Back Home: Reflection

I wish the week never ended. 

The time I spent at the DNP conference was wonderful. It was almost like a dream. Now, that we have returned to our normal lives, I refuse to forget how wonderful the world can be. I knew since Friday night, that I was coming back to a mandatory evacuation and watched my city flood through a tv screen. Even as the community I call home mourns our newly found homelessness, I cannot help but think about how lucky I am.

The DNP:CEU experience has inspired me to pursue my dreams no matter what obstacles in life I may face. I really hope that every undergraduate has taken this from the experience.

My first CEU experience

While I've been to a few local and regional conferences before, this was my first experience with a meeting as big as this.  Things got off to a slightly rocky start.  Trying to make sure everyone was up and ready to leave for the airport at 5:30 am was a bit tough.  As it turns out, making cinnamon rolls is a great way to shut up college students that are whining about how early it is.  We then spent two flights surrounded by screaming children.

By the time we got out of the airport, things quickly started looking up.  After dropping our stuff off at the hotel and taking a short nap, we decided to walk down to Balboa Island and explore a bit.  We then returned the next day to go to the beach, even though few of us thought to bring appropriate beachwear.  After lunch we returned for the plenary session.

While I was fairly lost in the politics of physics around the world, I did get to appreciate the fact that I've already had the opportunity to participate in an experiment at RCNP.  At the following welcome reception I then got to reconnect with old friends and meet new and exciting people. 

By far, my favorite part of the conference was all of the discussions about what's going on in nuclear physics.  After taking the October PGRE, I found myself in a bit of a rut.  Being reminded of what I'm working toward and the cool things that are out there was instrumental in helping me find my motivation again.

With all that said, I'm definitely glad to be back home.  Being an introvert, I was starting to find myself drained by the constant interactions with large numbers of people.  While the trip was excellent, it's definitely nice to be back to my comfort zone.  With that said, I've got to get back to a presentation I have to give in about 10 hours...

Day 3, Part I: A Very Interesting Session

Thursday morning started in a particularly interesting way.  Like a number of other undergrads, I'd decided to attend Session CG: Novel and Diverse Topics in Theoretical Physics.  If you follow that link and read the abstracts listed, you'll understand why these sorts of talks draw a lot of attention.

The abstracts are about, as the session title states, very unique approaches to the problems of physics.  Often, these sorts of talks attempt to unify the fundamental forces or reinterpret quantum mechanics.  While the more prominent researchers at the conference usually have more busy schedules of talks to attend, undergrads often take the time to go hear what these people have to say (though, in a surprising exception to this, I ran into my advisor at this session).

A big problem that I've noticed with these talks over the years has been that they are usually prompted by trying to apply some philosophical mindset to physics.  While inspiration can take many forms, it's usually best to start from known physical phenomena and try to work towards solutions to your problem of choice.  Introducing a bias on the front end of things is bad science, and that doesn't help anyone.

That being said, it is good that these people are allowed to present (when they show up, that is).  If the APS censored out these abstracts, they'd be setting a terrible precedent and be well on the way to becoming the Big Brother of physics.  I'm all for being critical of bad scientific procedure, but barring these talks from conferences would stifle creativity and discourage researchers from trying new things.

Conference "Talks" from an undergraduate perspective

This morning, I woke up bright and early (did my homework) and then headed straight to some Nuclear Structure talks. I was actually rather surprised that I understood most of the talks in this category. (Some of the other talks were overwhelming and I could not understand much, but then again I did not have any classes or do research in these specific topics.)

Afterwards, I went to the morning session and grad school fairs. I learned a lot about Rutgers, MSU and Notre Dame. I think the grad school fair was great! I got a few papers and learned about a few programs. Overall, it was really encouraging.

Later, I will be attending the banquet. I will make sure to take a photo or two of the table I'm at. Who knows, maybe I will be sitting next to my future classmates or even teachers?

Disneyland

Tuesday I flew from foggy Grand Rapids to sunny Orange County. Knowing full well that Thursday through Saturday would contain phenomenal phullness of physics phun I opted to take a day-long excursion to Disneyland.

