Black Holes and Urban Running

Two observations on day 2 back in Denver.

Went for a brief run, and discovered that I'm quite a bit slower than I had thought. Or at least that it felt a lot slower. Part of this may have been the altitude, but I think it also had to do with my surroundings. When running, you always have some sort of a sense of how fast you're going just based on how fast trees, houses, etc. move by your head. But running in the city, a place dense with stores, apartments, cars, and everything else, makes it seem that you're running faster because more stuff is going by at a faster rate. When there's not much to run past, it seems like you're going slower. That's my theory at least.

Also, I was driving around a bit, happy to be pretty confident that I knew which direction cars would be coming from, listening to the radio. On one of the main talk radio stations was a program called "stump the professor" where people called in with science/math related questions. This type of scientific media program is rare enough, but I was most impressed by the level of discussion. I tuned in as they were talking about the physics of black holes, going over gravity equations (oh no, not equations!) and rates of acceleration. It was nice to see that this kind of program - one that really looks at scientific questions somewhat rigorously - is commercially viable.

And with that, hope y'all have a wonderful Christmas!

A New Age of Exploration

On Tuesday, I got a look inside the archives of the Royal Geographic Society, the home of the largest private collection of maps and first-hand accounts of expeditions. This specific showcase focused on the exploration of deserts from the 1890s to 1940s. It was during this period that classic legends of the white-clad Lawrence of Arabia or the Land Rover-driving tough guys were forged. Not to enter the world of cliches, but the old black-and-white pictures are worth somewhere between 999 and 1001 words - you get the sense that a real person is in those photos, someone with friends, dreams, fears, and all that jazz. People relegated to the history books tend to take on a mythical quality, but I was reminded that they were all real people.



Reading various accounts of these explorers, I was struck by the joy and enthusiasm apparent in their words as they described a new place - a vista that hadn't been experienced by anyone before that moment. (In all likelihood it had been experienced by many non-Europeans, but for the purposes of these explorers, they were trailblazers.)

That joy of being the first person to ever lay eyes on something is a goal that drives all explorers. But sadly, those days are over. The next person to go somewhere first will not be the first person to see that place. Take Mars for example. When the first person to walk on Mars looks across the rusted landscape, the rocks and hills and valleys will have been seen by millions of people before him. In essence we have divorced the intellectual excitement of seeing a place for the first time from the physical experience of being in a place for the first time. Certainly there are practical benefits of this - seeing a place beforehand makes the journey safer, and robot-acquired images can show us places far beyond the realm of human travel - but much of the romanticism is lost. It's a fundamentally different type of exploration, one that is more calculated, less spontaneous, though, admittedly, more efficient.

Captain Kidd's Ship

Sitting here in the library, writing a paper, measuring time by the number of window panes the moon has crossed. One pane is about 20 minutes, in case you were wondering. It's refreshing sometimes to sit back and watch the sky - moon, stars, planets, sun. It's easy to convince ourselves that our physical domain stops a few blocks down the road, but really, we are on the greatest roller coaster imaginable, hurtling through space at 18.55 miles per second! The moon crossing a window is a nice reminder of that.

Back on Earth, a pretty cool discovery out of Hispanola today - Captain Kidd's ship, the Quedagh Merchant, has been found. Kidd's life reads like an adventure novel - he captured the ship in the Indian Ocean in 1698, sailed it to Madagascar, where he restocked. Then he set off for the Caribbean, and was captured soon thereafter. But poor Mr. Kidd has received a public relations beating, and it seems that he was wrongly convicted of (and executed for) piracy. Turns out he was an authorized privateer, meaning he had the authority to seize French ships, such as the Quedagh Merchant. Anyway, the boat was found just off the coast of the Dominican Republic under a mere 10 feet of water. It's amazing that this incredible wreck has been so accessible for hundreds of years, only now to be discovered. Sometimes it feels like all of the big discoveries have been made, especially in science as people delve more and more into narrow specialties, so it's encouraging to be reminded that that may not be the case. Maybe not quite everything has been discovered yet.

Europa

Astrobiologists looking for life in the solar system have generally agreed on a shortlist: Mars, Europa, Titan, and possibly Enceladus or other moons. We're in the middle of a golden age of robotic exploration of Mars, but what's next? Based on proximity and scientific promise, the answer appears to be Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. There is now consensus that the moon is covered by an icy layer which overlays an ocean of liquid water. Liquid water is one of the crucial requirements of life, and if nutrients exist in sufficient quantities, there could be life on Europa. The ice layer limits our view and remote sensing capabilities, so a robotic probe that is able to drill through the ice into the ocean is a crucial capability. This article highlights the efforts to make a Europa mission a reality. Mars should certainly remain an important destination for spacecraft, but we also must continue to push the boundaries, and Europa is a scientifically-relevant place to do so.

