Corpus Christi and St Hugh’s college balls are set to merge as a result of poor ticket sales for the Corpus Christi ball.Corpus JCR President Meg Powell-Chandler blamed the attraction of larger college balls as overshadowing the Corpus Christi event, for which the college only managed to sell 200 tickets. Powell-Chandler said, “It has been a shame that the smaller balls have found it hard to sell tickets and gain sponsorship, but that is unsurprising with big balls like the Worcester College one next term.”Following consultation with the JCR committee and a student vote, which supported the merger by an overwhelming majority, Corpus Christi Ball President Rhiannon Ward has joined forces with Alex Joseph, Ball President of St Hugh’s. Ward commented, “Hugh’s has a bigger capacity than us, plus they had sold more tickets than we had at the time. Merging has increased our market share of the ticket sales so we no longer have to keep worrying about how they sell.”The decision has met opposition from certain members of Hugh’s JCR, who are unhappy that Corpus students may end up paying less for their tickets, and with the fact that the theme was a Corpus decision.However, Joseph has said this was always likely to be the case. He said, “It all happened quite quickly and we had to rush through the bureaucracy so we didn’t carry out a vote amongst the JCR. However, we did consult the JCR committee who unanimously agreed. The fact of the matter is, our ball happens once every two years and we want to make this one better than the last.”The original theme for the St Hugh’s ball was ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, but with the merger comes a new theme, ‘Heaven and Hell’, contributed by Corpus Christi.Joseph said, “We were planning a fairly big ball for around 550 to 650 people. We have a capacity of 1,000 so it seemed logical to go ahead with the merger. We’re hoping around 350 people from Corpus will attend, and with 200 tickets already sold, and so much more interest since we announced the merger, we’re well on our way.”Powell-Chandler, said, “The ball merger is a really good thing from the Corpus perspective […] I’m sure it will be an incredible success.”The ball will now take place on Saturday of first week next term at St Hugh’s College. Competition includes the Exeter College Garden Ball due to take place on Saturday of noughth week and the Balliol College Ball scheduled for Saturday of second week.
by Omotola Akerele
 

The Burton Taylor Studio, 28th February-1st March 
Dennis Kelly’s Debris begins with the Crucifixion. This, though undeniably comparable with the Christian sacrifice it mimics, does not exactly follow any predictable pattern. Perhaps expecting the nobility and tortured resolve of a martyr, we are confronted with a very different spectacle: a flatulent, middle- aged, widowed, alcoholic father-of-two stapling himself to the ceiling; with the aid of ice-lolly sticks. This is provocative imagery and, in the words of his sixteen-year-old son Michael (Matt Maltby), who is first to be greeted by the display, there was no thought of suicide in his eyes. His thoughts, we are led to believe, have their root in anger, sorrow, and the painful realities of a thankless life. But this is only a two-person play, and all this is presented through the eyes of his two young children. The crucifixion is recounted through the eyes of Michael, who, in a dramatic opening soliloquy, creates a poignant, realistic and subtle interplay between character and narrator voice, half-imagined, half-witnessed. Events are described in a disconcerting blend of clinical minutiae and bursts of emotional grandiloquence, introducing the theme of reality as juxtaposed with his own truth and that of his sister Michelle (Sarah Milne-Das). It is a very personal pathos created here. The use of such young protagonists does in no way detract from the impact of the play’s message; to the contrary, the self-conscious incongruity between the poetic register of dialogue and the age and emotional maturity of the siblings captivates us and allows us entry into their world, where reality and childlike fantasy are inseparable. This is emphasised by the unaffected familial chemistry between Michael and Michelle, which develops as the play progresses; in fact, their two different paces of delivery help the flow of the play by off-setting one another, and disrupting any predictable rhythm of dialogue.In Debris, relationships are paramount. They dictate how the children learn to make sense of their place in the world and of each other, and inform their opinion of normalcy – coupled, of course, with the judicious presence of television. This is most striking when the children take it upon themselves to consider the fundamental developmental requirements of an infant, the infant in question having been discovered naked in a garbage heap only to be regarded suckling blood at his surrogate father’s teet: “They need a telly”.Pause. “This is true.” This clearly illustrates the play’s inherent cynicism, but also contrasts it with a dark, but no less pertinent, humour. Maltby and Milne-Das deliver their lines strongly, passionately and with an acute sense of timing, comparable to the Oxford Imps as well as any classical actor. We are drawn inexorably into their understanding of raw survival in the face of human degradation, and as the lines between the reality of truth and the reality created within the secret confines of the play begin to blur, it is their strong performances that, in the words of the playwright himself, “make it all real”. Let's not beat about the bush: fantastic play, fantastic production, fantastic performances. Combined are humourous philosophical insights with excruciating attendant circumstance. The Burton Taylor Studio provides the perfect intimacy for this piece as the audience sits on the brink of the action, while the space is used imaginatively about them. Thank you Will Maynard for your superb direction and a wonderful evening. You can always tell a really good play by the silence that greets it at the end, no one willing to break the spell before the well-deserved applause. By Philippa Harris and Lara Giuliana Gouveia Simonetti. 

