From Oxford

True to form, the Wellington English sent my passport, with no email acknowledgement, to Christchurch, with a visa stamp that expires on April 4, 2009. So I threw everything in my case in 10 minutes, hopped into Kerie's car with Kerie, and headed for Christchurch, six hours away by road. I then took a short flight to Auckland, followed by a very, very long flight to London via Hong Kong, arriving only a few hours ago. Am now enjoying the sights, staying at Oriel College, and will have to figure out where the Computing Lab is tomorrow.

From Christchurch

Now 4.50am in Christchurch and I'm wide awake. It turns out that Oxford University have yet again had difficulties making foreign salary payments, and they neglected to pay me last month. Fortunately, I pre-booked all buses and am heading to Mt John this morning. Heavy snow is expected.

Mt John News VI

Weather permitting, today's plan involves a pleasant wander up the Hopkins valley with a few astronomers. Tomorrow I head for Christchurch, and Monday for Australia. Put a prawn on the barbie for me ...

Oxford Life IV

Strangely enough, the frequent obstacles of construction work and hordes of tourists here reminds me a lot of Christchurch NZ. But in other ways, England is really very different. One is supposed to tip in restaurants (sacrebleu), an average bathroom is about the size of a bathtub, and people seem to have trouble understanding that in the southern summer there are places where it is 13 hours ahead of GMT.

Meanwhile, my passport has finally wandered off into the bowels of the Home Office together with my original PhD certificate, which is nicely soiled and crumpled after its three month holiday in Wellington. Unsurprisingly, I had to fill out a long form containing almost exactly the same information they have already been given several times previously, such as the fact that I harbour no terrorist intentions or am not in any other way a person of dubious character!

Neutrino08 Day 6a

Everyone who goes down to Antarctica to work on IceCube must pass through Christchurch, and it is not surprising that UC has a neutrino physics group, which is led by Jenni Adams. The IceCube talk on Saturday morning was given by S. Klein, who began with a description of the detector: 4800 optical modules on 80 strings reaching down 2450m into the ice at the South Pole. This depth represents roughly 100000 years of atmospheric history, and one can see ancient volcanic eruptions due to dust layers observed in the calibration data. There is also a 1 $\textrm{km}^{2}$ surface array of tanks. When the full detector (IC80) is in operation in 2011 they estimate 200 $\nu$ events per day.

There are a number of trigger systems, for example, the firing of 5 of 7 adjacent optical modules on a single string within $1.5 \mu\textrm{s}$. About 6% of events are considered sufficiently interesting to send north via satellite. IceCube is close to releasing a skymap for IC22, which is about 5 times more sensitive than IC9. Some searches were triggered, including the very bright GRB080119B event, although IceCube only expects 0.1 associated $\nu_{\mu}$ events.

Results: The solar WIMP search found no excess and the AMANDA limits have been improved. The solar outburst of December 13, 2006 indicated no large spectral changes. A preliminary cosmic ray spectrum was shown.

Roast Yam

One of the more common introduced mammals in the Southern Alps is the YAM (young Australian male). These mammals usually congregate in pairs, or in packs up to ten. I met an uncharacteristically charming and intelligent specimen yesterday in Christchurch. We got to talking about his recent climb of Mt Sefton and then he spotted me reading some papers and said he was very interested in physics, and he was even thinking of going back to university to study it (his background was in the Arts).

It transpired that he had been listening to radio shows on the String Wars, and in particular he remembered an episode on a certain book, the title of which he could not quite remember. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he was very keen to hear all about Category Theory! He said that there had to be something very wrong with physics when it was perfectly clear to a layman such as himself that the entrenched concepts being discussed were so plainly inadequate. We agreed that neuroscientists, for instance, had a better conceptual picture of the measurement of space than many physicists. I must confess, I had no idea this topic had become so mainstream.

Mount Cook has had a number of fatal accidents over the years, but very few lucky escapes. Last week, however, a group of three climbers headed down towards the Linda glacier from the summit. They attached themselves via a sling to a large rock, which then gave way (the rock, that is) as two of the climbers began to abseil. The guy at the top survived the fall, because a small falling rock cut cleanly through the anchor sling, separating him from his colleagues.

