The Quantum Pontiff

Something for me to look for next time I’m back in Yreka, Unidentified Fossil Objects:

Geologists have discovered strange disc-shaped features in slate deposits in California. The features, at Yreka, are between 2 and 7 centimetres across and 2 to 4 millimetres thick; some have centres stained with iron oxides. One geologist, Nancy Lindsley-Griffin of the University of Nebraska, has already dubbed the saucer-shaped features, ‘unidentified fossil-like objects.
Geologists discoverd the UFOs in bedding planes of the slate, formed from ocean bottom that was deposited between 400 and 600 million years ago. The objects are puzzling because they lack the symmetry that fossils of living organisms usually display. They are also too large to be the droppings of any creature alive at the time, and do not look like concretions, such as agates, formed by natural chemical processes. Lindsley-Griffin says they resemble very tiny bicycle wheels, with a central core and an outer rim, but with most of the spokes missing.

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?