To You, Richard

Worries have a way of mating to produce illegitimate offspring, but the genetics of a little success bred with anxiety are much more bizarre.

I’ve read that even the great Feynman felt like an imposter at times, and thought up the following response to mounting optimism:

On being offered a job at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study:

"They must have expected me to be wonderful to offer me a job like this and I wasn't wonderful, and therefore I realized a new principle, which was that I'm not responsible for what other people think I'm able to do; I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good. And somehow or other I could relax about this, and I thought to myself, I haven't done anything important and I'm never going to do anything important.”

So, he let himself once again “enjoy physics and mathematical things. . ."

. . . and won the Nobel Prize for what he did while he was there.

Bring It On!

When he quoted the Lord’s Prayer, I didn’t let on that I thought of John Candy imploring gold medals to be won and Godspeed through turn seven.

I nodded that with our increasingly secular government, our country is far from a Heavenly Kingdom.

But, his real hook was hurricane Katrina.
Considering Europe’s floods and last year’s tsunami, don’t I think that this all has to end soon?
Jehovah Is Coming.

I thanked him for my copy of Watchtower, “Natural Disasters: Are They Getting Worse?” (Yes? And inside I can learn why we should rejoice?)

Then, he found out that I go to school in LA.

“Ohh, that must be exciting! They had a few earthquakes last year didn’t they?”

“Umm. . . yeah I actually felt a small one during one of my final exams, it was a little scar-”

“I’d like to be in one sometime; not a really big one but – just to experience it once. And out there, they really know how to deal with it. I heard they’ll fill their bathtubs with water in case the power goes out.”

“Well, my parents do that here if there’s a thun-”

“Because they can lose power for days, and if your bathtub’s filled with water at least you can use the water to flush the toilet. They really think of everything. – Well, nice to meet you!

The Witness at my door was just kid from cushy suburbia wanting to be Eminem.

A Good Excuse

Applied math is one thing:

“. . . so, I duct-taped cardboard scraps on the fan I bought – for $15 – from e-bay. . . but it kind of just fell apart”

“Well, I had all this static in my experiment, so I bought dryer sheets and rubbed them all over my apparatus. It didn’t help, and now whenever I walk into lab I get a headache from the Downy fresh smell.”

Biologists have white coats, pipettes, and million dollar grants.

As much as Erin (duct-tape) and I (dryer sheets) enjoyed speaking fluid dynamics when our pre-med friends got too excited about proteins – there was a deep sense that we were doing playground science for our senior theses.

We comforted ourselves with the idea that there was far too little time between the due date of our manuscripts and graduation for our department heads to do much more than skim everyone’s abstract. We spent the final Saturday before the thesis deadline at Fenway.

I hoped my advisor didn’t notice my sun-burned nose as he detailed his summer plans for the project.

I described my meeting to Erin:

“He wants to make it a paper, he even said, ‘Heck it’s summer, we’ll send it on over to ------, see what they say.’ I’m quitting science if my thesis gets published in ------.”

And recently I learned:

There’s a new satellite journal, ------- Physics. The editors think the paper’s interesting; the reviewers think it’s publishable. It hasn’t been accepted yet, and it’s not ------ herself. But, my conception of science has been sufficiently debased to warrant, at least, some time off.

The Risible Lift

I try to stifle competitive urges.

And, I’ll think I’ve killed them all – until I get on the elevator.

Here in the med school, the first one on doesn’t ask where the others are going. He selects his floor, steps back, and we can make our move.

If we get on at one and someone hits two, a sheepish blush says “I fold.” Fifth floor cardiology says “beat that” seventh oncology says, “Oh, I will”. But as the round closes and oncology smirks, the tech from the ER yells “Hold the door!” And her cart full of samples with biohazard labels beat the clipboards any day.

Record Labels

Revealing that I’m a physics major from “Boston” has never been a good ice-breaker. But I fare far worse when initial impressions are based on musical taste.

I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from the time in 4^th grade when my best friend asked who I liked to listen to, and I said the name of the only musical artist I could think of – Raffi.

Four years later, I studied before a reunion with that old friend. When the question was posed I answered confidently, “Boyz II Men”

“Ugh, R and B?”

I’m sure she could picture the townies cruising among our blinking traffic lights blaring “Down on Bended Knee” after the snow birds had gone to sleep.

In the era of free Napster, I downloaded indiscriminately and found a band I really liked -- HIM. But they play Finnish “Love Metal”.

I roll my eyes at Bryan Adams’ “Baby I’d die for you.” -- It’s a little dramatic. But I’m somehow fine with “Join me in death” -- honey – pentagram, 666.

But I won’t be known as a romantic, and certainly not one prone to tragic emotional debilitation. So, without a real answer to the question I say Weezer, but apologetically, to acknowledge that they’re a little too popular. Or, in a complete cop out I’ll cryptically say I’ve been buying movie soundtracks recently, so that I can smoothly transition to my aversion for Natalie Portman’s acting via the obscene Shins advisement in Garden State.

And I’ll admit, for those of you who have been paying attention, that I sometimes still get Baby Beluga stuck in my head.

Maybe Georgia Got It Right

On the Santa Monica promenade:
The air in this parking garage contains automobile engine exhaust.
Chemicals in automobile exhaust are known to cause cancer.

At Ross Department Store:
Some products sold here may be hazardous to your health.

The warning on Sweet’N Low no longer gives me pause.

So, I think that the easiest way to eliminate the implication of scientific scandal from the debate over evolution is to not resist.

Allow stickers that declare “Evolution is just a theory,” and require a few others.

“Newton’s laws cannot be proven.”

“The Central Dogma is not a fact.”

Science owes its success to the harsh critique of older ideas and the recognition that these ideas need not be wholly accepted or rejected. So, I find it hard to take issue with a warning that ends as I think every class should begin:

“This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”

Reason number 853 to dislike the DMV:

Creepy fingerprint technician.

I thought it would be do it yourself: thumb on inkpad, thumb on paper. Instead, there was a little inferred scanner and a man who was a bit too involved in the process. He put his hand over mine and worked my finger over the glass plate. After a few attempts at a scan:

“Wow this really just isn’t working today.”

More rubbing, some sympathetic glances from the guy at the next widow.

“Hmm. . . it’s never given me this much trouble before.”

Now he’s drawing on all his thumb-touching experience . . . and I’m trying to detach my mind from my body. . .

“Nope, it just doesn’t like your thumb – but I do.”

It finally takes, the technician smiles.

“You must have a complicated karma.”

On the upside, I didn’t make an appointment and didn’t have to wait at all. We’ll see how the DMV’s new One Hour Photo image goes over.