Life as a Physicist

I stumbled on these posters while I was eating lunch on Saturday. There were two others I saw on the walk up as well. I couldn’t for the life of me figure them out. How was ITER being labeled as radioactive!? And why was it being protested by the same groups that protest nuclear energy? And isn’t France one of the most nuclear states?

Well, thank goodness for search engines. I personally think this is an over reaction to the situation.

First of all, ITER is a research fusion reactor, to be built in the South of France (near by). Nuclear power plants are fission reactors — ITER combines, nuclear reactors split. Nuclear reactors are tricky to build - the first sets of them (like 3 mile island and Chernoble) are basically trying to keep a run-away reaction in check. Second, they pour out lots and lots of radiation. Radiation, much as it will damage cell and DNA, also damages material - like a containment vessel. So you really have to over engineer the things. I think the new versions are much better. But ITER is a totally different beast. It takes two relatively benign atoms - deuterium (one proton and one neutron) and tritium (isotope of hydrogen - one proton, two neutrons) and produces Helium (H2), a neutron, and a boat load of energy. More than nuclear fission. In fact, that is why they invented the H-bomb. They use the nuclear fission explosion to start a nuclear fusion explosion, which is much more powerful. ITER is a Tokamak design: they excite the tritium and deuterium to very high energies - form a plasma (a gas, but with the atoms disassociated), and then use a magnetic field to contain them and squeeze them so that they get together and combine, releasing that energy, helium, and that neutron. Now, deuterium is everywhere (like our oceans). Tritium is mildly radio active, but nothing when compared to the active uranium isotope, U235. Helium is harmless — you are breathing it now. The neutron, however, will cause some damage as it is stopped by the walls of ITER, much the way the nuclear reactor container will have trouble: but it will be much much less. Further, the left over nuclear reactor fuel remains around forever, as we well know, but the rements of the ITER reaction will be mainly a radioactive reactor - much less hot and much less material (see the decommissioning page -  you could never do this with nuclear fuel!). So the radiation argument is bogus, I think.

I finally stumbled on this Wikipedia article talking about ITER and a bit of its history. They have a very nice section on criticisms towards the end. The only argument I could find myself possibly agreeing with is the statement that ITER is expensive and could possibly be spent on more promising technologies and renewable energy sources. ITER has a long and tortured history - it has been around since the 1950’s. There are been plenty of science politics around the thing. No one has every gotten enough energy out of one to make it commercially viable - on the other hand, promising results have been had on a small scale. If the world is going to turn this into a real power source then a project the size of ITER is needed (~$400M over 20 years).

Frankly, even this cost argument is a red herring. When I look at how the USA is spending its cash. 20 million a year? Please!! Look at what we spend per-day on the war!! What really needs to happen is everyone needs to re-jigger their priorities: we (in the USA) are fighting the wrong war!

October 27th. I was wearing a tee-shirt and jeans. We sat comfortably outside and I had a really good Lyon Sausage (Andouillette). In Seattle it is currently below 50F (wow, and Chicago is warmer than Seattle by a few degrees). Can’t be beat. Now, if only I could do more work…

No story behind this — just thought it was a really nice picture of a subway station in Marseille. I took it on the way back from the French government giving me official standing in France. It is the Castallene stop.

This is another one I took from the top of the steps of the main Marseille train station, Gare St. Charles. It isn’t as good, but…

One work avoidance technique I use is reading blogs. I’m probably the only one that does this. But when I have exhausted my usual blogs I sometimes wonder onto the American political blogs. Talking about some of the stuff I see there with Paula over dinner, I came to a revelation.

The right and left wing blogs are in cahoots with each other!

The vocabulary of the left and right is now so different that each can just quote the other and say “look what they said! I just hang and shake my head…” Seriously. Half the material seems to come from quoting the “enemy” blog. Talk about an echo chamber!

I guess it is a statement on the sad state of political blogging in the USA. Or the sad state of the left and right wing groups in the USA.

How long to the next election?

I’m 41 years old and I’m living paycheck-to-paycheck.