There are many ways to get to Disneyland from the Hyatt Recency for a day of magical, wallet-lightening truancy. The transportation scheme requiring the least fiscal loss involves the following:

1. take the free Hyatt shuttle from the hotel to John Wayne airport's transportation center (leaves the hotel on the hour)

2. take the Disneyland shuttle to the Disneyland hotel (leaves the airport on the hour)

3. walk through Downtown Disney to the park entrance

4. buy a one-day, one-park ticket to Disneyland

If you're like me, you'll start your odyssey at approximately 5:30 in the morning, resulting in an arrival to the park shortly before its opening at 8. I was the first person to ride Pirate's of the Caribbean. I love the ride, though I dislike the inclusion of Jack Sparrow and the removal of lewd content. 

From 8 until 12 there are very few other guests at the park, resulting in very short lines for most attractions. Amazingly Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, and Matterhorn Bobsleds all had next-in-line or no-line service. Peter Pan's Flight seemed to be the only ride with a consistently long line. From 12 to 6 the park had a fair number of guests, resulting in nontrivial lines for most rides. 

Unfortunately the Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye and It's A Small World were both closed for remodeling. The Haunted Mansion was also already in it's Nightmare Before Christmas mode, which I view is a bastardization that palls in comparison to the original experience. Oh well. At least the Dole Whips and the Enchanted Tiki Room haven't changed.

I ended the day with a final ride on Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a nice.

The trip was well worth it, but now it is time for physics.

Day 2: The Conference Begins

On Wednesday, my second day in Newport Beach, the conglomeration of students myself and my friends had amassed (which included about 15 people at the time) collectively decided that we needed to go visit the beach on Balboa Peninsula.  We walked to Balboa Island, then took a ferry over to the peninsula.  It was a rather interesting experience for me, as I'd never taken a ferry.

Upon arriving at the peninsula, instead of being bombarded with residential areas as we were on the island, we encountered a great number of stores and restaurants.  Most of us went to the beach (even though only a handful of us were prepared), but myself and one of my friends decided that instead of getting sand in our shoes, we were going to explore the large pier nearby.

It was rather neat to see people fishing off the pier and to observe the multitude of beach-dwelling birds which decided to take up residence near the restaurant Ruby's at the end of the pier.  Like a stereotypical tourist, I tried to take a few panoramic shots with my phone while there, though most of them ended up being terrible.

We then went to see what was going on at the beach, and as we expected, there was sand and salt water.  We went to lunch at the Cabo Cantina, a nice, cheap (for California) place by the beach.  After that, the group headed back to the hotel for the plenary session.

The talks of the plenary session were really informative and covered a broad array of topics.  There were talks about the variety of European and Japanese physics projects, along with some underground physics experiments.  These sorts of talks, while somewhat inaccessible to undergrads with little immersion in the politics of physics, do help to convey the scope of research being done.  It gives us a bit of hope amid all the talk of funding problems and lack of physics jobs, even if the opportunities being discussed are not in the US.

The welcome reception was a nice place to reunite with old friends and have some engaging discussions with the various conference attendees.  I ran into a friend of mine I met at Oak Ridge a few years ago, and she and I ended up having a particularly good discussion with a researcher there about scientific integrity and its place in the world of billion-dollar research projects.  It's nice to know that you can disagree with someone who's been doing nuclear physics research for longer than I've been alive and be able to present good arguments to defend your position.

After the welcome reception was over, the group began walking toward Balboa Island.  Immediately after getting there, a friend of mine and I discovered that some of our friends were drinking at the hotel, so we decided to head back. We then got to drink with one of our professors who had just gotten into the conference and chat with some of the other Oak Ridge researchers.  That lasted until around midnight, then we parted ways and headed to bed.

Procrastination and other things we should do tomorrow

Procrastination definitely has its value.  Even when you are not actively working on a talk, your brain is mulling over ideas, say, for engaging and informative graphics to support an idea on slide 4.  The last-minute pressure can push a geyser of ideas up from a brewing underground well.  Sometimes that geyser feels a lot like food poisoning.  (Anyone else feel anxious and nauseous after the sliders at the welcome reception?)

