Marcello Pavan

science jealousy ? sure...

How how how all my jealousy
I wasn't man enough to let you hurt my pride
Now I'm only left with my own jealousy
- "Jealousy" by Freddie Mercury

how's this for a weird affliction ?  science envy.   After about 15 years of doing straight academic research, I now find myself communicating/explaining  the results and implications of said research,  and have little time to do any of my own research.  I really enjoy my work as a communicator/educator at a major national lab, but boy, recently I've been feeling major jealous pangs as my colleagues are presenting new experiments at the lab's biannual evaluation committee.   

Ah, the memories: weekdays, weekends blending into each other ; getting to know the night-shift janitor ; subsisting on coffee and granola bars from the after-hours vending machines ;  wrestling with a seemingly intractable analysis problem for weeks ; all for just one hit of that elusive Eureka ! moment.
Those were the days. <<sniff>

    

Got a job, Sha na na na

Every morning about this time
she get me out of my bed
a-crying get a job.
After breakfast, everyday,
she throws the want ads right my way
And never fails to say,
Get a job,  Sha na na na, sha na na na na

Well, no more.  After  42 years 8 months on this earth, and 10 years after my PhD, I finally have "permanent" job  (insofar as any can be).    This is a posting I've been waiting to submit for months now, but it has only been two weeks since I'm officially TRIUMF'S outreach and communications coordinator (with a fraction free for science). Cool.

As when finishing my PhD thesis, finally achieving my long-time goal comes as much less a relief than I pictured in the midst of the struggle.  In both cases, you get a piece of paper announcing the momentous occasion, upon which which you dutifully file it away and get on with whatever it is keeping you busy at the moment. Sad, in a way.   However, in both cases, you sleep much more soundly afterward, which is a considerable reward in itself.

feels good.   OK, back to work.

      

Honeymoon with Wilma

well, we're back from our honeymoon, and to say that it did not turn out as expected would be a bit of an understatement.   Of all the times to go to the Mayan Riviera (on the east coast of the Yucatan peninsula),  we ended up going just before Hurricane Wilma hit.   Nothing dampens a romantic holiday more than Class 4 hurricane winds and rain.

We arrived at the Mayan Palace resort (between Cancun and Playa del Carmen)  on Sat Oct 15, and we managed to enjoy 4 really good days of swimming in warm Gulf waters, outrageous fruity drinks, good food, suntanning, spas, and a whole bunch of simply relaxation.    Rumours of the hurricane started to spread, which we confirmed and followed at an internet cafe, but the resort staff was wholly unconcerned.  As late as Wednesday evening they were selling tickets to a big mexican fiesta Thursday evening, and I booked a lesson with the resort golf pro for Thursday morning.

  well, early Thursday morning the resort was shutting down, people were starting to pack up, and many guests were starting to panic.   Nobody at the resort took charge of informing guests what was going on, so everyone was getting conflicting advice from various staff members.  We were very lucky to find a woman (Mirriam, to whom we are forever in debt) who not only advised us to get out, but found us a few minivans to evacuate us, and booked hotel rooms at our destination.  this at a time when the airport was closed, all buses were full, and there were no cars to rent.   Others had different advice and were seen walking back to their rooms with groceries as our three vans (30 guests in all, all but  my wife and I  were US citizens)   departed for Chetumal (on the border with Belize)  at noon.

Our advice was better:  the hurricane made landfall exactly at our resort ! While it was rainy and windy for a couple of days in Chetumal, we were safe.  We ate in some good restaurants and passed the time in cafes, internet and coffee.   We got a flight out of the local airport Sunday, just before the military took it over as a base of rescue operations.  We were home safe and sound Monday, minus our luggage, which remains in our hotel room.   

the other guests who stayed had a decidely worse time of it.  Power, water, and sewage are STILL not restored.  We heard from a friend that people hid in their bathtubs for two days since their roof was leaking.  the evacuation centre was very much overcrowded.   the place is a total disaster area.  We really feel sorry for them,  since  most of them simply acted on what was  bad advice.   They really thought the hurricane would be over and done with in 6 hours, but they failed to note that Wilma was moving very slowly and would stick around a long time.   There but for the grace of god go I.   We hope they are all safe at home now.