A proposal to build a VIP area at Clementines nightclub has been rejected by Oxford councillors at an East Area Committee meeting, while students have insisted the locals are “wrong to oppose such a scheme.”

Clementines in St Clement’s Street, East Oxford, had put forward plans to convert an adjacent hairdressers into a VIP area with a capacity of 20 people. Although the application was originally recommended for approval by Oxford City Council planning officers, the east area committee voted by two to one, with three abstentions, to turn down the plans. The councillors believed that the plans would result in noise disturbances for locals living in York Place and sheltered housing in Anchor Court.Councillor Young, Chair of the East Area Committee, said “One of the councillors had had lots of complaints from residents of a sheltered housing building for the elderly that people were coming there late at night and being ill at the rear of Clementines in York Place. People were worried the plans were not soundproof. We did not reject it but we asked them to come back with specific plans for soundproofing of the room they are proposing to use. That is an old house and it is more difficult to sound proof old houses.”

Luis Carrera, the owner of the club, confirmed that he was going to alter his plans. He said, “My plan is to submit another application. Everyone recommended the application. And after the rejection they recommended to put in another application.”

 Students have reacted angrily to the current rejection of the plans. Adam Tozzi, a third-year Historian at Pembroke, said  “I think the locals are wrong to oppose such a scheme, they seem to get very agitated at the idea of student drinking yet anyone that ventures out on a Friday or Saturday will know that Oxford city centre becomes a much more intimidating prospect when the 'locals' themselves are drinking. Clems offers a haven to students to have a good time and not feel threatened because of who they are.”

Neil Gallagher, a Brasenose Graduate studying Clinical Medicine, explained that “I used to live 100m from clems for 3 years with my room facing the street and never heard much. Occasionally you would hear drunks stumbling back up St Clements but they could have come from anywhere! I personally wouldn't have complained about it as a resident but I'm not surprised it got vetoed.” by Rob Pomfret

Ben Williams takes a look at the policies of US presidential candidates regarding climate change.

The two terms in office served by President Bush could hardly have been more damaging to the environment. Clearly the world’s current situation cannot be solely attributed to one man and one country, far from it. However the USA, as the hegemonic power in international relations, certainly has a greater ability to affect the trajectory of global climate policy than any other state. As the global leader, the example set by the USA will be followed by other countries, and of course it is impossible to reach an effective inter-state agreement on climate policy without the support of the world’s predominant power.

Not only is the USA vital in influencing the policies of other states, but the emissions of the USA alone constitute a large percentage of global greenhouse gas output. America produces 22.2% of the world’s carbon emissions. China is catching up at a ferocious rate, now accountable for 18.4% of emissions, although it has a population nearly 4 times the size of the USA. That its emissions are still below the levels of the Americans demonstrates that the USA is still by far the biggest polluter in the world proportionally as well as in total output. Indeed the statistics for per capita emissions support this statement. Each person in America emits on average close to 19.5 tonnes of CO₂ per year. Again, this is a world-leading total and is nearly 3 tonnes ahead of the next highest proportional polluter, Australia.

The USA is now also the only major country still not to have ratified the Kyoto treaty after Australia’s newly elected prime minister ratified it immediately after taking office. Clearly then, America is by far the world’s most polluting state. The waves of anti-Americanism that seem so salient in recent years are not without foundation when it comes to climate policy. It may sometimes seem as though the USA is used as a scapegoat upon which blame for the problem of global warming is placed, and perhaps its poor record is used to distract us from our own inaction. Still, there is no doubt that America is deserving of its poor reputation on climate action.

