Nuclear blog, nuclear map.

A blog is not the lowest of the low - that would be twitter - but in the context of mankind's literary output it's right there near the bottom. A few paragraphs destined to last for a week, or even only a few days, until a new blog post comes along to drop them out of the webpage and into oblivion in the binary memory of some server provider somewhere. If successful, they would have generated a few responses, hastily written and that usually degrade the discussion to the level of the less illuminated readers of the blog. Yes indeed, in our modern world of copy and paste I'd classify blogs as the zooplankton of the written world; slightly better than what you can read in social networks and People's magazine... a bit bellow internet discussion forums and comments to youtube videos.


Nonetheless I'm blogging. I think there can be some positives out of the experience, mainly a new channel to ask questions for each talk: 1) stupid questions. 2) synapsis delayed question emission. In the early stages of our physics career we're repeatedly told there is not such thing as a stupid question. Yet, when you start attending seminars and conferences you realized it mostly the few wisest physicists that ask all the questions, while the rest of the crowd remains quite in some sort of unspoken agreement. Not the most conductive atmosphere for non-stupid basic questions (this being an "Advanved Sudies Insitute" the situation might be different, but more on that later). The second point is a bit more personal, and refers to the way my brain is wired. I have some slow connections in the circuits that translates my thoughts into spoken words, and on many occasion I've only been able to completely formulate my question as the speaker is receiving the last round of applause, or walking out of the room. Hopefully our blogs will keep each debate alive a bit longer, and present a opportunity to ask any kind of question about the talks. Of course, it will only be a productive experience if you, dear reader, also participate... participate participate participate!... if you can find a way to connect to the internet :(

After this cheerful introduction to the blog, I'll leave you with some more substantial content, by none other than Mr. J.L. Borges himself (transl. bellow):

Del Rigor de la Ciencia
...En aquel Imperio, el Arte de la Cartografía logró tal Perfección que el mapa de una sola Provincia ocupaba toda una Ciudad, y el mapa del Imperio, toda una Provincia. Con el tiempo, esos Mapas Desmesurados no satisficieron y los Colegios de Cartógrafos levantaron un Mapa del Imperio que tenía el tamaño del Imperio y coincidía puntualmente con él. Menos Adictas al Estudio de la Cartografía, las Generaciones Siguientes entendieron que ese dilatado Mapa era Inútil y no sin Impiedad lo entregaron a las Inclemencias del Sol y de los Inviernos. En los desiertos del Oeste perduran despedazadas Ruinas del Mapa, habitadas por Animales y por Mendigos; en todo el País no hay otra reliquia de las Disciplinas Geográficas.
Suárez Miranda: Viajes de varones prudentes,
libro cuarto, cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658

The first thing that came to mind after reading this text was our beloved nuclear map, or chart. In the next two weeks we'll probably hear about exploring its landscape. We could be building a bridge to the superheavies (or is it a bridge to nowhere?), exploring the treacherous shells in the wild neutron-rich east, mapping the frontiers of the driplines a la Americo Vespuscio, or even planning improbable journeys far and beyond to the infinite nuclear matter. In some regions - near the valley where our journey began, our cartographers are reaching ridiculous level of detail; looking at the uncertainty principle in the eyes (some dudes at MIT), and overflowing compilations and databases with the level structure at any excitation energy. However, we'll certainly learn that there are still quite a few night shifts and hours of grad-students work left to do before we complete our task, and our discipline becomes exhausted and drops out of the main page of the Science blog.


"On Scientific Rigor

...In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.
From Travels of Praiseworthy Men (1658) by J. A. Suarez Miranda"