Procrastination is a hard way to go, sometimes.  The late night panic when you realize your talk isn't halfway done (or even started, sometimes, right Steve?) is rough on the stomach lining.  I can't help but think, would it really have been so much worse if I had just gotten more done yesterday?  Or any of the 100 afternoons since July 1?  Well, yesterday, I wasn't inspired, so maybe.

Jorge Cham, of the popular PhD Comics on graduate school (PhD standing for "Piled Higher and Deeper") often sings the praises of the virtue of procrasting.  Sometimes the deep desire to avoid something pushes us to extraordinary lengths to justify putting off the task at hand.  "I have to put off writing that talk this week: there's this other idea over here, and I really have to work on it NOW...." 

To be honest, my neural network based project ("Training Neural Networks to See Missing Information") sprang from a primal need to avoid another project.  In the end, my little "distraction" turned out to be the most beautiful piece of research I've worked on so far: it's interesting to a very broad group of people, it's different, and there is potential to inspire others to a number of new projects.  Can I say that about every talk I've given?  No way.  Maybe Jorge Cham needs to be the entertainment at the 2013 DNP meeting.  Then again, he might prefer an invitaiton for the 2014 meeting-- when it is in Hawaii.

Day 1: Getting to Know Newport Beach

I left Cookeville, Tennessee, with three of my friends at around 05:30 on Tuesday morning to drive to the airport.  It was a bit difficult to wake up that early, but I knew that it'd be worth it once I made it to California.

The flight from Nashville to Denver could have gone better (Really, who loves having little kids screaming and kicking your seat for three hours?), and the same could be said for the flight from Denver to Newport Beach (Two more hours of the same kind of torture?  What did I do to deserve this?).  However, upon landing at John Wayne Airport, I almost immediately forgot about all of that.

When we arrived at the hotel and got our backpacks and suitcases into our rooms, myself, four of my friends from Tennessee Tech University, and one student we met at the hotel went to go get dinner.  As it turns out, Amelia's, a restaurant on Balboa Island, is a fantastically good, if expensive, place to eat.

Since we decided that we shouldn't waste the somewhat-long walk, we walked around the perimeter of Balboa Island.  Along the way, we marveled at the expensive houses and boats while questioning the sanity of people who'd put out so many Halloween decorations.

After that excursion, we went to The Village Inn, a bar on the island, for drinks.  Maybe I'm just not used to the difference in the price of alcohol between Tennessee and California, but those drinks were really expensive.  That being said, it was nice to be able to sit down and relax after such a long walk.  When we finished there, we headed back to the hotel to get some well-deserved sleep.

Poster Presentations

California is nice. This is my first time outside of the east coast. I like it here. It is very different than what I expected. I find it nice to present my research. It's great to be in a community that is interested in the same thing as me. It is also encouraging to see that there is a lot going on in this field. I am definitely having fun and can't wait to attend more "talks!"

Pick a Pack of Parallel Presentations

Conferences are great for watching personality traits on full display.  Research has a strong social component by virtue of our modes for sharing results and new ideas.  If you are a people watcher, the DNP will be fun.  Physicists come in all flavor of crazy, smooth, maniacal, shy, funny, oblivious, painful-- the full spectrum.  (Why did I put crazy first?)  Our research skills aren't necessarily predictors of our public speaking skills, so it's a grab bag. 

We all have our own personal lists of people whom we rate highly for both their research and deft speaking or language skills.  The CEU students might appreciate a list of talks you'd highly recommend.  Who is a good speaker no matter the topic?

DNP 2012 starts tomorrow!

   I've always enjoyed the DNP. It's practically the one "must-go-to" conference within the Nuclear Physics community. I can catch up on advances and the latest efforts by colleagues that I don't talk with much on a regular basis. I can also set up impromptu meetings with friends from different institutions (often after the evening schedule has ended, and at some place that serves beer). This year I'm also interested in seeing how the Townhall meeting plays out and if any interesting opinions are voiced. Tonight, I'm still working on putting my talk together about our commissioning experiment with the Versatile Array on Neutron Detectors and Low Energy (VANDLE). I'm speaking in session HC on Friday morning. Better get back to it. As Tigger says "TTFN, ta ta for now".
-Bill Peters