Exclusion Principle
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My apologies for this letter being slightly off-schedule, after a whole week on strike and then another at a conference, coming back to work just got the best of me and my time management. This week is my Spring Break so I am catching up on work but also all the good things that work has recently pushed into the background like this letter and some much appreciated in-person time with my boyfriend who is (lucky for me) visiting for the week.
EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE*
In Annihilation**, Jeff VanderMeer writes about many compelling themes and highlights various issues bordering on the philosophical. He writes about an uncannily pristine wilderness and the effects of desolation, and he writes about people that have been stripped of their name and the technologies that make them comfortable and been made to forego much else other than a new, or old yet reinforced, sense of purpose. The novel is narrated by a Biologist whose name has been substituted with a first-letter-capitalized rendition of her profession. In the sequel to Annihilation, Authority, VanderMeer explains the reasoning behind introducing her through such lens of nameless utility – she is a part of an expedition into the unknown where words and memories can get scrambled and ‘biologist’ brings to mind connotations less personal and less easily twisted than a given name might. However, even prior to this explanation the embrace of her scientific calling in lieu of something as personal as a name seems fitting. The Biologist that VanderMeer presents the reader with is committed to her work above all – basically obsessed with it – and finds it so mesmerizing that she is unwilling to share it even when this unwillingness and obsessiveness threaten to ruin her marriage and, ironically, her career. Given all of the creative ways in which Annihilation addresses issues of nature, science and explorations of the unknown, the way in which the Biologist’s personal history is presented is disappointing. She is consumed by her work, she is unable to manage the more professional aspects of her trade and therefore never permanently employed, she struggles with social situations and her husband’s biggest complaint is that she is emotionally unavailable. In a lot of ways, the Biologists is a caricature of what someone might think scientists are like based on misguided TV shows or a run-in with a researcher of some sort on a middle school field trip. At times, she is trope-like enough to feel like a personal jab at all of us who happen to be practicing scientists.
A few years ago, another doctoral candidate and a friend of mine, was debating whether they really wanted to pursue an academic career. We had a series of conversations about it in the kitchen we were sharing at the time, discussing job offers, marriage prospects, living abroad and the ineffectiveness of academia over coffee, tea and lentils. We stopped sharing these mildly existential moments because we both moved out of that house and could not run into each other in the kitchen anymore, but the question of the uncertain future remained relevant. In the spring of next year the same friend suggested that another, younger, graduate student unhappy with their career path speak to me in order to get a better sense of why it might be worth staying in academia. Somehow, I had been identified as a champion of the academic cause. I had an awkward lunch meeting with the younger student. Later, they switched subfields and continued working on a doctoral degree. My friend also stayed in their program and is currently on track to graduate before me. We catch up every once in a while and compare notes on just how much work one can fit into some semi-reasonable number of waking hours each day. This is typical graduate student small talk, and most of us take at least some perverse pleasure in telling our peers just how busy we are, but I am always reminded of those career-questioning conversations. In one instance, my friend conjectured that being committed to an academic career must mean that I cannot stop thinking about my research, that even during my hours away from work my mind is still working – not being able to let go of the Physics because I have chosen to be a Physicist.
One of the most common, men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-Venus-type gender stereotypes that get brought up in casual conversation is that women are better at multi-tasking than men are. The explanation that these conversations tend to lead to is simple: women have for centuries been brought up as caregivers and homemakers which required that they be able to do more than one thing at a time as default mode of operation; once they joined the workforce they were still expected to take care of their families so that thinking about a grocery list and a child’s homework while at the office made them into master multi-taskers. There is a similar explanation for why women have at times been stereotyped as too focused on material things, on wealth and looks rather than high-minded philosophical issues. In part, the reasoning goes, it is because they have not been allowed to participate in anything bigger than themselves such as politics or science, so they lacked practice and exposure to abstract thought or thought aimed at extrapolation and synthesis, rather than just understanding and application. Being able to obsess, to fully devote all of one’s attention to one problem, seems to be contrary to these two (stereotypical) notions. In fact, obsessively thinking about a single problem or issue at all times, is essentially the opposite of multi-tasking, and it most definitely does not leave space for mundane issues relating to the physical and the material.
