The Weitmarer Holz and Bochum's Boars

If it weren't for the bicycles, on loan from Ralf-Juergen and Marliese, it would not be so pleasant getting around, especially from our location on the south side of Bochum near the university.  And while the weather holds out, it's good to take an afternoon and get out of the tiny apartment and away from the computers which forever beckon with work.  Such was the case yesterday, so we ventured out to parts unknown -- namely to Weitmarer Holz which is about 10 km to the west.


Weitmarer Holz is a wooded park, about 80 hectares in size which contains a Wildgehege, that is, a fenced in area with 'wildlife'.  We found the wildlife right away because a male deer (or elk?) was making an enormous racket with a kind of snorting/crying sound.  We presumed that this had something to do with the fact that the nearby does were being fed by someone at the fence.

The buck, with a full head of antlers, is actually in this picture but you have to look carefully.

We decided to cycle and walk around the compound and were surprised and delighted to see a small 'herd' of 'wild boar'.




The dog (below) was annoying since it kept barking at the boar, scaring them away.  Judith had never seen a boar before, not even in a zoo.  Richard claims to have gone hunting for boar in France years ago, but didn't actually see one at the end of the hunting day.  They (meaning the boar) are supposed to have tusks which we didn't see up close but there was one in the distance with tusks.   They are amazingly large.




Some little ones responded by coming close when someone offered food -- mainly nuts from the trees.



So we are 'doing' Bochum!  It must have been utterly devastated during the war and most of the city today is relatively new.  Occasionally, some older buildings peak out from the others, though,  and show their charming details, as this one did on the bike ride back.


There are often surprises 'just around the corner' somewhere.  We were diverted a short way by this tower which is an historic site.  Not completely understanding the accompanying plaques, the best we could make out is that the tower was originally related to coal mining and later became a museum for medical artifacts, now run by the university.  We'll include photos of the plaques (there are 4 of them, all describing this building, it would appear) in case anyone wants to read them and decipher the German.







Today was a quiet day doing some work and going for a walk.  We switched back to standard time, one week earlier than North America.

Tomorrow Judith gives the physics colloquium at the university (Hallowe'en day at home). Then on Tuesday, surprisingly, it's a holiday because it is All Saints Day.  Apparently, it isn't a holiday everywhere in Germany -- just the Catholic areas which I suppose we must be in.

We sign off this week, hearing the sound of fireworks (or gunshots, hard to tell) outside -- for reasons that are completely opaque to us.  Bye for now and enjoy Hallowe'en.  Hard to believe that November  will soon be here.

Stay the Course

No major journeys this weekend (aside from a bicycle trip downtown yesterday to purchase two pairs of shoes, one for R and one for J, and a lovely dinner at Ralf-Juergen's place Fri. night).  R's heel is very painful.  It's reminiscent of what Marg suffered on the El Camino.  Let's hope it won't last.  It really just flared up overnight so today, Sunday, we decided to stay put and not attempt anything ambitious.  What this actually means is that we worked.

R is working on a dynamo model to try to explain the observations of Carolina for NGC 4631 in which she sees alternating positive and negative Rotation Measures in the low halo of this galaxy, as one scans across the disk.  Ever the theorist, he can explain anything with lots and lots of math.

J is concerned about the fact that NRAO (the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory) has just published primary beam measurements that differ from what they previously told everyone to use.  What this means is that every publication of flux density and in-band spectral indices that have been published since the new receivers at the VLA (Very Large Array) were installed ( i.e. since 2011) have been incorrect (*everybody's* -- not just ours) -- but not wildly incorrect.  Just incorrect enough that a ton of tests must be run to understand the exact effects that his change has on our CHANG-ES (Continuum Halos in Nearby Galaxies -- an EVLA Survey) data and to figure out what corrections need to be made.   She has started the tests.

In the mean time, we thought we'd show a few more pictures of the local area and of RUB (Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum).  First, we exit the apartment, which contains 16 units, most of them (it seems) occupied by babies or small children.  Here's what the exit looks like.

Usually 6 baby carriages are present -- someone must be out.

Our 20 min walk to work, as we've said before, first takes us through the Grey Forest which is quite pretty and adjusts to the time of day and weather.  Unlike this photo's appearance, there are always other people on the path.