Yet there is reason to hope now, as the Bush years finally draw to a close. Irrevocable damage has already been done to the environment, but the worst consequences of climate change can still be prevented and the policies of the presidential candidates seem to acknowledge this. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both co-sponsored the most stringent carbon cap bill in the Senate. They also want an 80% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 as well as the introduction of a cap and trade system whereby carbon credits are introduced and those companies that emit above the limits of their credits are forced to buy credits from companies that emit below them. Republican candidate John McCain also supports this system of carbon trading and wants the capping of greenhouse-gas emissions at 2004 levels by 2012 and then reducing them by 65 percent by 2050.

Clinton has gone further by supporting a controversial shake-up of oil companies whereby a proportion of their windfalls would have to be transferred to investment in renewable energy. She would also like to see 20% of US energy demands met by renewable energy resources by 2020 and has promised to invest $50 billion into research and development of renewable energy and clean coal technology, and new methods of achieving energy efficiency.

How many of these promises are pre-election rhetoric to win the ‘green vote’ is debatable. That both Obama and Clinton’s main emissions reduction targets are the same for instance is more than a little coincidental. It should also be noted that environmental issues, whilst becoming more important to the American voter, are far from being given precedence over issues such as Iraq and immigration. What is clear, and promising, is that whoever becomes the next US president does consider climate change to be an issue worth tackling and that all candidates have set ambitious promises. While there is no guarantee they will be kept, it does show recognition of the need for urgent action. This has not been the case in the Oval Office before.

What is most ironic about the whole situation is that it is the failed presidential candidate from 8 years ago who is most responsible for making climate change an issue is deemed important enough to be included in the policy objectives of the current presidential candidates. Al Gore’s contribution to raising the profile of climate issues might be populist and sensationalist, but it is the most important one that has been made to the American populace. Perhaps, if he had gained a few hundred more votes in Florida, Al Gore would never have become the climate activist that he is today. He certainly wouldn’t have made ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. At least then, through the election of the unyielding Bush, something good came out of it – if only for the environment. This might finally bear fruit when the new most powerful man or woman in the world is elected come November.

Four new CCTV cameras, costing around £96,000, are to be placed along the Cowley road, in problem areas recognised by the City Council. Cameras will be placed at The Plain, opposite Princes Street, near the public toilets in Manzil Gardens and at the end of Magdalen Road. The camera at Manzil Gardens is welcomed by the staff at Premier Lettings, who work opposite the site where a  man was found dead on Saturday, February 16. Manager Jo Soden hopes that “CCTV will act as an additional deterrent” to the heightened police presence in the area.

By Sophie Pitman

Cherwell24 investigates the extent to which Visiting Students feel integrated in Oxford University

Rhian Holvey takes us on a tour through physics and fiction, dark matter and dust. 
 

Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy is undoubtedly one of the most popular and controversial fantasy series on the current market. It is a story about a girl, Lyra, from a parallel universe and a boy, Will, from our own. The series is wide-ranging and covers many themes, including religion, love, humanity and even concepts from modern scientific research. Perhaps the most obvious of these theories is that of parallel worlds; but in fact the core concept of the trilogy, even its title, points to another: Dust, shadows or dark matter.

 

Dust

The concept of Dust is introduced almost from the very beginning of ‘His Dark Materials’. It is first mentioned when Lyra hides in the retiring room and hears Lord Asriel giving a presentation to the Jordan College scholars. In it he shows a ‘photogram’ (slide) in which a special solution has been used to show up a glowing collection of particles falling down upon a man and it is these he identifies as Dust. An explanation of this is given later on. When Lyra enquires as to what these particles are, she is told:

 

"Dust is what makes the alethiometer [Lyra’s truth telling device] work…. You’ve heard of electrons, photons, neutrinos, and the rest? They’re called elementary particles because you can’t break them down any further…"

 

This idea is built upon in the second book (‘The Subtle Knife’) when Lyra visits Dr. Mary Malone, a physicist researching what she calls ‘shadow particles’ or ‘dark matter’ in the University of Oxford. Mary has been using a machine to research the strange phenomenon and is surprised to find that Lyra’s visit proves conclusively that the particles are conscious.