It is a combination of bureaucracy, taking a sabbatical (a 30% pay cut), living in Europe, the very weak dollar. Just on our salary alone, after we finish paying rent over here in Marseille and for daycare so both of us can work, we are left with about 400-500 euros per month to live on. We’d have quite a bit more except for the extremely weak dollar (as we are still being paid in the USA). This is very tight, though possible (just), for a family of three. It is a lot tighter than we’ve lived in the past 10 or 15 years! However, on paper we have plenty of money - more than plenty of money. Even enough to add to savings (’cause Julia needs to go to college sometime!), to not worry about going out to eat, or perhaps just buying a new pair of jeans on the weekend because we feel like it. That is where the bureaucracy comes in. France is paying me a hefty per-diem, but getting it setup has taken months longer than I ever imagined or planned for. No particular party has been responsible for this delay; I was just overly optimistic. Hopefully the money will flow before we leave France, or the dollar returns to its strength (since this money is in Euros).

In the meantime, we are eating at home more than we are used to!

A friend of mine, Ann, pointed this out to me. If you look carefully at the paper white board there you’ll see a t->Wb decay written out, and a simple branching ratio calculation (which is basically correct, as far as I can make out — can’t make out the lower matrix well enough — CKM??).

Ok — so any popular TV show that puts that up, I need to watch, right? So — if you click on the “About” for the series “The Big Bang Theory”, you get:

Two nerdy physicists sharing an apartment have their lives disrupted by a beautiful new neighbor.

Sounds really bad!!! At least in the Numb3rs show they had a string theorist who was interesting (they may still have, but I’ve really stopped watching shows since I got here to France). And it has a lot of personal tension, which is about the only thing that makes a drama on TV last more than 1/2 a season. Has anyone seen this Big Bang show? Is it any good? Or just a filler show that plays on typical stereotypes?

This is Cours Julian. It is one of many public squares in Marseille. The USA has a number of them too. But they are different in France. Paula and I decided one of the big differences was the way France seems to invite commercial interests into the public space. For example, ringing this square are restaurants (where we are sitting when I took this picture on Sunday). Book shops too. All of them spill out into the public area. You can see two sets of chairs in the outdoors area in this picture. You can also see a small independent book seller in the middle, not associated with any shop around the perimeter. It is even more packed on Saturday or the weekdays. They have cheese fairs ever Wednesday — a bunch of cheese sellers drive in for the morning and anyone walking buy can pick up some fresh cheese. There are also two playgrounds, one for toddlers and one for little kids, maintained by the city. All in all, it makes for a very active and well used public space.

When we were discussing this it reminded me of the Sculpture Garden in Seattle (under construction in that picture). They have a central cafe - which is very nice - owned by the Seattle Art Museum, which runs the whole garden. There was no space for commercial interests. Now, I realize this isn’t the same thing as the public space above, but it might have been a great opportunity. Imagine being able to walk down to a restaurant that put tables out near some of the sculptures and eating there in the summer? Clearly one has to deal with access, but they seem to have solved that problem in France.

Congratulations to Lorenzo — he just got a new job here at Marseille CPPM. I’ve known him for years and I have to say it couldn’t have happened to a better or harder working guy. This picture is after a lot of wine… He is on crutches because of a skiing accident (jumping out of a helicopter - didn’t quite land right…).

There are no dryers here in Europe. I’m not entirely sure why.

Many apartments, like the one we live in, are plenty big enough to fit one. And they even make combined washer and dryer units - where combined really means combined — you don’t have to transfer the clothes between cycles! They aren’t too expensive. They do cost extra in electricity, but when the rains come I can’t imagine that being a stopping factor. And, frankly, clothes that come out of a dryer feel much better on the skin than do line-hung. It isn’t they are trying to be green: this has been going on for years and years. And I feel a little shaky every time I hang out our clothes: we are 5 stories up and we have to bend way out to hang our clothes up. If my foot were to shoot out the only thing preventing me from going over would be grabbing the lines. They look strong enough… And as far as I can tell this is not a generational thing: I see younger people as well as wise folks hanging their stuff. The only thing I can come up with is tradition…

But everyone hangs their stuff out to dry. You can see it all over the city. This is a shot of the courtyard out the back of our apartment - but you can see the same thing from the main streets as well. It is pretty entertaining, actually…

Finally, having started the process on July 1st, I got my official visa from France stating that I can stay in France for 8 more months. Sadly, I need to stay another 10 months. That may mean that I need to go through this process again. At any rate, it is nice to be official finally!