As I write this, a black woman is being projected to win as a state governor, and an openly gay man as a senator. I have the New York Times giving me updates as Star Trek plays in the background, and I keep on writing. It keeps my fingers and brain better occupied than knitting when this much is at stake.
Nobel Recap
For the sake of a succinct blog post (ha!), here are the basics. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics is being awarded to Francis Halzen, who founded and runs the IceCube research program in Antarctica, the one Finn works on for his PhD research. I won’t go on and on about the history or meaning of the prize or even what Francis did to earn it, because you can get that info anywhere. I will tell you what it was like to be here, in his hometown, during the celebration. Short version: so, so cool.
IceCube’s hardware is in Antarctica, but the data it gathers is in the cloud, so scientists can work on it anywhere. And they do; the team is a collaboration of scientists from something like 17 countries. However, Francis teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and he lives here, so much of the team is here. Although they meet routinely in Europe, they meet every single year here in Madison. That’s what Finn was visiting me for: the annual IceCube Collaboration meeting that lasts a week. This year it was sprinkled with celebration.
The Collab Meeting
The first day of the meeting, each of the 400 or so people on the team who were present was given a chocolate coin that’s a cross between the medal Frances will get in December in Stockholm and those chocolate coins kids get in Christmas stockings. That was some smart administrator who thought of getting them made in time for the meeting.
The morning they were given their coins, Finn texted his dad and me to show us, and I told him that I could keep it in the freezer here until he took it home in two weeks. Then it could be like a piece of wedding cake that you keep as long as you want.
Finn texted back, “Too late. They hadn’t put breakfast out, so I ate mine.” My beloved child.
He did get another, and he remembered to take it home with him. I hope the second one stays with him a long time! Longer than the 1-2 years his teammates predict the professional glow will stick to their resumes from the non-chocolate version. I’m thinking that IceCube as a project name is so distinctive that their CVs will draw attention to them as being Nobel-adjacent for longer than that, but what do I know.
This was a frequent theme of the two weeks Finn was here: the discrepancy between the big deal I think the Nobel Prize is, and how Finn feels like it has nothing to do with him. That first day, Francis told the team that every member should put this on their CVs, no matter their role, and I thought maybe Finn would internalize that, but, nope. He insists that because he hasn’t contributed significantly to the project (I say, in science even outright failed attempts contribute, because other scientists know not to waste their time doing that), he says he has no right to be associated with the prize. I’m thinking he was smart enough to pick the project for his dissertation, right? Plus, the guy who is Finn’s committee chair, Ty, well, his committee chair was Francis, so Finn is the grandson of the Laureate in the physics world.
You can imagine he’s not quick to get that embroidered on his jacket.
Back to that week, though.
Monday through Thursday, Finn was on campus from morning to night, sitting in on presentations and catching up with people he hung out with during previous meetings in Europe and with whom he’s worked over the years. A lot of his immediate associates weren’t there because the National Science Foundation has pulled American funding from the project in so many ways; Finn was able to attend only because he can stay with me and didn’t have to ask his department for cash. This meeting was bittersweet for him in other ways, too, because he knew it was his last before he finishes his degree in less than a year. So many people have helped him, and he’s helped so many people. He seemed a bit in a daze that week.
The last afternoon was all about a fireside chat with Francis and some academic administrator at UW, and it was advertised heavily in Madison (Come Meet a Nobel Prize Winner!). Finn was allowed a plus one to attend with him in person, and that was super exciting for me. I’ll tell you about it.
The buzz in Madison was near hysterical. The newspaper, a daily podcast newsletter I get, the radio: everywhere was talking about the fact that anyone could meet Francis that day, or at least watch the livestream. The university dairy had even developed an ice cream flavor in honor (something like Neutrino Nutella), and they were giving it out at the reception following the chat, where a Senator and the badger mascot would be.
Finn needed to be on campus early that morning, so he rode the bus in, and I decided to ride the bus in later so I could ride back with him. I was waiting for it (over and over; I’m terrible at reading the route schedule) just two blocks from the house when I had a typical Madison encounter.
I was watching a guy who showed up across the street on his bike, looking around at the tables outside the Ohio Tavern, like maybe for cigarettes, maybe he was homeless. But, shaggy guy, 10-speed bike, man bun on top of his head: he really could have been doing anything, and when he went in and out of the upscale vintage clothing shop beside The Ohio like he owned the place, maybe he does.
