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This Week Archive
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Quantum Diarists react to Katrina
People around the world watched this week as Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the Gulf Coast, killing thousands and leaving many more homeless. Gordon Watts wonders why it took so long for government support to arrive in the region. "I'm pretty sure that mistake isn't going to be repeated as the political fallout has the potential to be quite large," he writes.
Ursula Bassler responds with a critique of the government's lack of disaster preparation. "It sounds to me like the story of the three little pigs building a house," she writes. "Maybe the catastrophe is simply too big, such that any system would collapse; yet I think there is something more basic going wrong."
Caolionn O'Connell urges readers to donate to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Fund. "Every day worries seem a bit egocentric at the moment," she writes. "And not to mother y'all, but should you live in a region known for national disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.) – do you have a plan?"
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Gene Dailey/American Red Cross |
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Firsts
A new academic year brings many new beginnings. Caolionn O'Connell begins her first job as a Ph.D. physicist. "I feel like a little bit of a poser. Yeah, sure, I have a Ph.D., but do I really know what the hell I'm doing? Does a thesis in an über-specialized field make me more qualified as a physicist? It is not totally obvious to me that it should, hence the semi-permanent feeling of dread."
Alex Koutsman has his first day as a paid physicist. "Well, actually I'm still a (PhD-)student, but it's nice to think that finally all the studying pays off and this time financially."
At Ursula Bassler's lab, this new academic year brought a new director. "It was up to us to figure out how to thank [outgoing director] Jean-Eudes [Augustin]," she writes. "So since July delirious brainstorming occurred on spontaneous occasions." The result: a T-shirt "with all the photos of the lab-members, their signatures and some little funny things."
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