NP2008

After the removal of Garrett Lisi's paper from the hep-th arxiv, Carl Brannen pointed out on Louise's blog that any publicity was good publicity, and that we should now announce a conference for the New Physics. So I hereby offer my Christchurch garden as an excellent venue for NP2008: a half hour bus ride into town, nearby walks, internet connection (I might need to borrow a computer, but people will have laptops anyway) and good weather outside the months June to September. What do you think?

Amongst those I would like to invite (as plenary speakers) are Carl Brannen, Michael Rios, Matti Pitkanen, Tony Smith, Louise Riofrio, Garrett Lisi, Laurent Freidel, Urs Schreiber, Bob Coecke and Lubos Motl. Unfortunately, you will all have to pay your own way, but a sleeping bag and a tent is a cheap option.

Change of Season

Since I moved to Christchurch five years ago I have, while penniless, moved abode 16 times, been through 5 thesis supervisors, been hospitalised 3 times and once missing presumed dead (and the geniuses in my department seemed a bit surprised to discover I was stressed). Now after 6 months in the same home I feel positively settled! And today it mysteriously turns out that I'm a prominent blogger of some kind, at least according to Math Bloggers. But must run: I have an interview for a waitressing job in town.

Standing Still

After a few pleasant days in Wanaka I found myself in Christchurch once again, so I went to see the movie The day the Earth stood still. I especially enjoyed the bit where the alien crosses out the Dark Force term in the equations of relativity.

Slippery Sunday

This is it, folks! Topos theory (a la Isham at least) has made it to the cover of New Scientist. Thanks to The Cafe for the news. Our mathematician friends will doubtless be amused by the prospect of overhearing debates about intuitionism on the bus.

Meanwhile, Christchurch hosts the Armageddon Expo this weekend. People are certainly being entertained. Don't forget to register for GRG18 in July! The conference website now has a preliminary timetable and participant list.

Fairy Update

A quick note: Neutrino 2008 is to be held here in Christchurch in May. Tommaso reports on the top mass, and another blogger reports on the latest news about DO constraints on SUSY, giving new mass limits for neutralinos and charginos. Meanwhile, Conway tells us that the Fairy Bump has disappeared. As Theseus would say,

More strange than true: I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

Moving Up

Tomorrow is my last day at work in Christchurch. In a few days I'll be sitting in the uncrowded outdoor spa at the base of Mt John, which is probably snow covered now, looking at this view. Tough to be poor? Not this week.

Winter Weekend

Christchurch lies at sea level, but sometimes in winter it snows here. It wasn't the nicest day to be out yesterday, but a long walk home was unavoidable when the buses stopped running up the hill where I live. This morning the skies cleared and I could only sigh as I viewed the glistening distant alps on my way to work.

The Institute

Ben Webster asks us where and how we would build a new research institute. As previously mentioned, I would build a centre for pure Category Theory and its applications in everything from physics and computer science to neuroscience and linguistics. John Armstrong has already signed up for an NZ based institute. The first question is, urban or rural? Come on. This is the 21st century, so let's choose somewhere pleasant to live, where time off from the office can be spent on a variety of outdoor activities. Kaikoura is the place. Lonely Hapuku hut is only a few hours walk from potential institute sites in the lower Hapuku valley. There is access to a large area of scenic mountain hiking. One could take an easy walk up the Mt Fyffe road in the morning and then enjoy whale watching in the afternoon. If tired of swimming with the seals, or skiing, or wine tasting, one could always turn to a geological tour. The so called Kaikoura orogeny, beginning about 25 million years ago, is the uplifting process that forms the Southern Alps. This institute would be cheap to build, since Kaikoura is sparsely populated. It is easily accessible by road and rail from Christchurch, three hours away.

Still Down South

As the nice lady at Air New Zealand said to me, in sympathy at my status as an undesirable alien, at least I can enjoy more of the summer. My little cabin in the garden has been very comfortable. But next week it is probably time to move on, so if no visa appears I will head down south again to Wanaka, from where it is easy enough to catch a bus back to Christchurch.