a. Wednesday:
omelets for breakfast courtesy Prez Frank (he makes the weird diner-style kind
where the edges are folded over and the eggs are uniformly soft. Come to think
of it, the bagelry does this too. Odd.)
i. Then
we head to this weird full-scale? concrete Stonehenge replica dedicated to WWI
veterans in the county. It’s pretty neat, offers a stunning view of the
agriculture laid out in the river delta, and there are some fun climbing rocks.
ii. Back
to the campground. Play some games, take a walk, go swimming. The river is
freezing, but in one spot isolated from the current, the water is nearly 5
degrees warmer. (The sun is heating the relatively shallow water and rocks but there’s no cold water coming in from the
deeper part of the river to dilute the energy). Good times!
iii. Frisbee
with Devin—we’ve recruited him onto SPS Ultimate 2016-17. He’s getting better J
iv. Pack
some dinner, head out to the main event—an observatory visit! The historical
observatory, once used as part of an effort to verify General Relativity, is
maintained by State Park officials. The first session is run by a knowledgeable
historian of science, who gives us all the history. He also demonstrates a ball
of plasma created by a Tesla coil, and how it responds to current run through
it--different gases in the atmosphere emit light at different frequencies. This
is related to the aurora borealis—you see the same spectral colors of light
from different gases in the atmosphere. Except the kicking and rebinding of the
valence electrons in the gas comes not from a strong magnetic field and
current, but by a “solar wind” of protons and neutrons coming from solar
flares.
v. We
eat dinner and are joined by Amiel, who is now called Locke—he underwent a sex
change recently. Great to see him—super enthusiastic and full of social energy
after only a few days exodus in the apparently incredibly boring Oregon countryside.
Lots of weird shenanigans occur as all the physicists try to share Locke’s
sleeping bag against the violent winds.
vi. The
astronomy nerds Locke and Joey go nuts over the big dome telescope. We get to
see Jupiter, although the telescope was designed for spectral (color)
resolution over visual clarity, so it’s not super vivid.
vii. Second
informational session features crazy middle-schoolers. They are, for
middle-schoolers, very knowledgeable about astronomy, and the speaker is very
up on her game. But she uses this call-and-response style that drives me nuts.
I have a conversation with Frank about it afterwards. Is it really necessary to
keep asking for things like “do you know the name of the nearest star to the
solar system”? Maybe it helps keep the kids engaged, but it doesn’t really make
them think. I guess I remember loving trivia-type stuff when I was smaller…
viii.
At one point I ask a question that involves
LIGO, gravitational waves. Turns out none of the kids know what these things
are, so the teacher invites me to elaborate. I say a little piece about LIGO
and some of the munchkins start talking about it; as is my wont, I shut up and
let them discuss. But they start goofing off pretty fast, and I get the sense
they’re waiting on me to either keep going or pass the reins back to the
teacher, rather than wait and join their conversation at an appropriate moment.
It’s an odd schooly thing; these shmids took the opportunity to goof off for a
few moments and waited for structure to be reimposed on them, rather than
treating the LIGO conversation as an opportunity part and parcel of the
observatory visit.
ix. More
goofing around with the telescope. Get into a weird philosophical conversation
with Devin as to the nature of justice. We start off by arguing over definitions
and then get into the meaty question of whether all justice can be defined in
terms of some sort of exchange. Devin gets very into it and I find myself in a
state I am too often in these days, a state of reserved and halfway amused
skepticism where I’m trying really hard to be earnest about the conversation,
but my earnestness and energy are difficult to access—even though the other
side of the conversation is not BS, it’s an earnest attempt to think about
something.
x. Return
to the campsite, bid farewell to Locke. Hit the hay almost immediately.
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