I grew up in a small town in northen California called Yreka. Eureka? No Yreka! Yreka (population around 7000) is located about fifteen minutes north south of the border between Oregon and California on Interstate 5 which runs inland down the west coast. Just to confuse things, Eureka is also located in northern California, but is on the coast about two hours south of the California and Oregon border. From this description you might think that these two towns are close to each other. In fact it takes something like five hours to drive from Yreka to Eureka. (By the way, for those of you who are interested, northern California does NOT include the San Francisco bay area. Look at a map and judge for yourself!) Want to remember how to spell Yreka? “Yreka Bakery” backwards is “Yreka Bakery” (One of Herb Cain’s favorite palandromes palindromes.)
Anyway, back on topic (there is a topic to this post?) Last night I watched the premeire episode of the SciFi channel’s new “Eureka” show. The jist of the show is that Eureka is actually the site of a top secret research laboratory and as such the town is populated by a large number of eccentric scientists/shadow government characters. The show is pretty amusing, as such shows go (a judgement which is purposefully vague), and includes such great lines as “But Dr. [whose name I can’t remember] was our best quantum physicist!” I’ll probably get suckered into watching it again, in large part as an act of solidarity for the part of the world I grew up in.
But watching “Eureka” reminded me of a false impression I had about being a scientist when I was growing up. One of my favorite books growing up was “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle. In this story, the protaganist’s parents are scientists. Who live in an old house in the country. Huh? Scientists making a living in the rural world? Being a rural kid this seemed perfectly reasonable to me at the time and made, I think, becoming a scientist seem not so incompatable with living in a rural town. But, alas, I think the real world is much different. Unless of course “Eureka” is more than a T.V. show and there turns out to be a top secret research lab in Eureka. If there is, could the relevant people please send me an application?
O brave new quantum world!
I take it you’ve never been to Los Alamos. I suppose it isn’t as rural as it once was, but it’s still pretty rural. And don’t forget about all those colleges and universities out there that are in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the big city has jaded you… 🙂
P.S. And the interview subject for the upcoming issue of The Quantum Times, Bill Wootters, lives in a pretty rural area in the Berkshires. Oh, and then there’s me, though my status as a real scientist is questionable. 🙂
All the more reason for us to get started sooner rather than later on building BIT (the Baha Institute of Technology) or better yet, HITech (the Hawaii Institute of Technology- on the most rural island, obviously).
Ah, you West Coasters and your monotonous weather!!
Wait, 15 minutes *north* of the border?
(P.S. It’s “palindrome”)
All work and no play makes Dave spell poorly.
Well, for Oxford or Cambridge you could live in a rural area and commute in, I suppose. But then you’d get interesting weather. And by interesting I mean crappy.
I think that there should be a Byron Bay Institute of Physics. I’ve been lobbying for it for years. Just think how much work you could do in between surfing sessions and hikes in the rainforest?
So how come Megaparsec & company aren’t on your Library Thing page?
Well I think a few of the later books are on my Library Thing page. But the problem I realized when putting my books on Library Thing is that I have given away all of the books I really really like!
Dear Anyone,
My son’s name is Ian. I web-searched palindrome(s) looking for something fun and interesting to send to him. My uncle is a physicist. I suppose there is a connection?