Recently, I attended a women’s coffee hour that my department organizes whenever there are prospective graduate students visiting. This is typically a pleasant occasion since just seeing that the female physicists on our campus can fill up a room is (sadly) something of an accomplishment. The female faculty in attendance always acknowledge this: we beat the national average for the percentage of women in physics departments every year, we have a ‘critical mass’. This ‘critical mass’ is important because it can lead to a change in culture; it can modify the way physicist communicate and the way we behave by simply including a non-trivial group of people who freely behave differently. At this particular event, a faculty member talked about learning to ‘speak male as a second body language’ in order to be taken more seriously among her peers. Holding onto our free coffee, fruits and pastries, many of us in that room could relate. Hopefully, even outside of it, it is not overly controversial to state that the communication style associated with physics, the culture that physicists foster in their communities and ultimately the Physicist identity, are largely based on a white Western male and what such an individual, with all of his privileges, is able to do. Being obsessed with physics problems, not letting go of them even after working hours have long passed, is often seen as one of the hallmarks of this idealized person we should all presumably be trying to emulate.
Being able to obsess over work so much that it becomes a part of your identity is in a sense a privilege in itself as it means that you are able to make every other concern unnecessary and get away with that. Feeling like you have to obsess over work to such an extent is stressful as it adds a layer of pressure to what is not simple work to begin with. The scatterbrained physicists running around in a wrinkled shirt and forgetting his lunch because he is so focused on that one equation that popped into his mind while he was in the shower, the one whose genius and success both derive from and manifest by not dividing his passion between physics and something else, has for years not been an acceptable identity option for many in various underrepresented and underprivileged groups. Even for those in comparatively better off portions of those groups, the expectation to become him is somewhat suffocating. Even when he is not a realistic role model, the guilt stemming from not being able to emulate him can (and does) at times feel remarkably real. It could be an entry in the speaking male as a second language handbook: be assertive, speak loudly, feel guilty whenever you are not either working or thinking about work. The fact that many women in particular have been brought up in such a way that multitasking is their normal way of doing things only makes this more difficult.
I enjoyed the Biologists first person narration in Annihilation more than I had anticipated. The analytic, scientific approach she takes to describing a rather unusual sequence of events the expedition in the book encounters resonated with me. I am not sure whether one has to have an analytic mind to be a scientist or if committing a lot of time to science shapes one’s thinking process in such a way, but the satisfaction of seeing the thoroughness and the systematic structure associated with the daily routine of a scientist reflected in the pages of a work of fiction is rather powerful. My disappointment with the description of her non-professional life was therefore even more personal. I loved that VanderMeer confronted me with a scientist that I could relate to but hated that he could not give her anything other than the blind obsession with science for me to latch onto. I wondered whether she would have disapproved of me taking time to read VanderMeer’s book instead of putting those hours into my research, then I took the time to finish the book anyway.
Best,
Karmela
* In quantum physics, all particles are identified as either bosons or fermions. Suppose you are given two particles at two distinct points in space, the wavefunction description of that system changes as the particles are made to switch places. The way in which this wavefunction changes depends on whether the particles are bosons or fermions and has profound consequences for the quantum mechanical formalism. The most important consequence of fermionic exchange statistics is that two fermions cannot share the same quantum state i.e. they obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Consider an electron, which is a fermion, in the hydrogen atom. Its energy and wavefunction are determined by a set of quantum numbers. Because of the exclusion principle, once all of those numbers are specified, no other fermion can be described in the same way. This principle also means that bosonic systems (which do not obey an exclusion principle) typically have lower energies than their fermionic counterparts as multiple fermions cannot all be described by the state with the lowest energy.
**I’m aware that the Annihilation movie was recently released but I am told that it is extremely loosely adapted from the book and essentially has a very different plot so I do not think I am spoiling much by referencing the book here.
