Condensed concepts

In Australia, scandals about the management of public universities continue to be covered in the media. A recent one is the use of billions ...

My colleague, Carla Verdi, suggested I write this post. Here are a few short hikes that I enjoy. I list them in order of distance from Bris...

It all about values! Universities have changed dramatically over the course of my lifetime. Australian universities are receiving increasing...

I recently learnt that Rodney Baxter died earlier this year. He was adept at finding exact solutions to two-dimensional lattice models in st...

Bribie Island, just north of Brisbane. The University of Queensland has just advertised several jobs that may be of interest to readers of t...

Universities and scientific research in the USA are facing a dire future. Understandably, some scientists are considering leaving the USA. I...

Richard Flanagan is an esteemed Australian writer. My son recently gave our family a copy of Flanagan's recent book, Question 7 . It is...

This past Monday, May 8, was a public holiday in Queensland, marking Labor Day. I don't know why we don't celebrate it on May 1, but...

The physics department at the University of Queensland has just advertised for a junior faculty position in condensed matter. Only applicati...

 In the School of Mathematics and Physics at UQ there is an Early- and Mid-Career Academic group who organise activities to support one anot...

On Saturday the Australian Financial Review had a good, but disturbing, article,  Uni chiefs reap million-dollar salaries, record surpluses ...

“Fortunately, the majority of gentlemen who are persuaded to steal things don’t really know a huge amount about science” This is a choice qu...

  Covid-19 has turned the world upside down. Different people and communities have had very different experiences. In my state of Queensland...

Sometimes I never get around to writing or finishing planned blog posts. Last month something changed, but nothing changed for me. None of t...

I was sad to hear last week that Professor  Noel Hush died at age 94. Noel [also known as Prof.] was a pioneer in theoretical chemistry and ...

Over the past decade, I have noticed a disturbing trend in Australian universities: postdocs are now often expected to be like junior facult...

The physics department at UQ has just advertised for a new faculty member in experimental condensed matter. The advert is here. There is a...

A fundamental principle of molecular biology is that structure determines properties which determine biological function . This is what driv...

This is almost the same post I wrote a year ago.  This is the first week of classes for the beginning of the academic year in Australia. ...

Australia has many unique things besides kangaroos and koalas. Long service leave  (LSL) is a generous and egalitarian feature of the ...