Where I’m calling from

I know that nobody cares about the peregrinations of astrophysicists but there’s not much else to blog about when you’re on the road. So a quick explanation of my absence from the blogosphere:

Last week, I was in Taipei for the CoSPA meeting (at which website you can find a copy of my talk on Bayesian Analysis of CMB Data — although as I tell the students that I’m teaching about giving presentations, if you could get all the information from the slides, what we be the point of listening?). Aside from interesting talks on the early Universe, measurements of varying fundamental “constants”, and new experimental initiatives in Taiwan and elsewhere, the meeting was especially notable for a banquet which featured that venerable Taiwanese institution — the Beaujolais Nouveau!

After a 24-hour stopover back in London, this week I’m in Trieste at SISSA, where I’m giving a couple of talks, one on the analysis of Microwave Background data (highlighting work done with my students JZ and AN) and another one, later today, on gravitational waves from supermassive black hole binaries at the centers of galaxies, work largely done with another student, DD. (Of course when I say “work done with” a student, I really mean “work done by” that student — they deserve all of the credit!). I’ve also got to spend a few wonderful hours actually talking about science in front of a blackboard with collaborators and understand how gravitational waves evolve and propagate in the early Universe (at least that’s the idea).

Happy Thanksgiving!