So my wife and I are now back at work, telling and retelling our 'escape from Wilma' story, we are still awaiting word on on luggage, and we can't bring ourselves to complaining about the  typical rainy Vancouver weather we are experiencing.
Slow-moving class-4 hurricanes have a way of putting things into persective.

wedded bliss

There are three rings involved with marriage. The engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering.Woody Allen (1935 -  )

Like many, I was subjected to a never-ending series of advice, words of wisdom, pithy humour, etc etc ad  nauseum about weddings from friends and family, even strangers waxing on about their experience. One thing they didn't tell me, or if they did, I long stopped listening to it, was how utterly exhausting the whole thing is.  Your entire body and psyche are so wrapped up in it for so long that you don't realize how lit up you are until the whole thing is over.    

Fortunately for us the day went absolutely fabulously with lots of sunshine, family, friends, and of course food.  OK, so I had a preternatural addiction to The Weather Network, but our wedding was outdoors. (aside:  having  stared intently at the forecasts for three weeks, I can tell you that any prediction beyond about 2  or 3 days is  pure bunk.  I saw forecasts for everything from  34C weather to thunderstorms in the two weeks leading up to the wedding, with my blood pressure rising and falling as inversely to the predicted air pressure). But I can tell you, when the evening was over, we both felt this enormous weight come off our shoulders.  We could have slept until the following week.

but boy, was it worth it.  Wedded bliss, highly recommended.

but you won't hear me wax on about it.   No words can match experiencing it for yoruself.

taking the icy plunge

well I'm   goin' to the cha-pel and I'm   gon-na get ma-a-a-rried

t-4 days to the wedding.  I've been a little distracted of late, negligent in my QD and other responsibilities. Please accept my apologies.  Fortunately the lab has been pretty sleepy in August, so my lack of focus  hasn't been too problematic.  It is also fortunate that most of my colleagues are married, and have been similarly distracted in the past.  Their empathy certainly has helped. No excuses for the QD community, though I will try to kiss and make up by relating the experience, if not the novelty, of a physicist actually getting married, in future posts.

BTW, if any guy you know tells you that he is not nervous, that the wedding is totally cool and everything is under control, the  man is a big fat liar.  Like I am  ;-)

another one bites the dust. and another one gone and another one gone, another bites the dust...

dog days of summer

Summertime, and the living is easy..

Just came back from a fairly lengthy vacation, where I was away from the lab for most of the passed three weeks.  As I busily attempt to digest the last remnants of the prodigious mounds of food Mamma fed me, I couldn't help but notice there wasn't anyone around to whine to about it.

Hot Augusts are truly the dog days of summer at TRIUMF, where the lab seems to sloooooooowwww down a lot.   Vancouver has a (well deserved) reputation for its "laid back" citizenry, and some of that is in evidence now here, in stark contrast to the usual    hustle and bustle.  Several experiments are hard at work, but it is hot,  there are a lot of people on vacation, or about to go, or just come back, which makes for a  much slower pace.   

I've worked at several other labs in the summer, but naturally could not discern if things were sleepy or not since we were so busy on our experiments.  It would be interesting to hear what life is like in other labs this time of year.

sword of damocles

"That sword ! That sword !", cried Damocles. He was so badly frightened that he dared not move.

they aren't exactly swords, but they follow me around everywhere, and if they should fall uncontrollably, the flurry of paper cuts would surely chop me into bits.

at least, that's how it feels sometimes.

Unfinished publications.  The bane of busy physicists. It shames me greatly to admit that I am particularly bad about not finishing-off papers quickly, or letting ones that need to be written languish is some forgotten corner of my desk.  They hang over me, like the Sword of Damocles, haunting, no, taunting me, as I desperately try to catch up on work, promising myself that " I'll get to it real soon now ".

<sigh>  there are three up there now, as I type. One that needs to be finished, one that my colleague needs to finish, and one that  I need to start.   OK, that's it.  After I finish the two grant proposals, restructure the communications department, write a few news articles, organize the summer high school fellows, build the cosmic-ray detectors, design the cloud-chamber display, I'll ....  well, plan my wedding. BUT, then after that ....

goin' to the conference, er, chapel, and I'm ...

I have a question for all the married men out there in QD Blogland...

when did it finally dawn on you that you are REALLY going to get married ?

now, I cannot be the only person who did not feel that way upon giving the prospective bride an engagement ring.   Up until very recently, the wedding  was more-or-less an abstract concept, far far off into the future, something to be dealt with eventually. In self-defense:  Kim and I have been living together happily for several years, behaving very much as marriedly (sp?) as any couple we know, so hopefully one can be forgiven for thinking that way.