Then he ambled across the street to chat me up, and I let him do so because I wanted to figure him out. The usual interesting back-and-forth between strangers in Madison ensued, and I mentioned that I was catching the bus so I could attend the Nobel Prize thing. WHAT?!? This guy was all in—he had no idea someone from Madison had won the prize, and he wanted to know all about it. Really, he wanted to buy my ticket to the event, and I’m like, “Dude, it’s not like that,” but he would not be put off.
By then I could see the bus coming, so I skipped to the important part: that my son was on the team. He said, “You mean, your son is like a Master’s student, right?” maybe to imply I look young because he was flirting, who knows. When I said, “No, he’s a PhD student,” the guy flipped his lid. He kept using a hilarious euphemism for curse words, like “No way, son of a moth feather!” He truly was hilarious.
But, here’s my bus, so I’m getting on it, paying, and this guy has his foot in the door of the bus even though he still has his hands on his bike at the curb. I’m looking at the driver, trying to get him to see that I don’t want him to hold the bus for this silly conversation, but there we all stood still, waiting for the son of a moth feather to stop being so amazed at my news and to let the bus get on with its route.
He really was quite charming, in his eccentric, very How-Funky-Is-Your-Chicken Madison way, and he got me appropriately pumped for the event.
On campus with Finn, we grabbed lunch among the food trucks (what a busy campus with undergrads in season!), then found our way to the room in Memorial Union, the holding area for the IceCube team before the event. Everyone was excited and a little on edge, thanks, I think, to the staff who was shuffling people around, trying to maintain routes to fire exits and keeping a strict segregation between the public (standing in line two hours beforehand) and the team (some trying to stash their luggage before afternoon flights home). There was a metal detector and name-badge checks and confused staff telling us to leave through one door, then the other. In the middle of the near-chaos, I realized I’d left my water bottle at home, and I needed to take three giant horse pills in the middle of the event, so I was kind of screwed. Time to start building up spit in my mouth.
Finally, we IceCubers (heehee) were escorted down the hall and into the event room, where we waited more in seats, as the public filled in the few remaining chairs and the camera crews got situated. That’s when I decided to try for a bottle of water Finn pointed out to me, right on the other side of a doorway near the stage. Finn and I talked about the bottle for a minute or two, that he’d seen the woman who left it behind and didn’t think she’d be back, and how I bet I could ask the security guy at the metal detector to just hand it to me if I worded my request just right. I just locked my eyes on that water bottle and formulated a story to tell the security guys at the doorway. I need that water, man! I need it to take my pills. (Sadly, my helpless old lady shtick is real.)
Just as I was reaching the doorway, an old guy appears coming toward me, and we come scary close to colliding. We do the entire You First No You First dance, and he passes me into the room and I convince the security guy to give me the water, and I’m all excited that I can now swallow my spit, then I realize, “That was the Nobel Laureate. I nearly smacked right into him, hard.”
He’s even older than me and kind of small, so my forehead would have caught him in the eye, I’m sure. The entire event would have been postponed, all because I was dead set on the water bottle. I could have even injured him. Dude.
Other notes from that afternoon: Finn’s committee chair was named from the stage, which was cool, and Finn’s friends back home who were watching the live feed sent him a screen cap of the back of his head.
What was possibly a bummer, or at least Finn and I interpreted it to be that afterwards, was how Francis’s humility and his apparent lack of media training combined in such a way that he said some unfortunate things. Considering that Joe Rogan thinks that IceCube is this country’s Death Star, and that that popular German YouTube lady preaches that it was a mistake to pick Francis and that money spent on physics is a big waste in the first place, Francis should not have said stuff like, “We didn’t learn anything” and “We have a lot of work left to do.” We know what he meant, but assholes can use that without even cherry-picking it in their stupid social media campaigns against science.
His simple answers were truly charming, though. When asked what he wants to do next, he said that he really wants to answer all his emails. When asked what he can do now that he couldn’t do before, he said that yesterday he took the afternoon off to ride his bike around Lake Monona, twice.
When asked what advice he has for young people who want to be scientists, he said, “Join us, now.”
The room erupted in laughter and agreement, every time. Yes, hurry up! While this country still has any money for science at all.
So much for this post being succinct. Finn and I skipped the long line outside to get free neutrino ice cream so we could get home then walk to the botanical garden in time for our entry tickets for the beautiful GLEAM light show. Finn stayed on with me for another week, holed up in the office upstairs, writing. You know, though, that each evening we had shit-tons of fun together. That’s the wrong word, isn’t it? We had moth-feathers fun!
