News
June 6, 2019 - It would seem that while I was recovering from my recent health issues, someone hacked my LinkedIn account. As it turns out, it is easier at this point for me to setup a new account and do some long overdue cleaning of the page as well. Please update your links to my new site,
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-bird-849974187/
May 26, 2019 - Just a short and necessary update today on my recovery - for reasons I won't go into my recovery from last month's surgery has resulted in a very painful frozen shoulder for me this week, which means for at least the rest of the week I cannot type properly, do mathematical calculation, programming, or 3D modelling and rendering. Therefore all projects are on hold until at least next week. My apologies to anyone who is affected by these delays :(
May 25, 2019 - I just received the news that the legendary particle physicist Murray Gell-Mann has passed away at the age of 89. It is a sad loss for science that he is gone, but a triumph for science that he lived.
May 15, 2019 - I would like to send a warning out to the people living in my community today, but I have to be careful with the wording here. A strange man appeared at my mother's home this morning at 9:00am and was peering in her bedroom window (this was confirmed by security camera footage). When confronted he claimed to be a home support nurse from the Saanich Health Unit, but I have trouble believing that a real nurse would be this creepy and that they would show up without an appointment. So anyone in the Burnside-Tillicum should be on the look out for this guy, and report any suspicious behaviour immediately.
May 12, 2019 - Happy Mother's Day!
May 5, 2019 -
A great article in the local newspaper today on the physicist, Werner Israel. As a society I don't think we recognize our academic and scientific communities enough, and so it is always good to see stories like this one in the media.
April 27, 2019 - So I thought I would share this news with everyone, since some have heard a few things and have been asking. Two weeks ago today I was rushed to hospital and need emergency surgery to repair a damaged intestine. I have been in hospital since then, mostly out of contact with the outside world. Yesterday I got to come home, but I am still facing weeks and months of recovery. But I am feeling a lot better now, better than I have been in many years in truth, and I especially appreciate all of the encouragement and support from everyone. Thank you everyone.
April 3, 2019 - With exam season upon us again, I have received a number of request for tutoring sessions this year. Unfortunately due to my other commitments right now I can only offer a limited number of sessions, and those have already been booked. If I get an extra opening I will let everyone know, with previous students getting the first chance at them, but for now that is the best I can offer. My apologies for any inconvenience.
March 17, 2019 - HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!
March 14, 2019 - Another interesting project for amateur and volunteer scientists was announced this week - Muon Hunters 2.0 will continue the great work of the original Muon Hunters program, and needs volunteers to sort through images from a cosmic ray detector searching for signals of muon decays. All of the work can be done online, and no special skills or training are required. So if you always wanted to be part of astrophysics and particle physics research, this is a great opportunity!
March 12, 2019 - For good or for bad, it was thirty years ago that Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN, submitted a proposal for what would later become the world wide web. Originally meant to easily share information among scientists and academics, it is now used for a lot more. Sometimes it is dark and evil, sometimes it is positive and inspirational, but it is a reality now and one that has probably done more good than bad overall. So happy 30th anniversary to the World Wide Web!
March 1, 2019 - I have just learned that some of my research on B-meson decays and the search for dark matter will be reviewed in a new textbook, called "Flavor Physics and the TeV Scale" by George Hou. Admittedly it isn't a book for everyone, but it is still nice to see my old work getting noticed again :)
February 28, 2019 - And Canada is officially back in the space race, with the announcement today of two billion dollars over twenty-four years going to aerospace companies that will help to build the Lunar Gateway project. (For those who have not followed this project, Lunar Gateway is a plan by NASA to place a manned space station in polar orbit around the Moon, and to use it as a staging area for future missions to Mars or beyond) Canada is already a world leader in many areas of science and technology, and this announcement will only make us stronger!
February 20, 2019 - Neptune has a new moon today - or at least astronomers have now confirmed the existence of a new moon. It has been officially named Hippocamp, and measures just 34km across. It is so small and distant that the astronomers who found it and measured its orbit needed to create new methods of processing images from the telescopes because it is so faint and so fast that it would be blurred out of traditional long exposure images. The fact that they were able to image it at all is an impressive achievement!