Der Grauer Wald

After emerging from the Grey Forest, one then passes through Uni-Center -- pronounced Oo-ni (like Ookpik, if anyone remembers this children's toy) rather than You-ni.


Various graffiti and encouraging slogans then await.  The locals are really quite cute when they speak English.    It's mostly correct but oddly 'off'.




There are many posters and advertisements for a variety of activities, mostly parties.




We were introduced to the 'Mensa' when we first arrived.  Once we got the confusion cleared up, meaning that Mensa  means cafeteria and doesn't mean the organization that is only for geniuses, we noticed an interesting phenomenon and comment on the German character, namely, everybody tucks in their chairs after finishing eating.  This table was occupied by a dozen people just a moment ago.

The Mensa cafeteria

But behind the Mensa (to the south of the University) is a very pretty valley.  If you could see a little farther, you'd see the Ruhr itself.

And so we will go back again tomorrow as another week starts.  Just thought we'd end by showing a couple of pictures that J took today, proving that Autumn comes to Germany too, though in a subtler glory than back home.

Goettingen the Great

We are very busy.  There are meetings here, skypes with students and committees in Kingston, colloquia talks to prepare, data to reduce, letters of recommendation to write, theoretical modelling developments to pursue, and more.  We don't want to give up our weekend excursions since this will be the only chance we'll ever have of seeing what we can of Germany.  So this weekend we decided to have our day of exploration on Saturday (today) and spend Sunday (tomorrow) working.

What could be of interest to a couple of astrophysicists?  **Goettingen**  The list of scientific and mathematical achievements that have come out of the ancient Goettingen university (founded in 1734 by George II, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover) is so astonishing that I think there has never been a rival to such a place.  In case you don't believe me, check out this link.  There are 42 Nobel Prize winners associated with Goettingen -- Max Planck, Gerhard Herzberg, Max Born, Otto Hahn, Wolfgang Pauli, Maria Goeppert-Mayer -- and many others who may not have won Nobel Prizes but who left their mark on the advancement of knowledge -- David Hilbert, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Kurt Goedel, Emmy Noether -- so many learned men and women have spent time in Goettingen.

So off we went early in the morning.  The drive was about the same distance as going from Kingston to Toronto and we had no problems.  We were amazed by the giant wind turbines that dominated the landscape.  There must have been thousands.



We really liked the city of Goettingen.  Here are some scenes.  It was spared much of the destruction that was felt elsewhere during WWII.






In the heart of the town is the "Goose Girl".  Apparently, anyone who graduates from the university, by tradition, must kiss the Goose Girl. (By the way, the Goose Girl is the statue.)



We saw three lovely churches, the 1st one is St. Johannis:



The second we missed the name of:



The 3rd was St. Jacobi, and was playing organ music. It had an ancient and oddly grotesque statue inside.  Just as interesting, this church was built on a traditional pilgrimage route to the Santiago de Compostela in Spain (this is for Bob and Marg!).





But where was the university in all this?  A bit of a walk to the north finally found the university, but it was a bit disappointing, mainly because many of the buildings were quite modern (which is fine) and because the campus was dominated by humanities, theology, law and medicine.  The sciences must have been moved off to the north campus which was farther than walking distance.  Again, all this is fine, it's just that there was no indication as to what the older buildings might have housed some time ago.  And nothing at all that we could see honouring the scientists and mathematicians who brought such esteem to the university (except for one statue of Leibniz, see below).  Here are some scenes.









When we finally got to an area that had older university buildings, again, no sign of any plaques, signs or statues.



So we had lunch and went on to our next and final stop in Goettingen: the Stadtfriedhof Cemetery.  Since we could find no sign which marked it, I had to take a picture of the bus stop that was nearby.



Now instead of showing you pictures of what we *should* have seen, I will provide a link instead, namely go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtfriedhof_(Göttingen) to see the graves of the great scientists.  For our part, we got so lost and turned around in this gigantic tree-filled cemetery, and the directions and signs were so poor, that we just didn't find any of them.  Richard's knees started to hurt, so we cut our cemetery excursion short.  Well, at least it was quiet!  Here are a couple of photos just to prove that we were there.



And so tomorrow we will attend to our own science and not think to much about final resting places.  Bye for now.