New students to cryogenics are always in a rush. When you start cooling a system, there are a set of time constants that govern how fast the various parts get cold. They are usually measured in hours. The temptation is to maximize your efficiency by going off and doing other work. Certainly there's a place for that, but if you never let yourself watch your experiment all the way through, you will never really understand what's going on. Physics means real things happening. You can calculate time constants and try to optimize various goals, but in the end there is a real time which must be waited out. It will not be exactly what you calculated. Your exchange gases and vacuum ratings are real pressures and they almost certainly won't do in real life exactly what your model says they should. So watch carefully when everything is working. That way when they break you will know what is different.
Getting a new student to sit still the first time isn't very hard. Once
they learn how complicated their job is, they are usually happy to step
aside and watch you do it for a while. You may think they are learning
patience from you, but as soon as they take the helm chances are they
will go back to rushing. The problem is they are used to doing
homework, where progress occurs at the speed of thought. As soon as
they have enough information to paint a picture of what's going on, they
act. But they don't usually have enough information to make a good decision and they fear doing nothing when something is wrong far more than the reverse.
The same is true elsewhere although it isn't usually phrased that way. Any time you try to change some piece of the world, there is a timescale in play that has nothing to do with your mental or physical speed. Petitions take time to move through committees. Children take time to grow up. Sometimes things change all at once and you have to move fast to keep up; part of wisdom is learning when to act and when to sit. The time to be seated is not just down time. Its when you watch how the world works in your absence and what needs your action. If you want to make a meaningful change, these are very important things to know. And actually this is what science is all about, really getting immersed in the details and finding out how all the unregarded bits work. Science starts with watching.
One of the risks of really watching things is that you notice the things that are broken. And if you watch them be broken every day, you might feel inclined to fix them. This can lead to a lot of extra work. Sometimes its an easy fix; re-glue a joint, forgive a friend. Other times you change the entire course of your life. Maybe you find a persistent noise source in your microwave array and then spend the rest of your life studying the Cosmic Microwave Background. Maybe there's a place right nearby where hunger and loneliness are rampant and no one but you seems interested in going there. Whatever it is, being a watcher first means that when you do act there will be a reason for your action.
Active watching is terrible for your schedule. I don't know how many times i've popped my head into lab with the intent to spend two minutes watching before going home, only to discover some problem and spend multiple hours fixing it. In the long run i'm glad i discovered it; my experiment didn't break. In the short run, i'm tired and wish i was at home. On the flip side, i remember discovering one morning that my little boy could climb stairs. I thought i had several weeks to get the baby gate ready. I was somewhat late for work that day. Whatever plans you have, active watching means giving the world permission to change them.
Building an intuition and learning to trust it can take years. That was one of the most frustrating things about grad
school for me. Even if i understood a fridge on paper, i didn't react
in the right way when something went wrong in the lab. Or i thought the
right thing and then did the wrong thing. Over time, watching puts you
in tune with the thing being watched so you act appropriately when
there is no time to think. In fact, it gives the world permission to change you.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Dust and Ashes
In the last year of any degree program, its time to start thinking about what comes next. I'm definitely thinking about academia, but i'm not that interested in the lifestyle of a research professor. I'm also interested in living somewhere rural. That means i'm actively seeking out positions that other people in my place might pass up. At some point in this search, i found myself thinking that i could pretty much do whatever i wanted with my degree. And the next instant, the Lord was in my head saying "Dust and ashes".
...
Well, that was a bit sobering. But not immediately clear. Everything about this search, the degree, the job and ultimately physics itself is dust and ashes. I'm vehemently not searching for fame and fortune, so why inject that tidbit of humility into the equation? I think this is actually an instruction about how to use prestigious degrees effectively. It is probably extensible to all noteworthy accomplishments.
Every book about homesteading has at least a paragraph about ash. Ash is what's left when all the life has been lived and every last scrap of living energy has been spent. Even the ever-hungry fireplace has rejected it, but ash is far from useless. Fine ash is used to make soap, but the majority of a winter's ash build-up is tilled back into the fields in the spring to supply the next year's crop with much needed potash (farmer-speak for water-soluble potassium). If fields are harvested year after year without getting a coating of ash back now and then, they stop yielding. So having ash is very important, but you'd be insane to hoard up large piles of it. Aside from the social awkwardness, stockpiled ash eventually becomes wet and turns to lye, which is toxic and extremely caustic. Ash turned to lye in a charcoal grill will eat through the steel bottom in a season or two. It will dissolve skin fairly quickly, but what makes it so dangerous is that it isn't immediately painful. Fail to treat lye with respect and you can sustain serious injuries before you realize anything is wrong. For this reason, it is important to sequester ashes in a safe place and disperse them back to the soil as soon as you can.
