Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

Cursory Louvre post

Hilary and I spent this morning and afternoon exploring the Louvre. The combination of art and architecture is superb. I especially like the high-ceilinged galleries of the Denon Wing and the marble sculptures. Thankfully, the place was a lot less crowded than I have been told it gets at the height of summer.

The general Paris experience is surprisingly familiar. I suppose I expected it to be much more different from London than it actually is – at least on a superficial level. One pleasant surprise is that I have been able to operate fairly well in French, though I am sure any kind of in-depth conversation would be far beyond me at the moment. Hopefully, next year will bring opportunities to become conversant again.

Tonight, we are apparently visiting an area famous for having the world’s finest falafel. It’s not a foodstuff I have ever really enjoyed, so I suppose this will be the ultimate test of whether that is the product of exposure to inferior falafel or an abiding personal dislike of the stuff.

Tomorrow, we may be going to Versailles.

Brief Parisian hello

Hilary and I have arrived safely in Paris and passed a very enjoyable evening in Mike’s company. A longer description, along with photos, will appear at a time when I am not sitting outside with a borrowed laptop, accessing the web courtesy of someone’s unsecured access point. People who have ‘must see’ suggestions for this city are encouraged to post a comment about them.

Lazy science reporting

People may have noticed that the news today is saturated with stories about scientists ‘discovering Kryptonite:’ the fictional substance that causes Superman to lose his powers. The claim is based on how the chemical formula for the new mineral – discovered in Siberia – is the same as the one invented for Kryptonite in the film Superman Returns. Obviously, this is just a fluke that arose because of some words a scriptwriter or prop designer happened to string together. No insight arises from referring to the new mineral with reference to the film. To me, this seems like the same kind of cheap, low-brow science reporting as when all the coverage about ‘hobbits’ being discovered emerged in response to the discovery of H. floresiensis.

I can understand why a journalist might want to put out a fluff piece like these and then take the weekend off, but it really isn’t ‘science’ reporting in any meaningful sense. It is especially depressing when quality newspapers decide to print such rubbish, perhaps hoping to attract a few more readers. It is astonishing to me that they lack allure on their own, when discussing serious science. After all, the pace of ongoing discovery and technological development is staggering, and it has never been more important for ordinary citizens to understand the natural and man-made phenomena that influence the ways in which we live.

PS. Claire, Hilary, and I saw many goats today. Here are some goats eating plants.

Final exams

I now know when my final exams will take place. Twentieth century history will be at 9:30am on the 11th of June. At 2:30pm that afternoon, I will have my IR theory exam. On Tuesday at 2:30pm, I have my international law exam. Wednesday at 9:30am, I have my developing world exam. After that, I will have completed all the coursework and exams associated with the MPhil, barring the unlikely possibility of having a viva voce exam.

Oxford verdant and twittering

The emergence of spring in Oxford is rather dramatic. I would expect that this seems especially true for someone from Vancouver. Since most of our trees are coniferous, the degree of colour change that accompanies the passage of the seasons is much less pronounced. Our green mountainsides may spend less time obstructed by cloud-banks, but we are rarely treated to the elegant site of a large and ancient tree gaining or shedding its foliage.

In addition, Oxford seems to be positively thronged with birds these days: singing in the early morning and escorting the first – almost comically cute – ducklings along the banks of the Cherwell. All this has made showing Hilary around even more enjoyable. Today included a lengthy visit to the Natural History Museum and a far shorter one to the Museum of the History of Science, complete with the famous Einstein blackboard. Attending my first OUSSG meeting in a year in a non-executive capacity was enjoyable, even if I didn’t partake in the very fine dinner that takes place beforehand.

Speaking of the OUSSG, some of you may remember when I said that the Oxford University Strategic Studies Group needs a new webmaster? Well, the position remains open. The level of work involved is fairly limited and the group is a rather interesting one. Anyone who can run a blog knows enough about the web to maintain the site.

Solar eruption

The Japanese Hinode satellite, launched in 2006, is meant to study the sun from a sun-synchronous orbit. On December 13th, it got quite a show. Sunspot 930 has released an X-class solar flare: twice as large as the Earth, and sufficiently powerful to make the Aurora visible as far south as Arizona.

