Caolionn O'Connell

Quote

Caltech seems to have an ongoing love affair with one of the hottest physicists, ever: Richard Feynman. Nary a Caltech publication is printed without some mention of Feynman. Understandably, since the man was not only brilliant but s-e-x-y and, towards the end of his life, he was downright dashing. I have yet to meet a female physicist who didn't have a preference for Feynman, so it makes sense that Caltech really hasn't gotten over losing him.

In honor of Caltech and their heartbreak I give you a quote from Feynman:

Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

How could you not love the man?

Like a 5 year old

Sometimes I really want someone to explain it to me like I'm a five year old (except without the condescension). Stop assuming I know what the hell you are talking about and just walk me through it step-by-step using only simple words. I don't want an equation. I don't want jargon. I want to understand intuitively. I want a picture in my brain. I want to know exactly how you went from the experimental set-up to the results, no matter how "trivial" or "obvious" it might be. Nobody appreciates the five year old and everyone assumes a specialist.

After reading multiple papers and several library books, I found the book that explained it to me like a five year old and, finally, it all makes sense. Thank God.

One topic down ... too many to count left to go.

Censorship is UnAmerican

September 24th - October 1st is Banned Books Week.

Go ahead. Be subversive. Read a dirty book. Consider it your patriotic duty.

Death Canyon

I have now encountered death twice in Death Canyon and I am done. Okay, maybe I am being overly dramatic here, but I have been very forthright in my dislike of wild animals. Considering my less than heroic reaction to wild turkeys, you can imagine my visions of the grim reaper when faced with a bear only 30 feet away.

I met the bear on the same trail two years ago and vowed to avoid him this time. I bought bear bells and a yodeled around every corner. Yes, I yodeled. My whistles aren't really loud enough and I figured yodeling is better than show tunes, as I had company. I even brushed up on proper bear etiquette: slowly back out of its path, avoid eye contact, speak softly, wave your hands above your head slowly and never turn your back on a bear. I was ready. I saw bears in every sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. Between the running water and the quaking Aspens, I saw 20 fake-out bears before we even turned around.

On our way back down, I was breathing a sigh of relief. Sam had stopped to take a picture when I saw my 21st bear rustling in the berries. Unfortunately, this one was real. Throwing my sanity to the wind, I ran. It seems I have no problem sacrificing Sam, my aunt and uncle in the name of self-preservation.

I am ashamed to admit I am exactly the person to avoid when in a crisis. I am all about following my gut, not my head and when given the opportunity – I am totally feeding you to the bears.

It's mine.

So apart from the general inconvenience a name like mine poses, it is always good for one thing. No I will never be able to buy the pre-made personalized mug, but when I choose a username, "caolionn" is always available. Always. All the John's, Jane's and Jessica's eat your heart out. You have to rotate through the various Jane0014 options before reaching success. I don't have that problem. My name is special and I like it that way.

For the last year, my IM username has been caolionn on a .mac account. Recently, they have been asking for money for this account. Since I am of the belief that I should not pay others to enable my slacker tendencies (a lesson learned after one too many NYT crossword puzzles), I said no and lost the account. Luckily, AIM understands that if a person wants to engage in mindless chatter, they should be allowed to do so for free. As per usual, I signed up for username caolionn and now I am pissed. Someone has stolen my username. How is that possible? What are they saying with my username? I am a little curious about who they are. I wonder if I can crank IM ...

Sweet Dreams.

Having problems sleeping? Do you lie awake at night thinking about all the things you need to do? Does your bed-mate steal all the covers and wallop you in the head with a stray elbow, thereby making it impossible to continuously sleep for more than one hour intervals? Are you too embarrassed to have Sophie Kinsella's Can You Keep A Secret? or Tom Clancy's Without Remorse on your bed side table?

I have a solution for you:

My Thesis.

Guaranteed to put you to sleep. When bound, it makes for an excellent shield against wayward elbows and packs its own form of whoop-ass when appropriately applied. Also it makes you look all physics-y having it on your night stand.

If you actually do read it, I do not want to hear about a single typo. Should you find one, keep it to yourself, otherwise I might be inclined to hunt you down and kill you for cruelty.

