P&P

One of my supervisors received a conference poster from Brazil. Here is a picture of the envelope it came in - what does it mean?!

Acknowledgement

By far the most read portion of any physics thesis (bar maybe the abstract) is the acknowledgement section. And when a colleague's thesis is finally finished, it is hard to resist the urge to skip to the acknowledgements to see how they considered your role in the last 3-4 years of their work. Although, usually given to family, friends, collaborators etc., occasionally thanks are given to less figurative bodies.

Here is a particularly memorable extract from a colleague at TCD ...

... My eternal gratitude to the Guinness Brewery for the indescribably ambrosian incense with which it sanctifies the grey granite doorsteps of Dublin. Manys and manys the time it has wafted me to a reverie, carried thither and yon on the quickening zephyrs with which Trinity College exhales the soft airs of its centuries of youth. A spouse and midwife to scholarship and fluency, long may it stand at St. James’s Gate ...

I know what you did last summer

Here we have the preprint of the first major paper of the PhD,

Nesting of electron and hole Fermi surfaces in non-superconducting BaFe₂P₂

n. b. I promise this is the real deal and not some April fools joke, despite being posted on the arxiv on the 1st

Good use of LaTeX

When I was an undergraduate, my mother asked how things were progressing academically. I handed her a lab report that had just been assessed along with demonstrator comments.

In retrospect 'Good use of LaTeX for an engaging presentation' is a bit of weird thing to write, even if you know about typesetting.

A Buckfast Supplier in Bristol

Something that every seasoned academic should know is where to get hold of a bottle of `Buckfastleigh Tonic Wine` in their town of study.

CARPENTER'S CONVENIENCE STORE on the Corner of Gloucester Rd. and Ashley Down Rd. sells for a fairly reasonable 6-8 pounds a bottle (I don't remember the exact price)

J. Wrng. Sci. now online

The first volume of the Journal of Wrong Science is now online. I present to you A SIMULATION OF PLANETARY MOTION - J. Wrng. Sci. 1 (2010) 12

A day in the life ...

From 'At Swim Two Birds' by Flann O'Brien

Nature of daily regime or curriculum: Nine-thirty a.m. rise, wash, shave and proceed to breakfast; this on insistence of my uncle, who was accustomed to regard himself as the sun of the household, recalling all things to wakefulness on his own rising.

10.30. Return to bedroom.

12.00. Go, weather permitting, to College, there conducting light conversation on diverse topics with friends, or with acquaintances of casual character.

2.00 pm. Go home for lunch.

3.00. Return to bedroom. Engage in spare-time literary activity, or read.

6.00. Have tea in company with my uncle, attending in a perfunctory manner to the replies required by his talk.

7.00 Return to bedroom and rest in darkness.

8.00. Continue resting or meet acquaintances in open thoroughfares or places of public resort.

11.00. Return to bedroom.

Minutiae: No. of cigarettes smoked, average 8.3; glasses of stout or other comparable intoxicant, av. 1.2; times to stool, av. 2.65; hours of study, av. 1.4; spare-time or recreative pursuits, 6.63 circulating.