The place seemed pleasant enough, and I set out in search of nourishment. In keeping with previous years, it soon became apparent that the only food on offer was a buffet-type affair, but only for those with the foresight to have acquired meal tickets. For those of us less privileged, the prospect of a 9-pound charge beckoned, so I decided to pass up the opportunity for fishballs and chicken drumsticks; missing one meal was not going to do me any harm, and the situation was sure to improve over the coming days.
That in mind, I decided instead to head off towards the Union Bar for the first Egg Race Challenge of the week. Finding the Union itself provided enough of a challenge, until I had worked out which way up to hold the map, which was perhaps fortunate, as the Egg Race itself never actually took place. I did, however, meet up again with my taxi-mate and some other delegates, and so was able to drink and relax for the evening, forgetting to moderate my drinking just the small amount which my lack of food ought to have necessitated. It also became apparent that I was the only member of the group to be staying in Charles Morris Hall, but I figured I would meet others later on. The very beginning of the festival often has teething problems, however, so I set off to bed hopefully.
I did at least have a reservation for breakfast the following day. It was nice to realise that I had actually arrived; I maintain that there is no other meeting in Britain where you can overhear such conversational snippets as "I particularly liked the use of children as molecules..." After this, I headed off towards the Roger Stevens building, which was to become the focus of most of the lectures, for the initial lectures celebrating the centenary of the discovery of the electron and the 50th anniversary of the invention of the transistor. Arriving at a mere two minutes to nine, I was intrigued to find that I was only the third person in the lecture theatre. It was only a subsequent check of the programme which revealed that the lectures actually began at 9:30, rather than 9:00. I therefore had to sit and wait, making the occasion the earliest I had arrived at a lecture, ever.
The first lecture, by Frank Close, was a rundown of the history of particle physics, from the discovery of the first known subatomic particle, the electron, to that of the top quark, this decade, which apparently completed the set of fundamental particles. Following this, an intriguing lecture covered an alternative early view of atomic structure; atoms were seen as vortex rings in the ether, which orbitted around one another to form molecules. The lectures after the coffee break continued the theme, with the first talking about the contents of the British Empire Exhibition in 1924, and the second talking about the development of the transistor industry, from humble beginnings when the devices first replaced electric valves, to the modern innovations allowing two billion transistors from an eight-inch slice of silicon, at a cost of one-millionth of a cent per transistor. The talk contained a Tomorrow's World clip from the sixties, showing the lecturer himself, and some delightfully politically-incorrect statements about how women seem to have the coordination necessary to carry out the microscopic needlework which parts of the manufacturing process required.
Following the huge lunch portions served in the Refectory, the day continued with an honourary degree ceremony. The presidential address covered the needs for an interdisciplinary approach to research and education, among other things, before the afternoon split into four parallel sessions on the theme "Science and the Human Environment". The lectures on the natural environment began by addressing the studies going on towards understanding several features of that environment, such as the El Nino current in the Pacific, and how the current shifts in atmospheric CO2 content fit into the context of longer-term natural changes. The session then moved on to our responisibilities as citizens, and what we can and should do for the environment.
That evening, the only food available on campus was, again, in Charles Morris Hall, which again seemed to deem itself worthy of a 9-pound charge for those not in possession of meal tickets. It began to become apparent that I was the only student staying in Charles Morris, all the others registered in other halls, either with cheaper accommodation deals, or with meal tickets (or both!), mostly arranged for them by their universities or schools -- Clearly, I had missed out somewhere, and had not been sent the appropriate form for booking the budget student deals. The only food I could find was the McDonalds in town, but, upon returning, was given directions towards the more interesting food opportunities available in Leeds, to investigate on subsequent nights.