Hollywood here I come!

I had the rather surreal experience over the last couple of days of being an extra in a movie. It's called Genova, and it's about a family whose mother dies and the events that follow - starring Colin Firth and a girl who was in the OC (Kaitlin, my sources tell me). They needed to film the funeral and wake scenes, which take place in Chicago, but why go to the real Chicago when you can dress Oxford up to look like Chicago, right? The film studio is an English company, so it actually does make sense I suppose. Anyway, in order to best simulate Chicago, they needed American extras, which is where I came in with my spot-on American accent.

Man were these people detail-oriented. I understand that films are an enormous industry, but it seemed like a bit much: Americans as extras when they have no speaking roles, 2 inches of fake snow completely surrounding the house in case the camera were to get a certain view, 20-25 takes from several different angles, a fake-vomit machine, etc. I guess we just take for granted the amount of work that goes into a high-quality production. And, according to the director, this was a "relatively low-budget" film!

The whole acting business is also pretty incredible. There were professional actors on the set who auditioned for non-speaking roles! There were also several one step up the ladder who had one or two lines...and were flown in from the US to do their parts. Is that really necessary? No wonder movies cost so much to make. I'm not entirely convinced we need professional actors flown halfway around the world to say one line that could very well be cut in post-production.

I also noticed a pretty stark discontinuity between the perceived glamor of being a movie star and the reality on set. The principle actors in a given scene would say a line dozens of times, on continuous repeat, then move on to the next 30 second segment and do it all again. It doesn't seem like a particularly fulfilling or meaningful job, and they are being glorified for their abilities to speak and walk and make facial expressions. It's weird when you think about it. I know this is somewhat unfair to acting as a whole, but I just think it's gone a bit too far.

But the entire experience was fascinating - the way the microphones were tucked into the knot of a tie, the way the lighting was shifted for every single shot, etc. Definitely looking forward to seeing my much-heralded film debut in a few months as I take up a few out-of-focus pixels in the background for less than a second. I'll just have to make sure I don't blink.

Meatballs and Moose

A few thoughts about last weekend's sojourn to Sweden, land of meatballs and moose. It's funny how the machine of tourism tends to distill a place into a few symbols - easily transportable indicators that you've been somewhere. London would be soccer jerseys, union jack stuff, and maybe some statues of Big Ben. Sweden is moose figurines, painted toy horses, crystal, and anything with the Swedish flag on it.

One of our goals during the trip was to find a Swedish person who didn't speak English. They don't exist. Even some of the commercials on TV that are for Swedish products are in English. It's interesting how in the US, knowing another language is considered a marketable skill; in the rest of the world, it's almost a given. It's a little presumptuous of us to assume that the rest of the world should know English (not that I can talk, as I am certainly monolingual).

Moving on. I suppose there is a reason people don't often go to Sweden in the middle of December - you're lucky to get about 6 hours of daylight ("daylight"...only rarely is it "sunlight"). That said, Stockholm is a pretty cool place - a city spread over an archipelago with a very intimate relationship with the water. Cute old town region with narrow store-lined cobblestone streets - par for the course for a European capital. The highlight was a museum housing a ship called the Vasa. It was built in 1628 and was one of the largest ships in the world at the time, commissioned for use by the army. But perhaps it was a bit too ambitious, for during its maiden voyage it sank almost immediately, and spent the next 300+ years tens of meters below Stockholm's harbor. In the 1960s, it was brought to the suface, almost completely intact. Now it has been restored and sits in this museum. I was a little skeptical going in, but the ship is incredible. 225 feet long, 175 tall. It's ornately carved and very "Pirates of the Caribbean." Pictures really don't do it justice, but here it is:



The other sweet sight was the City Hall, site of the annual Nobel Prize Banquet and awards ceremony. For those of you keeping track, the peace prize is awarded in Oslo, and the rest in Stockholm. The banquet occurred December 10th, the day after we were there. For touristic purposes, this was actually not a good thing, as the hall was closed for preparations, but it was great to see anyway. It's always inspiring to be in the presence of greatness, and it doesn't get much greater than Nobel laureates. (Wonderful photos courtesy of my dearest sister.)

From London to Stockholm in less than 12 hours!

Take a quick look at a map. London to Stockholm - seems easy enough, right? Just fly northeast a little ways over the North Sea, cut across parts of Denmark, and there you are. Well, turns out it's not quite so simple. During my weekend jaunt to Stockholm it felt like about half of it was spent traveling. To get there, here are the steps involved:

1 - Take tube from South Kensington to Victoria - 30 minutes
2 - Get on bus from Victoria to Stansted airport - 2.5 hours
3 - Sprint through airport at full speed to get to gate 53 - 6 minutes
4 - Ryan Air flight during which flight attendants try to sell us food, drinks, raffle tickets, london train tickets, calendars, perfumes, and magazines - 2.25 hours
5 - Waiting at airport in Sweden for my traveling companions to arrive - 3 hours, spent very wisely watching Marie win the Swedish version of American Idol. Good choice, Sweden.
6 - Bus from Skavsta airport to central Stockholm - 80 minutes
7 - Wandering around trying to find the subway - 20 minutes
8 - Taking the subway to Telefonplan station - 20 minutes, spent making jokes about the name of the station
9 - Walking around at 1:30 in the morning trying to find the hotel - 30 minutes, which included a brief scare that our hotel had recently been demolished and was now the site of a hole in the ground.

