A European attempt to measure the remnant afterglow of the Big Bang - cosmic microwave radiation - will have physicists from NUI Maynooth among the international scientists who are designing and building a high-frequency instrument which will be on board the space surveyor Planck.
A European Space Agency project, it is expected that Planck will be launched into a deep space orbit in 2007. This will provide an environment free of radio and infra-red interference.
The department of experimental physics at NUI Maynooth has an international reputation in astrophysical research and a strong postgraduate programme. Next year, for the first time, the college will offer an undergraduate degree in physics with astrophysics. Lecturer Dr Anthony Murphy says students will complete a physics degree which includes a substantial portion of astrophysics; this means they will be employable in a range of careers from software engineering to micro-electronics to meteorology and, of course, astrophysics.
He says applicants do not need Leaving Certificate physics but they should have both an aptitude and a liking for maths. In first year, students take physics with astrophysics and three other science subjects. They drop a science subject in each of the following years and concentrate solely on physics and astrophysics in fourth year. In first year, students are also introduced to basic concepts in planetary science, galactic and extragalactic astronomy.
The second-year astronomy module includes astronomical instrumentation and techniques, as well as high energy astrophysics and cosmology. In third year, courses include stars, gravitation, relativity and introductory cosmology. Final-year students undertake a project as well as taking courses in subjects such as galaxy structure, high energy physics, observational cosmology and instrumentation. The department of experimental physics was housed in prefabs and rooms scattered around the college. It is now in a new building and facilities are enormously improved. The gamma telescope on the roof of the building will soon be joined by an optical telescope and it is expected that students will be brought on visits to observatories. Up to 20 first-year places will be available (CAO course code: MH204). Other new offerings by NUI Maynooth's expanding science faculty include theoretical physics and computer science, theoretical physics and maths, and computational biology and bioinformatics.
Computational biology is essentially about the application of computers to biological sciences, while bioinformatics is about using computers to extract information from detailed biological molecules such as DNA. So, it's all about computers, biology and statistics. Course director Dr James McInerney says applicants should like maths and biology. Graduates will probably find work in areas such as biotech companies, hospitals, and clinical trial companies. The publication of entire human genome earlier this year means there should be huge expansion in this area in the next decade, says Dr McInerney.
This degree will be one of the first of its kind in Europe, he says. And the facilities at NUI Maynooth will be fantastic, he adds enthusiastically, as he shows EL through an impressive series of spacious new labs. A state-of-the-art computer science wing has just been opened while the biology department has doubled in size in the past year.
About 20 first-year places will be available in computational biology and bioinformatics (CAO course code: MH207). First years will study biology, computer science and maths. Second and third-year subjects will include biochemistry, microbiology, biotechnology, human biology, computer architecture, databases and software engineering. The final year will be devoted to computational biology and bioinformatics. Topics will include molecular genetics, genetics and evolution, neural networks, parallel processing and computational linguistics.
And for students inspired by genius such as that possessed by Stephen Hawking, the course code for theoretical physics with computer science is MH205 while the code for theoretical physics with maths is MH206. For more information the college website is at www.may.ie