A moment of schmaltz: Although not actually mentioned in the acknowledgments, I would also like to say thank you to all the QD readers who shared their own thesis-writing struggles as I went through mine. It did make me feel a lot better to know I am not the only one who has trouble formulating a grammatically correct sentence and a faulty simulation is not nearly as bad as it gets. The support and words of comfort made me feel all warm and fuzzy. So thank you. Ok, feel free to barf now and move on.

* Thanks, Helge, for letting me know it's available. It had to go through SLAC patent review process before being ready for public consumption. Surprisingly, it doesn't look like you can patent a 2-mile electron accelerator as a convenient method for producing plasma. Drat.

Mother Knows Best

Today's New York Times article, Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood, irritates the crap out of me. I hate that there is still an expectation one must choose between career and motherhood. I hate that making such a choice is considered "realistic". I hate the fact that this issue is still mostly felt by women. I hate that I feel compelled to schedule a baby such that it would have the least impact on my experiment. Yes, I would actually feel genuinely guilty if I got pregnant while working. And I hate that the guilt is completely self-inflicted, since I have felt no external pressures in that regard. I hate that the feminist movement didn't bring about the change it promised. I hate that as much as I swear both can be done, my sister, mother of two and part-time prosecutor, continually tells me otherwise.

Yes, I know men are becoming more involved (e.g. David's sabbatical at home with Zoe). Yes, I know parenting duties are attended to by both parents these days. And yes, Debbie has shown that it is possible (Sophie, Sandra and Rosa too). But I can tell you right now, Sam isn't lying awake at night thinking how best to merge a biological clock and a career trajectory without either being sacrificed. And, as much as I love him, I hate that too.

Accomplishment.

I have spent years trying to break down the barrier. I toiled on many a weekend night, under the duress of black lights, loud music and smelly shoes, but never have I succeeded in bowling more than 100 until his past weekend. I bowled 112 and this is quite possibly the apex of my athletic prowess. I think I can die happy now.

"Ciaolin" is the valiant attempt of my cousin's boyfriend to spell my name. When I become a bowling master, I think I will use it as my nom de guerre.

Men are from Mars.

On Friday, Sam and I went to a lecture on Mars Exploration, which is part of a JPL lecture series. I came to a couple of realizations:

1.) NASA/JPL have an easy sell. The speaker managed a great lecture without a single equation (or reference to an equation). The graphics and pictures were stunning. The motivation, execution and results were all perfectly explained and validated. I was also pleased that the speaker addressed the human-based mission to Mars as an endeavor based on prestige where science came second. I loathe people who make the claim that vanity science projects are for anything other than pride. So don't give me the whole spiel that a human arm is far superior to a robot arm, 'cause you don't spend that kind of money to get a better working arm. Overall, with the sales-package they have, how can NASA/JPL not have the support for their research that they need.

2.) Since they have an easy sell, but are still having problems with funding what does it mean for the rest of us? The funding for NASA/JPL is taking hits like the rest of us. They have been given a mission and a woeful amount of money to spend on achieving that mission. What does that mean for the rest of us? We have equations in our talks, our pictures aren't nearly as pretty as their pictures, even the vanity aspect doesn't have the same caliber as a human mission to Mars (and I think the whole project is ridiculous). Yes, we can probe the conditions of the universe at its early stages. Yes, we are trying to understand the most basic components of matter and how they interact. I am just a little nervous that not everyone can see how remarkable it is and, worse yet, not want to fund it.

Members Only

Last night I became a "studio member" of the Pasadena Museum of California Art. It is a tiny museum, a short distance from my apartment, with only space for about 4 exhibitions. Honestly, I wouldn't even know of its existence had a friend not invited me to the opening of a Gary Baseman exhibition. You know you are in for an interesting mix of art when the patrons in attendance vary between senior citizens in suits and ties to young artists in ripped jeans and flip flops. True to form, the art ranged from turn of the century impressionism (I'm usually not a fan of the Impressionists, but some of the paintings by Alson Skinner Clark charmed me) to that of Gary Baseman. I believe his style is called "lowbrow" (or so my friend informed me), but really it is a cartoon aesthetic as art. The artist, who was very nice and totally unassuming, gave us a cerebral explanation of his art – physical representations of the past, hope, desire and dirty little secrets, etc. – which gave the art more depth, but I still wanted to ask: Why? Why represent such serious topics with cutesy caricatures? What is the artistic value in that endeavor? Since I have a feeling artists aren't so interested in having that discussion on their opening night, I thought it would be more appropriate to smile and nod my head.