Shortly before 8:00, I headed back toward the Union to investigate the "Science Themed Disco" -- At the time, entirely devoid of people, until I realised that everyone must have been attending the BBC Science Debate. I hastened to the Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre, before I missed too much, and was pleased to find it packed out. The session itself was very enjoyable, with a panel chaired by Peter Snow, the new presented of Tomorrow's World, discussing the presentation of science issues by the media. Following this was a small reception, before people finall began to drift towards the Union, making the disco really quite good, although things were beginning to thin out by the time it finished at midnight.
The physics lectures continued on the Tuesday, with the astronomy and particle physics theme. The first, on X-ray astronomy, addressed the techniques used to look into the central regions of the accretion disks around black holes, and the effects which must be used to interpret the results, such as conventional redshifting, relativistic beaming and gravitational redshifting. Following this was a look at comets, and covered the possibility of sending probes to land on them; not an easy task if, as expected, they are fluffy snowballs with the consistency of candy floss.
After the coffee break was a lecture on Fermat's Last Theorem, and a look at the proof which was finally completed only a few years ago, which involved proving a complicated piece of mathematics called the STW conjecture, concerning a link between elliptic curves and modular functions. Following this, I returned to the physics section lectures, for a lecture about life on Mars, which looked at the geochemical evidence for organic matter in Martian meteorites.
The first lecture after lunch looked at cosmic rays and their origin, and addressed some of the problems and techniques involved in their detection. Some may be detected by the Cherenkov radiation they produce, the equivalent of a sonic boom, produced when a particle is moving through a medium faster than the speed of light in that medium, which can, apparently, be detected in the eye as small flashes, when the eyes are very well dark-accustomed. Of most interest are the most energetic particles, with energies up to 3x1020 eV (the same as a tennis ball served at 140 mph!), but unfortunately, they reach the Earth at a rate of only one per km2 per century! This was followed by a lecture on dark matter. The problem is that analysis of galaxies and galactic clusters shows that these structures should fly apart if the only mass in the systems is that which is visible, with the deficit becoming more pronounced at larger scales. Such observations are backed up by the study of gravitational lensing effects. The solution may be that a large proportion of the mass in the universe is invisible matter; the possible nature of this was addressed, covering such possibilities as small black holes and weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs).
Following this was a fascinating and amusing lecture on "What to ask an alien", basically the ways to ensure that you don't inadvertantly shake hands with someone made of antimatter! The lecture started by looking at physical reactions which violate parity; reactions which do not occur under mirror reflection, because neutrinos only come in one handedness. However, this alone is insufficient for our alien friend to tell us whether he is left- or right-handed, because if he is made of antimatter, the answer will be opposite. The solution lies in looking at CP reversals; the swapping of left and right and of matter and antimatter -- Virtually all reactions can occur under a CP reversal, apart from the decay of the K0 particle, which has no reflection under CP. Apparently, therefore, if we ask our alien "Is the sign of the spin of the electron emitted under CP-violating K0 decay the same as that of the leptons orbitting your atoms?" and he replies in the affirmative, he is made of antimatter. Apparently.
After the subsequent public lecture on the work of Edward Appleton, looking, among other things, at the existence of particles trapped in the Earth's Van Allen radiation belts, and at the aurorae, I wandered into town, resigned to my fate of finding something to eat elsewhere. Alas, the only thing I could find was an Iranian burger bar, which had to suffice, before I made my way back to the Union for the student section bar quiz, where my team came a respectable sixth out of something-teen teams.
The Wednesday began with a talk on fluorine, which, due to the abundance of schoolchildren, made me feel rather old. The lecture itself was very interesting, looking at some of the many uses of fluorine, such as propellants, anaesthetics, goretex clothing, artificial blood, vascular grafts, into which blood vessels can reintroduce after their input, and long life batteries, produced initially for use in luminous fishing floats! Also addressed were some of the problems associated, such as the reactions with ozone, as well as an explosive demonstration of the reactivity of fluorine.
