Back to Berkeley

The weekend before last, I went to Berkeley for a conference. The main reason for attending was to get an idea what is going on in statistical mechanics across the US (and, to a minor extent, Europe), and possibly even job leads.

On the plane to San Francisco, I read The Rosie Project, which Jacqui sent me ("for some reason the hero made me think of you", she claimed with reference to me). For those who have seen The Big Bang Theory, the hero was very much like Sheldon (especially later series Sheldon, where his social skills and sense of humour have improved very slightly) - so much so in fact that it was difficult to not just picture Sheldon narrating the story. The book was perfect for a plane: very easy to read, and amusing, with little bits that made me laugh out loud. I also planned a bit of the staging of my operetta (a proper post about this is upcoming).

I was considering visiting a museum in San Francisco on my way through, but the plane was delayed sufficiently for me to decide there was not enough time to make it worthwhile, so I headed straight to my motel in North Berkeley. After offloading most of my belongings, I set out walking to explore a little of Berkeley.

I went to Indian Rock park, said to be a good place for a view. This was correct: there was a nice view over the Bay Area from on top of a nice rock to climb (sufficiently easy that my slacks and leather shoes were no obstacle). I sat and looked out for a while, enjoying the mild evening (an average January day in San Francisco is only 5 degrees cooler than a July day: in Boston the difference is 25 degrees).

I then headed back, checking out some of North Berkeley before returning to familiar places on campus. After my wandering and listening to a carillon concert, the conference began.

The first evening was a poster session, and I presented my poster on water sorption in mesoporous materials. There was plenty of interest: certainly more than last time I presented a poster (understandable, because it was more closely related to the field of the conference). I managed to stay awake (until the early hours, Boston time) and answer questions.

The conference ran all the next day, and it was conferencey. Once it was over, I hurried back to the motel to catch the last little bit of the Patriots' playoff game on TV: the result was not in doubt when I arrived, but it was a result I was pleased to see.

I began the next morning with Mass at Holy Spirit parish, which I attended while I was studying at Berkeley. I then headed back for the last day of the conference. Michael Engel, from Michigan, gave a particular interesting talk on active matter. For instance, he spoke of rotors that turn in opposite directions: one might expect antiferromagnetic ordering, so that counter-rotating rotors can turn against each other like gears, but in fact phase separation is observed. I also enjoyed John Toner (from Oregon)'s talk on smectics and a Landau-Ginzburg approach to the hydrodynamic equations.

After a dim sum lunch - and buying shoes to replace my worn-out ones, which were hurting my soles, I met Amanda and Alan to go walking at Land's End. After a long bus ride all across San Francisco, we had a great walk, looking out at the Pacific Ocean (I did get close enough to touch it and think of family across it - or now in the "middle" of it!).

We ate dinner at an Indian restaurant near Amanda's apartment before I headed back across (under) the bay.

The next (extremely windy) morning, I went to the breakout session of the conference, on the glass transition and other far from equilibrium phenomena. I enjoyed Mike Hagan (from Brandeis)'s talk on the phase separation of self-propelled spheres.

You might have worked out from my one sentence descriptions that this was a less applied conference than I have usually attended recently. That's probably the right direction for me to head in the immediate future, for a bit of balance.

On Monday afternoon, I went to the California Academy of Sciences. I very much enjoyed the planetarium show on earthquakes, and I wish I had had a little more time to spend there: there was also a show on cosmic collisions, but I fell just short of exploring the rest of the academy even without spending another half hour (almost) in the planetarium.

It closed at five o'clock, and I wandered around Golden Gate Park for another half hour or so before catching a bus back towards Market St. It was nice to have a relaxing evening: it almost felt like summer! I ate dinner at an unremarkable Japanese restaurant before heading back to the airport, for a reasonable night's sleep on the plane.