– Robaird O’Cearbhaill
Hong Kong Correspondent
Kevin McKeowan, professor of physics, was firstly a high flyer in education as a scholar and a professor while still very young. Secondly a high-flyer, because his area, astrology, deals with highest flyers in the universe. Specifically, McKeowan’s field covers subatomic particles, neutrinos and astrophysics of the greatest sources of energy, gamma rays. Thirdly, perhaps most interestingly for physics’ outsiders, McKeown, was a highest flyer because he was a world record holder. He worked in the detection of neutrinos, at the highest altitude ever at 5200 metres, in the Andes mountains in Bolivia. Fourthly, McKeowan has been a high flyer in terms of travel: to eighty countries, mostly, in pursuit of scholarly excellence, attending academic conferences.
At McKeowan’s childhood home in Ireland in Dundalk, north of Dublin, and in his very modest government school, lofty goals were rarely aimed at or attained. Thus success came, not from any privileged background; neither did he enter adult life with ambition, nor desire for riches. On the other hand, as a youth, two interests inspired him: moderate socialism, and – unsurprisingly of course – physics.
Physics mostly seems to have been the main driver in his life, a place where his fascination with discovery and theory of explanations came to fruit, singling out Einstein’s Theory of Relativity as a pinnacle in physics and in science.
Aside from the highest in the world research for neutrinos, McKeowan’s had another period of extreme dedication with these miniscule particles. Detecting neutrinos also, he went to the opposite geographical height, almost the lowest deep ground, in mines. Both intense, exciting experiences were most gratifying for McKeowan, permitting him to follow his true interests – physics and international travel. While physics has been a lifetime career, and he remains an honorary professor at the University of Hong Kong, his travel bug was caught from an interesting, and kindly, missionary relative, which allowed him to travel to eighty countries, taking full advantage of the opportunities of professorship, to his merit, in attending academic conferences.
O Clarim sat down twice with McKeowan in Hong Kong, mulling over his rich and full life over a beer in cafés, and at his delightful tranquil beach home on Lantau Island.
You have had a great life as a professor and look at you now, how much better can it be living on a beautiful beach. Don’t you think so?
Yes you’re right it couldn’t be better than living here. Looking back to leaving school and what I thought my options were, I couldn’t have thought that I’d be a professor at a University in the (exotic) Far East. If I had, I would have made the right choice.
How did you feel being there in that job then, and for most of your working life and what did you teach and research?
The conditions were very good, terms of service, low workload (and long summer holidays). We could leave in May or June have July and August too. The term began on September 1. But didn’t have to teach until October. Nothing you couldn’t do to go. In the afternoon you could go to the beach or go down to Wanchai. Teaching: I was in ultrabig energy, gamma rays. I didn’t know any Nobel Physics Prize winners but in conferences I was with V.L. Ginsberg, 2003 Nobel Prize for Physics and Paul Dirac, who shook hands with me, the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics.
Tell me about being in the Andes India and South America
We were looking for neutrinos, at high altitude in the Andes in Bolivia, working at 5200 metres at the highest point. There aren’t many in the atmosphere and are extremely hard to detect unless you have very sensitive detection shields. In India, we had massive shields. I was working in India’s deepest mines at 8200 ft (2540 meters). In the lift cages we were very squashed together. Twenty minutes to get to the top. Not the deepest in the world (but nearly); the deepest ones are in South Africa. I enjoyed Bolivia, I had a nice Bolivian girlfriend there, I wish I could have kept that going. Ecuador, too, where I never saw nature before and for the first time I saw indigenous people coming to town. Never had seen that before. I went to the Inca capital Cusco which was disappointing, cold and desolate. I went to the isolated (famous Inca hilltop city) Machu Picchu at the right time, which was quiet then, much before all the swarms of tourists you see there nowadays. I went on business to every country in South America except Uruguay.
What about Brazil? Did you go there and if so what was it like?
Brazil, Copacabana, I have a story there. I left my trousers on the beach, to say I was on the beach. Very careful, put my trousers behind my back, and I dozed off. About five o’clock after about about an hour’s sleep, I woke up, my trousers gone and my wallet. I found a taxi and told the taxi driver I had money at the hotel. I was lucky, he was sympathetic. It was lucky too I still had money because I had to get to the airport the next morning with no time to go to a bank.
You’ve talked about work in Catholic communities, and countries, except Hong Kong and India. As an Irishman nearly everyone was Catholic as you grew up as you were. What are you enduring feelings about the church?
I was brought up in a conventional, practising Catholic family. I have the highest regard for the Catholic Church. For ethics generally. I don’t like abortion. I am fully consistent with the Church on that and was dismayed that Ireland allowed the law to allow abortion. Agree with the church too against homosexuality rights for marriage because of adoption. That is wrong for the child, deliberately inserted into the environment. As a child we all went to Mass every Sunday and regularly to confession. I’m not saying my parents were very religious but we were Catholics and everyone we knew were Catholics and I was an altar boy.
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