Although there is no evidence that any such conscious particles exist, dark matter is a real field of research and interesting parallels can be seen between the books’ description and reality.

 

Missing Masses

Dark matter was first postulated by a Swiss scientist, Fritz Zwicky, in 1933 due to his studies of the velocities of galaxy clusters, but no further evidence was found until the late 1960’s, when Vera Rubin was studying spiral galaxies. The force acting on such a galaxy can either be described by Newtonian gravity or centrifugally; the equations for both are shown below:

 

                               G.M(r).m                                                    mv²

Newtonian gravity:  F=      r²              Centrifugal force: F= mrw² =   r

 

Where M(r) is a function of mass with distance from the galaxy centre (r), m the mass of a single star, w the angular velocity and v the linear velocity.

 

As the forces are equal, these equations can be combined and, after rearrangement, the linear velocity can be given as a function of the gravitational force and M(r):

 

                       

Thus, as r increases, a point is reached where the mass outside this radius is negligible, i.e. M(r) ~ M_T (or the total mass of the galaxy) so the velocity is expected to taper out as it approximates to (a constant/ r)^1/2. This does not occur since most stars orbit at the same speed. The simplest solution to this problem is to assume that there is a significant proportion of mass outside the containment area. In some cases, more than 50% of the mass of the galaxy must be within the relatively dark galactic halo.

These masses cannot be accounted for by observed bodies and are only detectable through observation of galactic gravitational forces. Hence the name ‘dark matter’ as, since it does not emit or reflect electromagnetic radiation, it cannot be observed directly. This gives the first parallel with the Dust of Pullman’s novels, for it is invisible to the naked eye and can only be detected or observed by use of special equipment such as Mary Malone’s machine in Oxford or, later, the amber spyglass.

So how does dark matter interact? There are four known forces: gravity, electromagnetism, strong (that which holds nuclei together) and weak (that which governs radioactive decay). We have already ruled out electromagnetism and dark matter’s gravitational effects have already been discussed, leaving strong and weak forces. Strong forces, however, have too short a range: 10^-15 m. Thus, weak forces give the best chance of detecting dark matter.

 

The Nature of Dust

The exact composition of dark matter, even the question of its existence, is still being debated. Many suggestions as to its nature have been proposed, from ideas wildly different to Dust to models where the leap is not hard to achieve.

To begin with models unlike Dust, it has been suggested that astronomical bodies that do not shine could be responsible for the undetected masses in galaxies. The main entities in this group are brown dwarfs: stars which never got large enough to achieve hydrogen nuclear fusion. These “stars” can have up to 80% of the mass of our sun but are also very dense, having powerful quantum effects which make them a good candidate for dark matter. Other bodies include normal planets (which are difficult to detect even when eclipsing their star), clouds of non-luminous gas and black holes. These are collectively called MACHOs -MAssive Compact Halo Objects – an acronym invented mainly to match the similar WIMPs discussed below!

These entities seem to fit the bill for dark matter, as they are suitably massive whilst being undetectable by electromagnetic radiation. However, planets and asteroids are not favoured as a model for the missing matter since planets like Earth are not heavy enough to account for it. Black holes are and though they remain undetectable by light, as this cannot escape, large ones can be detected by the tumultuous activity at their limits, thus rendering them an unlikely explanation.

Another theoretical candidate for dark matter is a new type of elementary particles called WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) which, as the name suggests, have mass but interact primarily by weak forces and not electromagnetism. Dust is frequently described as an elementary particle in the trilogy and certain of their properties (their smallness and presence throughout the universe, even their penetration of matter) suggest WIMPs as the “real” counterpart of Dust. The smallness of WIMPs is overcome by proposing that many of them exist, and there is often talk of “clouds” of such particles which normal matter moves through unimpeded.