***
ABOUT ME RECENTLY
LEARNING: Given that I spent one of the past two weeks at one of the biggest physics conferences in the country, I have definitely been exposed to large amounts of information since my last letter and I am hoping that at least some of it has stuck with me. Attending conferences is an interesting way to learn since paying attention to multiple talks and lectures every day can be both very engaging and very challenging. Over the course of the five days I spent in Los Angeles, I saw upwards of 25 talks and equally many were directly relevant to my research as were simply too interesting sounding to miss. Having the chance to sample so much contemporary research in one place always reminds me that there are so many interesting questions we do not know how to answer and so much ingenuity when it comes to trying to answer them. It is at the same time inspiring and overwhelming to be confronted with so many cutting-edge attempts at understanding the world around us a little better and, as always, I am humbled by it and feel privileged to take part in it. I gave a short talk on a project my group had recently finished, met with some experimental collaborators over vegan pizza, shared some great conversations with my group-mates in our somewhat suboptimal hostel and with other colleagues from my department over a great assortment of late night foods. Although it was business heavy, this was a fun week under the California sun and I hope I will someday have a chance to revisit some of the problems I have heard talks about but haven’t personally studied just yet.
While I was in California the university administration agreed to re-open bargaining with striking graduate employees and the contract the graduate employees union obtained through that process proved to be rather satisfactory so my one week back in Illinois has in part been marked by catching up on work I had missed during the strike. I am perfectly happy to have this problem as the success of our strike has been such a huge relief and I am still quite emotional when thinking about my time on the picket lines. Additionally, my advisor’s play about traveling through the quantum world in the style of Dante’s Inferno is premiering soon and since I somehow stumbled into the role of the production manager, I have been spending many nights either watching rehearsals or fielding many emails about everything from stage design to obtaining rights for the Girl from Ipanema. It has been a somewhat wild ride and I am anxious to see how it will all fit together by the time the show is ready for a public performance.
On the research front, I have been focusing on my one-dimensional quasicrystal project. I have been spending time working on it from the point of view of various renormalization group schemes while one of my collaborators is looking into a transfer matrix approach. I tried to go to all of the talks even remotely related to quasiperiodicity while at the conference which has proven helpful for putting together the ‘big picture’ context of the problem we are trying to tackle, but the mathematical nitty-gritty and computational details are still somewhat eluding us. This past week a former student from my department who is now a postdoctoral researcher in Europe stopped by to bounce some ideas with the two of us and that seemed helpful. It is my Spring Break this week and, in classic graduate student fashion, I am hoping to use some of the extra free time to explore parts of what we had chalked out in this meeting. I really want this project to be successful and hopefully the relaxed break schedule will be more conducive to some good theory work than this past week’s constant dealing with a barrage of emails has been.
Finally, I have started taking a course on college teaching as a part of my future faculty fellowship. The class has only met once so far (in an awkward online session) and the reading we had had to do has been a very dry how-to on course and syllabus design, so I have not been exactly blown away by it yet, but I am hoping I will be more impressed in the coming weeks. Teaching is something I very much care about and something I am expected to do regularly even though I have not been given much training – especially not training based on research on teaching – so I am trying to keep an open mind and gain as much as I can from this opportunity.
LISTENING: My podcast consumption in the last few weeks has mostly been reduced to keeping up with daily news (via Up First and The Daily) and seemingly never-ending political crises (via NPR Politics and FiveThirtyEight Politics) because I was either busy or traveling but several really great podcasts have come out with new episodes recently and I am happy to recommend those. The fourth season of NPR’s Invisibilia opened with a very good episode about dealing with grief that involved a story of ‘granny skydiving’ and bee theft, and Radiotopia’s Earhustle, recorded by inmates in a California prison, is back for another season as well. Earhustle continues to fascinate me and the stories of inmates and their lives while incarcerated still break my heart every single time. I have also taken up listening to the WBEZ Chicago series Making Obama which explores the early days of Barack Obama’s political career and Stitcher’s Dear Franklin Jones which centers on the hosts reckoning with his family’s past as a part of a cult. Both shows, as different as they are, are rather well executed and the former in particular has surprised me by being more compelling than I expected a story of a (sometimes unreasonably) beloved politician to be.
On the music front, this Acid King record is pretty great. Falling back on one of my work playlists has had me revisiting this Harakiri for the Sky album which is quite good as well.
