Milan Cathedral

Milan Cathedral has always divided opinion. Some people think it is magnificent, while others see it as a monstrous lump of stone that has very little to recommend it architecturally or artistically.

It is certainly big. It is the fourth largest church in the world and the largest in Italy (if one allows that St Peter’s in Rome is not technically in Italy.

Planning for the cathedral began in 1386 and construction of one sort or another continued into the 20^th century. When one learns about the wrangling that took place in its early years it is no surprise that controversy has dogged it ever since.

The original intention was to build a cathedral that rivalled the best and biggest to be found in France. A building council was therefore set up to manage such a project, despite local custom being for simple, unadventurous structures. It was hardly surprising that problems arose at the outset.

With the foundations already laid, a foreign advisor was called in, he being the first of a string of architects from abroad who were consulted and then fired.

Three conferences were held, in 1392, 1400 and 1401 to determine which system of proportions should be used in the design of the walls. The 1392 decision was eventually revisited and adopted.

It had therefore been 15 years from the start of the project to when the final decision was made.

There would be plenty more arguments down the centuries as first one architectural convention, then another, was decided upon, with the construction already well underway.

And the end result? It is certainly impressive, whether one likes it or not!

© John Welford

Final of the 2019 Cricket World Cup

The final of the 50-over cricket World Cup, held on Sunday 14^th July 2019, was an amazing match, regarded by most people who take an interest in these things as the most remarkable ever to have taken place.

The final was played between England and New Zealand, neither of whom had won the trophy at previous World Cup tournaments. England were regarded by most observers as the favourites to win, especially given their comprehensive win (by 119 runs) over New Zealand in the group stages only 11 days previously. A repeated easy victory was what many people expected.

However, that was not how things turned out. On a difficult pitch for quick run scoring, New Zealand batted first and battled hard. The first wicket (of Guptill) went down at 29 but the second (Williamson) only went down at 103 in the 23^rd over.

The England bowlers all bowled well, with the possible exception of Stokes who was taken off after his three overs yielded 20 runs. Probably the pick of the bowlers was Plunkett, who has a habit of taking key wickets during the middle part of an innings. His three victims – Williamson, Nicholls and Neesham – are all dangerous batsmen who can turn a game. Thanks to Plunkett’s bowling, none of them was able to dominate.

It was thought that a total of 250 would be enough to pose real problems for England, so when the innings closed at 241 for 8 wickets, many people were quietly confident that this should not be too difficult for England to pass.

However, the batsmen who had been the mainstay of England’s previous victories in the group stages did not last long. The top four (Roy, Bairstow, Root and Morgan) were all back in the pavilion with the score on 94.

Hopes now rested on wicketkeeper Buttler and all-rounder Stokes. As long as these two stayed at the crease, reaching the target of 242 always seemed likely, despite the required run-rate growing to beyond eight an over.

Buttler’s dismissal for 59 in the 45^th over, with another 46 runs still needed, caused English hearts to sink. It was now going to be up to Stokes to do most of the scoring, with support from the “tail” whose job was to stay put and ensure that Stokes farmed most of the bowling.

However, wickets continued to fall, including a first-ball dismissal for Archer, and it began to look like a hopeless cause.

At least, it would have hopeless but for two remarkable balls in the closing overs, both sixes hit by Stokes. In the 49^th over it looked as though Stokes had been caught on the boundary by Boult, but the fielder stepped backwards over the boundary marker, so that counted as six runs.

In the final over England still needed 15 runs to win. The first two balls produced nothing, but Stokes walloped the third ball into the crowd. The fourth ball was only going to allow two runs to be taken, but the second run was very tight. Stokes threw himself full-length to make his ground, but as the fielder threw in the ball it hit Stokes’s bat and rebounded to the boundary, thus adding four to the two already run.

The fifth ball resulted in a single and the running out of Stokes’s partner Rashid when going for the second, so for the final ball two runs were still needed. Once again there was a single and a run-out, meaning that both sides had scored 241!