When you start a new degree program, you typically move to a new place and start a new life. That life must be lived then. Days are spent, whether well or poorly, and at the end of them there are no more. A degree, in a sense, is what is left when all the life of the degree program has been lived. There will be another life afterward, but you can't save up this one to live later. So the question is what to do with the degree. One popular answer is to put it on the wall and let everyone know about it. Even if you don't openly flaunt it, there's always that temptation to pull the PhD card. Just a subtle reminder why your opinion is important. Physicists are notorious for this even when the debate isn't strictly about physics. While it often wins arguments and earns respect of a sort, this is toxic to the kinds of relationships that will grow Life in your new life. Worse, the toxicity isn't immediately apparent. It may be some time before you start to wonder why relationships haven't deepened. The better approach is to take everything that degree represents: work experience, classes, extracurricular awards, and till it under so that only you know about it. Of course, share your knowledge freely (when asked) and do everything to the best of your ability, but let that flow out of who you have become instead of trying to transplant a piece of your previous life.
As my program comes to an end, it is important to finish strong so that i have plenty of ash for the next Spring of my life. It is also important to leave things in such a way that my presence is not required. By training my replacement, writing documentation and cleaning up the lab i recognize an Autumn, a time to harvest papers and prepare for the Winter between-time ahead. On my resume, there will be a large section about a PhD with Prof. Famous at Prestigious U. That is a natural result of building a resume (another Autumn activity), but the goal should be to sequester it there. In interviews, i should be talking about what work they want done and how i am prepared to do it well. Just as last year's growth is pruned back and burned to increase this year's yield, it is better to enter a new place as an unknown and become known for the work done there.
I have been greatly blessed in this season of my life, so its closure should yield godly ashes. (Presumably the way to identify God's ashes is to till them under and see if the enriched man yields more godly fruit? Hard to assess as the man in question.) Anyway, the point is they are God's ashes. While very useful, they are dangerous in a subtle way and they are not mine to put on display or to cast about carelessly.
...
Well, that was a bit sobering. But not immediately clear. Everything about this search, the degree, the job and ultimately physics itself is dust and ashes. I'm vehemently not searching for fame and fortune, so why inject that tidbit of humility into the equation? I think this is actually an instruction about how to use prestigious degrees effectively. It is probably extensible to all noteworthy accomplishments.
Every book about homesteading has at least a paragraph about ash. Ash is what's left when all the life has been lived and every last scrap of living energy has been spent. Even the ever-hungry fireplace has rejected it, but ash is far from useless. Fine ash is used to make soap, but the majority of a winter's ash build-up is tilled back into the fields in the spring to supply the next year's crop with much needed potash (farmer-speak for water-soluble potassium). If fields are harvested year after year without getting a coating of ash back now and then, they stop yielding. So having ash is very important, but you'd be insane to hoard up large piles of it. Aside from the social awkwardness, stockpiled ash eventually becomes wet and turns to lye, which is toxic and extremely caustic. Ash turned to lye in a charcoal grill will eat through the steel bottom in a season or two. It will dissolve skin fairly quickly, but what makes it so dangerous is that it isn't immediately painful. Fail to treat lye with respect and you can sustain serious injuries before you realize anything is wrong. For this reason, it is important to sequester ashes in a safe place and disperse them back to the soil as soon as you can.
When you start a new degree program, you typically move to a new place and start a new life. That life must be lived then. Days are spent, whether well or poorly, and at the end of them there are no more. A degree, in a sense, is what is left when all the life of the degree program has been lived. There will be another life afterward, but you can't save up this one to live later. So the question is what to do with the degree. One popular answer is to put it on the wall and let everyone know about it. Even if you don't openly flaunt it, there's always that temptation to pull the PhD card. Just a subtle reminder why your opinion is important. Physicists are notorious for this even when the debate isn't strictly about physics. While it often wins arguments and earns respect of a sort, this is toxic to the kinds of relationships that will grow Life in your new life. Worse, the toxicity isn't immediately apparent. It may be some time before you start to wonder why relationships haven't deepened. The better approach is to take everything that degree represents: work experience, classes, extracurricular awards, and till it under so that only you know about it. Of course, share your knowledge freely (when asked) and do everything to the best of your ability, but let that flow out of who you have become instead of trying to transplant a piece of your previous life.
As my program comes to an end, it is important to finish strong so that i have plenty of ash for the next Spring of my life. It is also important to leave things in such a way that my presence is not required. By training my replacement, writing documentation and cleaning up the lab i recognize an Autumn, a time to harvest papers and prepare for the Winter between-time ahead. On my resume, there will be a large section about a PhD with Prof. Famous at Prestigious U. That is a natural result of building a resume (another Autumn activity), but the goal should be to sequester it there. In interviews, i should be talking about what work they want done and how i am prepared to do it well. Just as last year's growth is pruned back and burned to increase this year's yield, it is better to enter a new place as an unknown and become known for the work done there.
I have been greatly blessed in this season of my life, so its closure should yield godly ashes. (Presumably the way to identify God's ashes is to till them under and see if the enriched man yields more godly fruit? Hard to assess as the man in question.) Anyway, the point is they are God's ashes. While very useful, they are dangerous in a subtle way and they are not mine to put on display or to cast about carelessly.
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