After the coffee break, I attended two of the geology section lectures. The first of these covered the use of seismology in understanding and predicting the eruption of volcanoes, while the second looked at the use of understanding geological landforms in predicting which faults in the crust were active, and liable to produce earthquakes. This is particularly important in regions where building redevelopment is taking place, and followed closely a case study in Beirut.
Following an early lunch, and a swift check of my e-mail in the beautifully-named "Cyber World" (surely not merely the computer room?), I headed off to see the hands-on exhibits, which included an electronic height measurer, and a lovely exhibit which superficially consisted merely of a vibrating carpet tile, on which a track had been drawn. However, the track had been cut out and relaid so that the direction of the pile formed a continuous loop around the track, and small objects placed on this track jostled their way around it. Such techniques are being looked into for transporting small components around nuclear power stations.
The afternoon lectures were on the theme of mathematical models in physics. The first looked at the origin of the Earth's magnetic field, which is thought to be a self-exciting dynamo in the Earth's liquid core, and how the movement may be maintained, considering such factors as density-driven convection, and the Coriolis force, which imparts a helicity to the motion. This throws up some fascinating results, such as the presence of an electromagnetic torque on the core, causing it to rotate 1-3o faster than the bulk Earth, a prediction which has recently been confirmed by seismic observations, because of the resulting precession of the anisotropy axis of the core.
The following lecture was on elastic liquids, and looked at how the "memory" of liquids of their shape, temporarily (for around a picosecond, in the case of water) is related to the tangling of molecules around one another, and how long they take to untangle themselves from the virtual tubes in which they lie. The final lecture of the session was on "Naturally Focussed Colours", and looked at some of the patterns which can be produced by light under certain circumstances, and how these can be modelled and understood by computer -- A complicated process involving an appreciation of how the eye works.
The evening began with "The Stand-Up Science Show", a session hosted by David Bellamy, in which postgraduate researchers were given the opportunity to talk about their research interests, with topics including the colonisation of Madagascar, the evidence for a large bolide impact 65 million years ago and mushrooms ("mycorrhizas", technically). Following a coffee break was the traditional "Kidnapped" session, in which a very strong panel, including Richard Dawkins, Frank Close and Sir Harry Kroto (the discoverer of Buckminsterfullerene), talked about how they got where they are now, followed by a debate on public views towards, and understanding of, science. After this was a reception, with "nibbles"; not dinner, technically, but it would do, after which a swift trip to the bar, where some familiar faces from previous years had accumulated, concluded the day.
The physics lectures continued the following day, with the first looking at the production of magnetic molecules. It is now possible to produce ferromagnets which are entirely organic, containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen only. The origin of the magnetism is the unpaired p-electrons in these "stable free radicals". The following lecture covered the expanding field of photonics, which may one day replace the electronics industry, involving pulses of light rather than electrons. One of the problems which must be addressed is the production of photonic insulators, effectively perfect mirrors, which exclude photons completely. The theory is to produce materials which can act as Bragg reflectors from any direction of incidence. This can be done by assembling the materials biologically, using strands of DNA to encourage the particles to stick together in the correct configuration, or by drilling arrays of close-packed cylinders into the solid materials. However, the technology to do this at optical wavelengths is not yet available.
After the coffee break was a talk on applications of fluid dynamics in biological systems, including the phenomenon of bioconvection, caused by upward-swimming, bottom-heavy bacteria, and how blood gets up giraffes' necks to their heads! Following a necessarily fast lunch, I dashed off to the Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre, for most of a lovely little talk on predatory dinosaurs -- Clips from "Jurassic Park" thrown in unashamedly! After this, and back to the present day, was a talk on the mathematical modelling of tumour growths, and how it leads to an understanding of why some tumours reach a maximum size, and why others become necrotic in the centre while the outer layers continue to thrive. After this was a fascinating look at epidemic analysis, with particular attention paid to the British measles epidemics of the 1950s and 1960s. The lecture looked at the role of vaccination, birth rate, and how the epidemics themselves affect the number of people who are susceptible to the disease.