So, some quick math shows that door to door travel time was a little under 11 hours. Well, I guess that's what happens when the airfare costs a mere 20 pounds...

10 Downing Street

First off, sorry about the lack of activity on the ol blog - I've been in Sweden for the last few days (more on that later), and trying to catch up on work since my return.

So, last week I had the wonderful opportunity to visit #10 Downing Street, aka the home and offices of the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Unlike the White House, you need an invitation to visit, mostly because it's actually a pretty small place - an old apartment that happens to be the office of a head of state. So after we got there and passed through security, we entered the front door and set down our coats and bags. Then we were told to "go down that hallway." We wandered in said direction for a while when someone else suggested we "head on upstairs." So up the stairs we go, taking our sweet time. It was amazing - I have a weird feeling this kind of unsupervised wandering would not be quite so encouraged in the White House.

Eventually we sat down for a briefing by two ministers who cannot have been more than 30 years old. These guys are basically running the UK's relationship with Africa and the Middle East, and they look like law school students. Impressive. It was also interesting to learn that their jobs carry over from one administration to the next, unlike in the US where thousands of positions are re-appointed when a new president comes into office. This kind of continuity seems like a good idea, as it would allow for more far-reaching, sustainable project planning. US agencies charged with long-scale projects, like NASA, often struggle with this - when a new president comes in with a new plan for our space program, many of the programs that the previous president had spent lots of time and money developing are scrapped before they have time to produce appreciable returns.

At this point it was time for our tour, but unfortunately it was not to be. Turns out that all of the rooms were in use. Mr. Brown was likely a couple of rooms away, dealing with some massive world issue. Or watching tv, who knows. Regardless, it's always inspiring to be in the presence of greatness...or at least importance.

The workout rut

Over the last few months, my workout regimen has consisted almost exclusively of running, or lifting weights at the gym (free, brand new gym I might point out). Recently, it's been getting a little old - the act of distance running is inherently repetitive, and sometimes that can be a little dull, even as routes, weather, podcasts, etc. change. I needed to sprint, jump, throw a ball, something more stimulating. This mindset led me to do two things:

1 - I signed up for the Tough Guy competition. It's impossible to describe this event, but the web site is pretty funny. From what I gather, the race consists of running through bogs, climbing over big wooden obstacles, jumping through burning hay bales, dodging electrically charged poles, swimming in a river, and crawling underneath barbed wire, just to name a few components. But it looks like a lot of fun - I don't think many people take it too seriously, it's just a good way to challenge yourself in a way you probably never have, and get really muddy doing so.

2 - I also went to the Imperial College hockey practice last night. It was nice to get back on the ice, even if I was renting amazingly smelly gear to do so. In England, "hockey" generally means field hockey, and the ice-based version is still seen as a pretty exotic import. But perhaps not surprisingly, that may be changing as media becomes increasingly global. If hockey is to grow here, London desperately needs more ice rinks - our practice rink is in an old convention center type place way out in zone 3 (aka, the boondocks).

When Inspiration Strikes

At work on a Saturday - you know you're jealous. Got here via my long saturday run, long being anything beyond the 4-mile standard run to work, so it's not saying too much. This morning I ran west along the river then north once I got to Battersea park...and that probably means nothing to you. Point is, it was one of those wandering runs where you know the general direction you want to go but have no idea which street to take. Found myself conveniently at the Whole Foods, where my reward was a nice piece of pizza and some pear-flavored gelato.

Ok, back to the subject at hand. I've been doing this whole school thing for a few years now, and one thing I've learned is to take advantage of those all-too-fleeting moments of inspiration. We're constantly pressured either internally or externally to work more, work harder, and do more. I don't care how much you love your job, there are always times when you aren't necessarily feeling it. I've found that motivation is often the limiting factor, so when it comes, take advantage of it. If that happens to be a Saturday, or 11PM on a Tuesday, then so be it*. The times of complete immersion in your work are almost always more productive and efficient anyway. This freedom of schedule is one of the great things about science - scheduling work around your state of mind (to some extent) is very freeing.

*actually, working at Imperial at 11PM is not a good idea - at 11, all of the doors lock, meaning you can't get out if you are already inside. So if that experiment just can't wait, make sure you have an air mattress.