The video is available here (MPEG). More information is on this NASA page.

Such flares are one reason why it is dangerous to be heavily reliant upon satellites for either communication or navigation. During periods of extreme ionic disturbance, GPS receivers can give positions that are off by thousands of kilometres. The streams of highly energetic particles produced by such flares eventually reach the Earth and threaten both automated satellites and manned vehicles.

The radiation from solar flares is also one challenge involved in a possible manned mission to Mars; with the kind of timescales involved and the absence of the protection from Earth’s magnetic field, the danger posed by such radiation could be considerable.

Chester Arms jazz

Thanks to Daily Info, Hilary and I found something much less generic than a movie to do tonight: specifically, we discovered the entertaining jazz nights that take place every Monday at the Chester Arms on Chester Road, off Iffley Road. There is no cover charge, the music is good, and the atmosphere is a pleasant one. The music begins at 9:00pm. I shall be making a return trip or two during weeks later this term.

Into Trinity 07

So begins my last term in Oxford: eight more weeks, two papers, eight more dinners in college, and four exams. This term involves no coursework (otherwise it would be curious to be heading to Paris for four days), but it will involve the review of all the coursework completed so far, in preparation for our final examinations. Hopefully, we will have our thesis results back before we need to sit down for those. I am told that all my coursemates who took the gamble of having their theses printed this morning managed to submit them to the Exam Schools on time. After a year and a half of jumping hurdles (and hoops) together, exams are the only major thing left to worry about.

Tonight, Hilary and I are meeting up with Antonia for a while. We may also be going to the 8:45pm show of The Lives of Others at the Phoenix. I know absolutely nothing about it, but have heard enough general praise from friends to be willing to put in the effort to see it.

PS. Impressed by some of the speeches of his I have seen, I am reading Barack Obama‘s new book The Audacity of Hope during and before my trip to Paris. I am especially interested in what he has to say about the US Constitution, given that he taught about it at the University of Chicago and he is a member of the strongest body in the legislative branch. Perhaps reading this book will help me decide which Democratic candidate has the most appeal.

Spiraling through town

I am off to deposit my thesis at the Exam Schools. Then, I am giving my friend Hilary – who is visiting Oxford for four days prior to our departure for Paris – my comprehensive tour of Oxford. Those who have been given it before will remember that it is fairly lengthy: with southern and northern components that can very easily take three hours or more each.

[Update: 2:30pm] The thesis has been deposited. Both literally and figuratively, it is now out of my hands. I hope all the people who dared to have theirs bound in London this morning managed to get them submitted to the Exam Schools by noon.

Red light

With people banning incandescent lightbulbs and the days finally approaching appropriate summer length, it seems as good a time as any to be thinking about light. On the human retina, there are two major kinds of photoreceptive cells: cones (which identify colour) and rods (which are only sensitive to the overall brightness of light). Because rods are the more sensitive of the two, people actually see in black and white, when it is properly dark.

Like photographic paper, rods are not sensitive to long wavelengths of visible light, over on the red side of the spectrum. This is because the shorter the wavelength of a particular photon, the more energetic it is. Further to that, only light of a sufficiently narrow wavelength can accomplish certain tasks. For instance, only light of a sufficiently narrow wavelength can excite metals so as to produce the photovoltaic effect used in solar cells. Brian Greene has a rather good explanation of this in his book The Elegant Universe: the first half of which is a highly comprehensible primer on twentieth century physics.

The upside of red light not being able to affect rods is that one can be immersed in red light without losing the ability to see in the dark subsequently. This is why submarines are sometimes illuminated with red light – allowing the crew to see more than would otherwise be possible in the event of a power failure – and one reason I am hoping my replacement headlamp will be especially useful. The last one vanished curiously before the Devon trip, earning me a very nasty knock on the head caused by a thick low beam outside. The lost headlamp served admirably during the 2003 New York City blackout, as well as in a great many places besides, The new one, which has a mode in which it produces only red light, will probably be useful during stays in future hostels. It may also provide some interesting lighting possibilities for future photographs; high contrast red and black compositions can be quite compelling.