The cricket equivalent of a penalty shoot-out is the “super over”. Each side must nominate three batsmen and one bowler, the result being decided on who scores more runs in six balls. Should a batsman be dismissed, the third batsman can take his place.

England batted first, with Stokes and Buttler at the crease and Boult bowling for New Zealand. They scored off every ball, including two boundaries, the total being 15.

If the New Zealand batsmen – Guptill and Neesham – could score 16 or more off Archer’s bowling, they would win the World Cup. The over started badly for England with Archer bowling a wide, which meant that one run was scored and an extra ball had to be bowled. The third ball was hit for six.

Seven runs were needed with four balls left. Two twos were completed – three runs needed from two balls! A single came off the last-but-one ball. Could Archer hold his nerve and prevent two runs coming off the final ball? The batsmen set off for the second run but a perfect throw from the deep and a clean take from the wicketkeeper meant that Guptill was run out and only one run was scored.

So – both sides had scored 15 in their super-over. However, the rules stated that the side that hit more boundaries – fours and sixes – over the whole match would be the winner if the scores were tied. England had hit 26 boundaries to the 17 of New Zealand. So England therefore won the World Cup by the narrowest of margins!

© John Welford

Football violence at the Battle of Berne, 1954

Switzerland is usually regarded as a fairly peaceful place, at least in the modern era, and a reference to a battle having taken place in its capital city as recently as 1954 might come as a surprise.

However, the “battle” was not an armed conflict between soldiers but a massive football riot that is generally regarded as one of the worst such incidents in the history of the sport.

The occasion was a World Cup quarter-final between Brazil and Hungary that took place on 27^th June 1954. Hungary won the match by four goals to two, but that was not the most memorable aspect of the game.

When a penalty was awarded to Hungary during the second half, there was a pitch invasion by Brazilian coaching staff, officials and journalists. The fight on the pitch lasted for half an hour, resulting in three players - two Brazilians and one Hungarian - being sent off.

The battle resumed at the final whistle and continued off the pitch, with the manager of Hungary needing four stitches in a face wound that he suffered in the changing room.

There have been suggestions that the battle was not just a dispute over a penalty. With Brazil being staunchly Catholic and Hungary being part of the Communist bloc, the hatred betrayed by so many of those present might have had religious and political undertones.

© John Welford

The bystander effect

In 1964 a 28-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered in the street in Queens, New York. There were reputed to be 38 people who witnessed the attack, which lasted for more than half an hour, but nobody came to her aid.

The event entered the literature of psychology as the “bystander effect”, the theory being that people feel less responsibility to help strangers in trouble if there are plenty of other people in the area. There may also be the feeling that if nobody else is doing anything, the situation cannot be all that serious.

However, this theory has been questioned after research that has been done in the UK, The Netherlands and South Africa. This has shown that, in similar situations, people do intervene in 90% of cases. Sometimes only one person does so, but quite often more than one person tries to help.

The researchers also found that people are more likely to intervene the higher the number of other bystanders, which goes dead against the earlier theory. There was little difference as between occurrences in the three countries.

It would appear that people have a natural inclination to help others in trouble, which is reassuring!

© John Welford

A very short introduction to quantum physics

The foundations of quantum physics were laid in the 1890s when the German physicist Max Planck (1858-1947) proposed that radiation from a hot object did not take the form of waves but was produced as chunks of energy which he termed quanta, which behaved like waves when in combination. Max Planck could only propose the notion of quanta as a mathematical concept, having no way of proving their existence.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was interested in the photoelectric effect that occurs when light strikes certain atoms and electricity is generated. Einstein realized that this could best be explained if light travelled as quanta, not waves, and gave the name photon to a light quanta, this being a real entity and not just a mathematical idea.

In 1913 the Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962) used quantum theory to explain the different energy levels of electrons in an atom. 

Further work during the 1920s by Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961) and Werner Heisenberg (1901-76) developed the idea of quantum energy levels in atoms, thus creating a new branch of physics called quantum physics. 

Quantum physics explains how electrons emit radiation and shows that an electron can be regarded as both a wave and a particle.

Quantum physics has had many practical applications, such as in the development of lasers and transistors.

© John Welford