 |
| catching a red-eye at SFO |
Two nights ago, I climbed aboard the crown jewel of 19th century transportation, screaming down the California coast from UC Davis to San Francisco. Last night, I took off on the 20th century's own revolutionary high-speed vehicle, covering about 40 times the distance in just 3x the time, arriving early in Newport News, Virginia, for the 2013 Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics. Tonight, after taking in a handful of talks and brushing shoulders with a multitude of brilliant minds, I can't help but wonder whether any of the work being discussed here this week will, in some distant future, propel women and men venturing out into the cosmos at insane speeds, speeds sufficient for relativistic effects to contract the far reaches of the known universe to within one lifetime's journey away.
Nuclear pulse engines aren't my area of expertise, but they are a lot of fun to think about. I might seem a bit of an outsider here, presenting research on neutrino physics, but neutrinos and nuclear are so deeply intertwined—I think I'll feel right at home.