WATCHING: In the past week I saw another play dealing with science and scientists: David Auburn’s Proof. The play centers on the story of a young mathematician and the aftermath of her schizophrenic father’s death. He was also a mathematician, a very famous and accomplished one at that, and her own career had to be put on hold so that she could take care of him. Eventually it is revealed that during the time of his mental decline she did in fact continue working and despite her lack of rigorous training completed an astounding proof of a long standing unsolved problem. Not unexpectedly, her father’s student she has become romantically involved with and her overbearing sister do not believe that she could have completed this work on her own and all sorts of uncomfortable situations ensue. To some extent, this is a predictable plotline but it held my attention rather strongly and the themes of gender, family duties and mental health embedded in many of its points of conflict were executed well without being too explicit or rendering the characters into just lifeless symbols for some overarching social justice argument. Despite having seen this play put on by a small student group of actors in an echo-y church chapel, I was really impressed by it and would recommend seeing it. I saw it as a part of my role as a teaching assistant for my advisor’s art and physics class and I really wish more of her students had come to see it as well.
EATING: I ate a few really great meals in Los Angeles, including an a great spicy Korean tofu soup with an amazing variety of pickled sides, a trip to a great salad bar that convinced me that salad bars can indeed be great, some incredible cookie butter flavored vegan ice cream, and a tried-and-true success that is visiting a family style Chinese restaurant with a large group of friends and co-workers. Since I was staying at a hostel I also tried to utilize the kitchen at breakfast time and established a routine of hummus and avocado toast and oatmeal with cinnamon crunch cereal, banana slices and peanut butter. It felt good to have at least one meal I was not eating out for but, to be quite honest, I was also overjoyed to return to Illinois and have some green smoothies and generally more greens-heavy meals again. Accordingly, most of what I ate this past week have been somewhat messy bowls of roasted veggies with either baked tofu, curried chickpeas, or French lentils. These have all become staples of my cooking in the past year and the recipe I am sharing below for a small loaf of peasant bread (from Alexandra Stafford) also makes it into my cooking and baking rotation fairly regularly. This is an insanely easy bread to make and it is perfect for savory toast (such as the avocado toasts I am showing below) or as an accompaniment to any soups and stews. It is crunchy on the outside, soft and airy on the inside and takes way less effort than most breads do.
For one small loaf you will need:
2 cups of all propose flour
1.5 teaspoons salt
1 cup lukewarm water
1 teaspoon sugar
Half a packet of active dry yeast, about 4g
Vegan butter or butter for greasing the pan
Herbs of choice (oregano, basil) and red pepper flakes (optional)
In a small bowl mix the yeast, water and sugar and let sit for ten minutes or so, until very foamy on top
In a large bowl mix the flour, salt and any spices you might want to flavor your bread with
Once the yeast is sufficiently foamy mix the dry and wet ingredients until the flour is not dry anymore. The mixture will not look like traditional bread dough but rather just wet and sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel, then let sit for about an hour or until the dough has doubled.
Grease a 1 quart round glass baking dish or a small loaf pan with vegan butter and transfer the dough into it with a fork. It will still be very sticky and you should be able to see strand-like structure to it. Let rise for another 20-30 minutes, until the dough rises the top edge of the pan, while preheating the oven to 425F
Bake for 15 minutes then lower the heat to 375F and bake for 15 minutes more. The bread should continue rising above the edge and be a dark golden color by the time it is done
Turn the baking dish upside down over a cooling rack and the bread should easily fall out. Let cool for 10-15 minutes the enjoy in whichever way you like.
Tips: The rising times are pretty forgiving so if you tend to be forgetful like me and your bread mistakenly rises for too long, it will still turn out well. I have also found that this recipe is rather forgiving of my being imprecise with yeast measurements so most of the time I will simply eye-ball what half of a small pouch of active dry yeast is.
You can substitute some of the white flour for whole wheat flour or add some wheat bran instead. In either case I would recommend still keeping at least half of the flour used white and possibly slightly increasing the amount of water. In the original recipe, there are quite a few other suggestions for modifying this recipe when it comes to flours, mix-ins and even going gluten free, and Stafford also details the process for two loaves with super helpful step-by-step images.