Neutrinos in particular have been proposed as a candidate for dark matter as they are uncharged and found in b-decay (i.e. have weak force interactions). The issue with this theory is that for a long time neutrinos were thought to have no mass and thus could not be responsible for the gravitational effects on galaxies. Relatively recent studies on the neutrinos released from the b-decay occurring during fusion of hydrogen to helium in the Sun indicate otherwise. It is possible, though difficult, to detect the neutrinos reaching Earth and it is found that the quantity is a third of that expected. There are in fact three types of neutrino: electron, muon and tau neutrinos of which the Sun produces the first, and these are the ones detected. If the neutrinos have mass, however, it is possible for them to undergo neutrino oscillation, converting them into the different forms. This is thought to be the reason for the neutrino deficit, as two thirds are converted into the undetected types and thus neutrinos must have mass.

However, the theory of neutrinos being the missing mass in galaxies is not widely accepted as they cannot pack closely enough at galactic centres due to their repulsiveness. They also move too fast and thus would not clump together to encourage the formation of galaxies.

Other forms of WIMP have not been ruled out. In the process of trying to construct a unified theory of electromagnetism and weak forces, a postulate known as supersymmetry (one first used in 1973 for early string theory and subsequently applied elsewhere) was used. This theory suggests that for each boson there is a “superpartner” which is a fermion, e.g. photons and their partner photinos. This theoretically doubles the number of particles known, but it is thought that partners may be much heavier than their counterparts and thus would require much higher energies to be created. This heaviness makes them favourable candidates for dark matter; a particular example of such a postulate is the neutralino which would be heavy and long-lived as well as being weakly interacting. These particles would be able to pass through normal matter and thus would be hard to detect. Experiments would require high sensitivity as information from the detection of dark matter must be removed from background signals due to normal matter. This draws another parallel with ‘His Dark Materials’, as the amber spyglass made by Mary Malone can still see normal matter while making the eye sensitive to Dust, converting its image somehow into light (an unlikely candidate for a detector outside of fiction
ue to the seeming dependence on electromagnetic radiation!). Current experiments on the detection of WIMPs show conflicting results and thus the question of whether this is dark matter remains unresolved.

 

The Future?

Despite the fiction of Mary Malone, in recent years a new theory of dark matter has been proposed by researchers in the University of Oxford. They propose a dark matter particle too light to detect or clump together but which can collide with denser dark matter in galaxy centres. Such a collision would, in theory, produce pairs of electrons and their antiparticles, positrons, which would move off at high speed until annihilation and production of a high energy photon beam (gamma rays). The interest of this theory is that such beams have already been detected coming from the centres of galaxies, but research is too early to draw conclusions yet.

The fact remains that dark matter is still a mystery and that any or all of the theories could prove in some way to be correct. It may even be possible that future research will disprove the existence of dark matter entirely, attributing the “missing mass” to modified gravity or quantum effects. Or perhaps, however unlikely, it may be revealed that dark matter is conscious, as in the case of Philip Pullman’s elusive Dust.

Police across Oxfordshire are to be issued with cameras which fit into their cycle helmets or can be worn on their shoulders.

After a successful pilot in East Oxford, it is expected that the entire county’s police should be fitted with the Body Worn Video Recording Cameras (BWVCs) by the summer.

According to a report by Thames Valley Police, the cameras are necessary to capture evidence of antisocial behaviour and should therefore lead to increased detections of street crime. It is also possible that the video cameras will lead to more guilty pleas in court and fewer complaints and assaults against officers.

PC Mike Ellis, anti-social behaviour co-ordinator for Thames Valley Police, said "Once they have been delivered to us, we will spend time training officers in their use. We hope to finish this process by summer."

70 cameras will be bought at a cost of more than £1,000 each, 25 of which will be used in Oxfordshire. The total cost of the new equipment will run to £90,000.

A collection of crabs obtained by Darwin on his famous voyage aboard HMS Beagle has been made available online by the Natural History Museum.The new database is part of an ongoing effort to digitize the museum's catalogues, and contains images and details of 40 different taxa.The crustaceans were collected while Darwin was sailing on his five-year journey 1831 – 1836, which led him to develop his theory of natural selection. The crabs were just one type of the vast array of organisms he collected, and upon his return found their way into the collection of the zoologist Thomas Bell. Darwin and Bell became immersed in cataloguing the Galapagos turtles, and the crustaceans were apparently forgotten.The University of Oxford recovered the collection in 1862, which has been kept in the Natural History Museum ever since. The new database of images can now be viewed at
http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/database/zoology/darwin.htm
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