Ireland day 0862. Wednesday 07 February 2024- Chaos *

Ireland day 0862. Wednesday 07 February 2024- Chaos

Today’s summary	First thing, I drove Val to the airport for an early flight to London. On return to the flat I had a video call with my work client, then spent the rest of the morning working on my report. After a light lunch and a quick walk round the demesne, I went into another video call with a friend in Texas. Finally, in the evening, I took the Dart into Dublin for a lecture on Chaos Theory at the Royal Irish Academy.
Today’s weather	Dry with hazy sunshine. Almost no wind. Appx 6c.

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Round the demesne between meetings

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

The day started bright and early today. Well early, at any rate, as “bright” and “early” are largely mutually exclusive terms, as far as I am concerned. Anyway, Val had a flight to London to catch, so we were on the road by 7:30 heading for the airport. Once she was safely delivered and I was back in the flat, I did all the bathroom things that I hadn’t had time to do earlier. Then, after a quick cup of coffee, I was straight back into work.

Since I submitted my report and recommendations last week, I haven’t heard anything from my client. Anyway, this morning they suddenly sprung back into life again, and I had to join a video call with one of their leadership team. The meeting went well, though it did generate some more work, which I spend the rest of the morning tackling.

Once that was out of the way, I had a quick sandwich lunch, then went out to the demesne for a short walk in the bright, almost spring-like, fresh air. All very enjoyable.

No sooner was I back in the flat, than I found myself immersed in the second video call of the day. This time it was pleasure, though, rather than work, and with a friend in Texas. Eventually though, after an hour and a half chatting, I had to go, to give myself enough time to get ready and make my way into Dublin for the evening.

So the final highlight of the day was a lecture at the Royal Irish Academy – one of our favourite haunts – tonight on the subject of “The Geometry of Chaos”, with Tim Palmer, emeritus professor in the Dept of Physics at the University of Oxford.

The RIA always lays on interesting events and tonight’s was no exception. I’d never really given much thought to what linked Mandelbrot sets, coastlines, weather forecasting and the big 20th century theories of physics. But it turns out that chaos underlies them all, both simplifying our understanding and infinitely complicated it. (Who knew, for example, that chaos in the orbit of the planet Mercury around the sun could cause it suddenly to become unstable and to be sling-shotted by the Sun’s gravity out of the solar system?)

I have to say that some of the arguments went rather over my head but I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation and of course the calming ambience of the RIA. All in all, an excellent way to round off a rewarding and thought provoking day

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Pleased to see the bulbs in the roped off area next to the entrance to the castle demesne look set to put in a repeat of least year’s magnificent performance. The first crocuses just showing above the grass this afternoon.	Strongly held views on the SIPTU [a Union] building at Liberty Hall, just across the river from the Tara Street Dart station

I took a short cut from College Green to the bottom of Dawson Street via Trinity College. It’s always a bit of an oasis of calm in the midst of the city	It’s also very symmetrical

Tonight’s venue	The RIA is in Dawson Street – which was looking cosmopolitan and smart this evening. What else would you expect from somewhere with such an auspicious name?

In the lecture hall of the RIA. A fabulous spot – one of my favourites in Dublin