The Charles Lyell lecture continued the afternoon, with a look at extinctions over the ages, and how the effects of humans in the environment might be bringing about a modern mass extinction. The talk also addressed possible mechanisms for the previous extinctions, including climate change, species-area reactions (related to continental drift), bolide impacts, "self-organsied criticality" and a "Death Star", which may be a distant partner to the Sun, and could explain the alleged 26-million-year episodicity of extinctions.
The afternoon concluded with the BA General Assembly, the installation of the new president, and a chance to ask questions and make suggestions about the festival in general. After this, the student group were set to meet in the bar for the annual student dinner. This year, we ended up in a rather pleasant Chinese restaurant somewhere in the centre of Leeds, where one of our number proved his manhood by ordering bird's nest, although the shark's fin and (even) frog's leg promised by the menu remained strangely unrequested.
The final day began with the now-traditional Egg Race, in which I was coaxed into taking part this year by the somewhat flagging numbers. The task was deceptively simple; to transport an egg from one table to another using a pseudo-automatic device constructed from two garden canes and a copy of the Telegraph (comments by some, about how this is about all the aforementioned publication is fit for, will not be repeated). My team's tube/slide proved an embarrasing failure, beaten in the end by a catapult device, which narrowly triumphed over another effort which slammed the egg from one table to the other from a height of about four feet above the table top, unfortunately breaking it in the process. The pain of defeat was somewhat softened by the sharing around of chocolates, however.
I took the opportunity of a gap in the programme to nip back to the reception area to buy a rather splendid periodic table tie and a tea towel, before attending a really nice multimedia talk on the history and exploration of Mars, done in the form of a simulated trip to the planet.
Another quick lunch took me onto a talk by Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest on the Big Bang (with no mention made on their new book on the subject, ooh, no, honestly). The talk itself was very well presented, addressing initially the evidence for a Big Bang, namely the expansion of the universe, the background radiation and the abundance of the light elements. The lecture then went on to the more interesting problems of dark matter (again), and the age of the uinverse (now agreed to be around 13 billion years), and from this, the future of the universe. The talk concluded in a rather more abstract vein, looking at theories concerned with "cosmic foam", with large numbers of short-lived baby universes, and the old favourite, black holes.
Returning to the Roger Stevens building, I was able to see most of a talk on elephant communication by infrasound. and how researchers are looking at how groups of elephants keep in contact with one another. Following this was a talk on ultrasound, and how animals make use of it in communication and in object location, using both Doppler shifts and frequency sweeps, and also how the prey of such creatures have begun developing techniques to confuse their hunters. The technology used to investigate this ultrasound was also demonstrated, which, broadly speaking, consists of slowing down the sound, and thus reducing its pitch. This was illustrated by allowing us to hear a pin drop, the apparatus producing a clatter like someone dropping a girder as the pin fell to the desk-top.
The final lecture of the afternoon was on the question of whether science and religion are in need of one another, and addressed such questions as the need for dialogue between members of the two disciplines, and the role of counterintuitivity. The lecture was then followed by a debate on the subject, as people began to drift off as the week came to a close.
Following the debate, I returned to Charles Morris Hall to collect my luggage, before ordering a taxi to the station. Naturally, I missed one of my possible trains by two minutes, but that was not important -- I was able to gain valuable insights into the role of women drivers in modern society from my clearly knowledgeable driver. All in all, the week was highly enjoyable, and as well as the academic benefits, I have learned an important lesson -- Namely, that one should not fiddle with the smoke alarm in one's room, however strange the noises it is making... Also, it is porbably a good idea to find out in advance what, if any, student deals are available before booking. However, I would like to thank everyone who made it possible for me to attend the festival, and look forward to doing so again in the future.
"Are you going to this 'Big Bang'?"
"I'm not sure -- I'll get a headache."
- Overheard in Charles Morris Hall