No more.   The "big day" is just over 10 weeks away, and truth be told, I just realized it.  It hit me when these little cards showed up on the kitchen counter:  "Mr. XXX XXX  and 1 Guest will be attending ...".    Oh Geez.  its gonna happen.

Then my thought process went kinda like this: but, the Snowmass conference goes from Aug 14-27, i.e. it ends on the wedding day.  Hmmm, maybe I can go for the first week ? what would Kim think ? would she kill me ?     ... followed quickly thereafter by ...    no, HOW will she kill me ? slowly at first, followed by the coup-de-grace ? where would she hide my body ?  would any court in the land convict her ? ...

OK, so I am not going to Snowmass, so Judy and the rest of InterActions will have to get along without me.  In the meantime,apparently there is a LOT of work to do, so better get on it...

apres le deluge

   and in a wink, it is over ...

The centrepiece of the Canadian World Year of Physics celebrations was a gala event at the wonderful Chan Centre auditorium Sunday June 5, where Prof Clifford Will of Washington University in St. Louis gave his public talk entitled "Was Einstein Right ?"  His talk was preceded by Borealis String Quartet performance of a work composed (in his spare time !) by PhD Physics student Aaron Hryciw of the University of Alberta.  The piece was really very good, and was very well received by the 900 or so people in attendance.

Well, the whole evening lasted about 1 1/2 hours.  For that, we spent MONTHS planning it: arranging media, organizing publicity, sorting out the tickets, etc etc etc.  and in a veritable blink, it was gone ...

This Outreach stuff is really quite a change from my prior life doing physics.  Then, we'd plan experiments for YEARS, run the experiments for WEEKS or MONTHS, and then analyze the data again for YEARS. (and for me, take MONTHS to write the papers...)   Now, it is : plan like a maniac for  days, weeks, or months, and then watch the thing fly by in minutes or hours. 

I love this Outreach gig, but somedays I pine for the lasting impression of a physics job well done. I have a paper simmering on the back-burner, and methinks it's time to get at it.  a mental health break, so to speak.

but no time to complain:  now we are planning furiously to arrange for the Borealis Quartet to take Aaron's music on the road across Canada, as part of WYP2005.  no rest for the weary...

I am not worthy ...

Imposter Syndrome:  a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist even in face of information that indicates that the opposite is true.  Some common feelings and thoughts that might characterize the imposter syndrome are: “My colleagues are going to find out I don’t really belong here,” “Admissions made a mistake” , “I am often afraid that others will discover how much knowledge I really lack”.

Lots of people have "imposter syndrome", and admittedly the feeling washes over me from time to time.   it comes and it goes, but it never comes on stronger than after  judging at a high school scholarship award or science fair.  it is then that I wonder "What heck was I doing in high school", and "How on earth did I ever manage to get a PhD in nuclear physics ?". because,man, these kids are good, and I, well, was more concerned with soccer, parties, and the like...

This past week the Canada-Wide Science Fair was held on the UBC campus in Vancouver.  The CWSF brought together the very top science fair projects from students aged 13-18 from all across Canada.  TRIUMF and the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) offered special cash prizes for the best junior (~7th grade), intermediate (~9th grade) , and senior (Grade 11,12)  projects.

Well:

• the junior prize went to a boy who built a wind tunnel that aimed laminar smoke lines onto different nose cones, to determine which has the least resistance and caused the least turbulence, then used the data to predict which of his rockets would fly the highest, and compared that to actual rocket flights. Grade 7. imagine.
• the intermediate prize went to a boy who designed an electrical circuit that controlled the current coming out of a large capacitor bank, making it act like a battery than could charge in 5 minutes but last for hours.  He is now in the process of trying to patent the idea.
• the senior prize went to a boy who solved Thompson's problem of calculating the arrangement of charges on a sphere minimizing the overall potential energy. the runner-up calculated the distribution of dark matter in  some spiral galaxies from the light  curves obtained from the web.

Several of the students had projects good enough to be invited to professional conferences, and several were seeking patents for their projects.  Amazing.

One of my good friends was a gold medal winner at a CWSF several (won't say how many !) years ago, and now she does double-duty as medical doctor and a professor in neuroscience at UBC. Plus, she kicks butt as a race-walker and a skier.    No doubt the current crop of alpha++ CWSF winners will achieve similarly lofty intellectual heights.  Those are pretty special people.

Me ?  trying to stay focussed, but,  really, I am  so not worthy...