December 30th is looming. An important day for me as it marks the birthday of a close friend and an annual deadline. I probably need to explain the deadline.
When I joined Bell Labs years and years ago my director took me aside and told me I should find a way to think about something different from what I was doing and hopefully different from what anyone else in the labs was doing at least once a year. Work scheduling was very flexible in those days, but he said he would cover for me if necessary. He didn't want a report, but felt the exercise of devoting my working hours to something that interested me was extremely important. The practice was not uncommon, although approaches varied widely.
I spent a fortnight learning about how mother bats located their offspring in caves as millions returned from their nightly feedings. The question had been posed during a lunch table discussion just before Christmas and was something none of us (all physicists) knew about.
My tools were a pad and pencil, the then wonderful Bell Labs Murray Hill library, access to Princeton's libraries, a telephone and a bit of curiosity.
It is silly to think you can learn very much in two weeks, even if you are going seven days a week at twelve hours a day (it was a really interesting problem!). But I was able to track down a few researchers and get a lot of information on signal encoding in bat calls including some very raw information that I was able to preform a bit of signal analysis on.
It was completely delightful and much better and rejuvenating than a vacation. Two weeks was long enough to get a sense of the problem and perhaps a bit of direction and no more. But I was refreshed and sharp for my regular work at the end of the period. It has become an important element in my education over time.
My mini introduction to bat signal processing came in very handy a few years later when some of us were asking some questions about signal encoding. It is always nice to see a system that just works. It provided a bit of insight that may have seemed out of the blue to anyone who didn't know about bats, but was obvious when pointed out. It allowed me to connect a few important dots that would normally be outside the scope of what you might think Bell Labs did. But it turned out a lot of people were spending some time thinking about very different areas. I believe it was one of the "secret" core strengths of the old Bell Laboratories.
I've been doing it since. Sometimes I take real vacation time, other times I've been able to manage my work. Finding a seed question to think about is sometimes difficult and sometimes completely obvious. Some have proven to lead to rich topics and others don't - I don't make the selection on the likelihood of success as the important byproduct of this activity is serendipity over the long term. I don't make the decision until December 30th and start my mini sabbatical on January 2nd.
Some of you know I do this and have been asking questions about this year's seed. The simple answer is I don't know yet. There are a few candidates. One that I've thought about before that came up again when I was rowing in the pre-dawn darkness today is how to explain important bits of science to non-scientists. A problem that has been bothering me for a long time and one that is very important to crack. Most scientists are very bad at it, but a few are excellent. I've spend some time talking to a few who know what they are doing, but that only leads to more questions.
Without going into the different techniques I know about, I'll give some examples.
Anyone who follows science at the Scientific American or even the Science section of the NY Times level, is familiar with epigenetics. It is fundamentally important, but most people seem to be ignorant of it and most explanations assume more background than the average person has. WNYC's RadioLab does a most good job of communicating some of these ideas at a very high level. They do it only using the spoken word - something that is very important to their technique. Their story telling requires an enormous among of time, but is effective.
Listen to these two pieces from a recent show that focused on epigenetics. The stories are familiar to any science type, but would be mostly ignored in favor of a technical description.
I'm lucky enough to have access to some amazing storytellers, so it is an accessible area for me. I have to think about how I might get started down the path.
There are a half dozen other candidates and I'm sure I won't know until Monday. It almost always comes down to the last moment.
Feel free to propose interesting questions - I'm used to a bit of lobbying.
In return I have a suggestion for a bit of mini dive that may be delightful for you if you have never had (or have forgotten) your high school physics, It is also something any 14 year old who has a bit of trig and algebra under her belt can handle - learning special relativity.1
Somehow "relativity" is labeled as being difficult. I'll concede that general relativity requires a fair amount of mathematical sophistication if you want to learn and understand it, but special relativity is really just high school level. It does require some careful thinking and logic in addition to a few hours of study and is an great learning experience. It may not be important in your field, but working out some of the more interesting apparently paradoxes is great mental exercise and, as such, maybe an important dot or set of dots to add to your arsenal.
special relativity is not difficult!
I'll recommend two books:
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog by Chad Orzel. A very gentle introduction that gets at the basics and requires only a bit of algebra and trigonometry - nothing a 9th grader can't handle. I do recommend working though it with a pad and pencil and to make drawings and thing about things as you go. It has a serious impact on our lives even though it is generally regarded as something that only is observable with very fast moving objects.
Spacetime Physics by Ed Taylor and Archibald Wheeler is a classic for those who are a bit more secure with math (although only high school level math is required) and are used to sorting things out logically. It is more demanding than the first book and gives you more tools to explore a bit more deeply. I'd recommend it to someone intending to major in the physical sciences or as a text for a college student in a first year course for science, math and engineering students. Spendy, but probably good for at least 60 to 100 hours of serious learning, so cheap on a dollar per hour basis.
And as a bonus why not treat yourself to learning how to use a slide rule? Basic rules are available online and regular use will give you and intuitive sense for logarithms as well as sharpen your ability to do mental math. I was asked by my management not to take my rule to the corporate headquarters for brainstorming sessions (I'm not a fan of brainstorming unless it is carefully constructed) as "it gave too much of an unfair advantage" (his words)...
__________
1 I note that there must be a desire to learn this. Not everyone has the motivation and that is just fine as there are so many things worthy of learning. It will take a bit of effort, but there is a real elegance and beauty in its simplicity. It also runs counter to most people's notion of how the world works, but turns out to be a better description than Newtonian physics. And the most important point is that we know it is "better" from experiment - the real world really does behave in this strange way. It is an excellent example of how our senses and experience fail us. Realizing this is important to many fields.
__________
Recipe Corner
Some time ago I put in some comments on making a good mango lassi. In the past few days I've made a few variations and have a better version. Most Indian restaurants use canned mango pulp for seasonal consistency. I've had good luck with Rellure Kesar Mango Pulp. You can find this sort of thing online or in most Indian groceries.
It is important to chill the ingredients to near freezing - you may even want to slightly freeze the milk. Also chill the serving glasses in your freezer.
This makes a very rich and thick lassi. If you prefer lassis that move through a straw easily and are perhaps a bit less rich use non-fat milk and regular (not Greek) non-fat plain yogurt. Many prefer something even less thick and one approach is to go with the thin regular yogurt and add some crushed ice to achieve the chill.
Mango Lassi 2
Ingredients
° 200g Fage 2% plain greek yogurt ( I tried whole Fage and it was almost overkill)
° 150g whole milk (near freezing)
° 150g mango pulp (near freezing)
° 25g white cane sugar (or to taste)
° some ground cardamom to taste - I probably used a tsp. I tried a holiday variation that was ok - nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, but prefer cardamom
° slice almonds or chopped toasted pisachios to top (optional)
Technique
° add incredients (except for the topping) into a blender and blend until smooth
° serve in a chilled glass and top with the nuts.
Comments