This APS brought a few interesting lessons. When you commit to an experiment, follow it through and ignore outside pressure to release results before you’re ready. Mingle with your superiors, and mingle with your peers. Spending $130 per night on a hotel room for a physics conference is not justified, and is a terrific waste of grant money. Have crazy ideas, since one of them is bound to be crazy enough to be right.
The MiniBooNE experiment has done a long and admirable job of holding off those who were hungry for their important results. I recall mentioning once to one of the spokespersons of that experiment that I was pleased that they were proceeding so carefully forward with their research. They expressed relief at my opinion, a sign that it must be uncommon. Tied to this sentiment was a statement that a friend of mine made on the last day of the conference. He posited that conferences are artificial deadlines exerted by senior members of the field, leaving the only guardians of careful research to the postdocs and scientists. I think this somewhat extreme view reflects a deeper problem: rather than shielding the core researchers from external pressures such as eager colleagues or funding agencies, leaders in this field appear to be passing on those pressures. This creates a culture of hurrying, and builds a resentment among students and postdocs that somehow the result is more important than the process. Shouldn’t the integrity of the process be the guarantor of the irrefutability of the result?
A lot of money was spent by attendants of this conference. The hotel restaurants were overpriced, the recommended rooms overpriced, and the clear monopolistic bond between the cab companies and the hotel amplified the financial rape many of us younger scientists were exposed to. APS didn’t make an effort to show us where to get cheaper food, they didn’t encourage us to save money by staying at a nearby hotel. The closest good restaurants were miles from the venue, which made for great walks but left many of us with a sense of betrayal. Why would a Society clearly faced with the task of pushing the value of the science, asking for more support, and selling the leanness of the field fail to stress economy at a member meeting? One telling event was, as reported by a student I met at the conference, that nobody showed up to the DPF business meeting. They later found out the meeting was cancelled in favor of a cocktail event at the same time. What!? Perhaps this can be defended, but what are the least of us left to wonder about those leading the field?
Great ideas have yielded great science. 10 years ago we weren’t buzzing about dark matter or energy, and now we can’t live without these ideas. We’ve learned so much about CP violation, but understand so little about the matter/antimatter asymmetry. We’re ready to make the last few planned measurements of neutrinos, but we can’t even begin to plan for the surprises that may follow. The LHC is making everybody tremble with anticipation, and the ILC shiver with concern.
As the center of gravity in my field moves from the “A” in APS to the “E” in EPS, we all wonder whether these meetings are valuable. I think many of us, though cynical about the cost, found a common cause as we discussed physics, ethics, and philosophy in the halls, elevators, bars, and restaurants. We work with each other every day, but APS actually brought us together. In that, there is infinite value.
