APS March Meeting 2008, New Orleans

[Gokul43201]

Any else here going to New Orleans next week?

 

[olgranpappy]

yep, I'm going. New Orleans is great. You can drink booze right out on the street.

 

[Gokul43201]

Never been to the Big Easy before - this will be my first visit. I'm looking forward to the food and drink! The talks might be good too.

 

[ZapperZ]

Have fun! I miss the March Meetings. I find the 10-minute, production line contributed talks somewhat "charming", since there's no time for bullcrap and you have to get right to the point.

I am now "relegated" to the April Meetings and PAC conferences!

:(

Zz.

 

[nbo10]

Yep.

 

[LtStorm]

I'll be there. Unfortunately only for Saturday evening and Sunday. I recall the primary purpose my chapter of ACS is going is to accept an award or something.

 

[ZapperZ]

So how come we're not hearing any daily reports here on the meeting? How's the weather down there? Is everyone attending going to be presenting a talk?

:)

Zz.

 

[olgranpappy]

weather's not too bad, not too good. it's cloudy and 60-ish.

I give my talk on Friday, but two of my pals talked on Monday so I am hungover today from celebrating with them last night. I just got into town last night so I haven't even been to the conference yet.

 

[ZapperZ]

weather's not too bad, not too good. it's cloudy and 60-ish.

I give my talk on Friday, but two of my pals talked on Monday so I am hungover today from celebrating with them last night. I just got into town last night so I haven't even been to the conference yet.

Good luck with the talk. I remember when we were at LA in 1998 when I was scheduled to give mine late morning on Friday. The room was only half-filled since a lot of people have left.

Was there any plan made to meet up with other PF'ers there? I know that if I were going, I would have tried to get people together.

Zz.

 

[Gokul43201]

I gave my talk on Tuesday, and was out of NO, La by Thursday evening. Two new things I consumed: grilled gator, hurricane. Neither impressed me terribly. Compared to the blizzard I'd just left behind, the weather there was fabulous.

 

[ZapperZ]

I gave my talk on Tuesday, and was out of NO, La by Thursday evening. Two new things I consumed: grilled gator, hurricane. Neither impressed me terribly. Compared to the blizzard I'd just left behind, the weather there was fabulous.

Excuse my ignorance, but what's a "hurricane"? :)

Was there anything earth-shattering that came out of there? I've been following a few APS blogs and it appeared that no one was revealing anything too surprising.

Zz.

 

[Gokul43201]

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...=/images?q=hurricane+cocktail&um=1&hl=en&sa=N

I didn't come across anything Earth shattering. The topic seeing biggest growth was probably graphene.

 

[olgranpappy]

Excuse my ignorance, but what's a "hurricane"? :)

as you might have thought: it's a drink with a lot of alcohol that tastes like it doesn't have a lot of alcohol.

Was there anything earth-shattering that came out of there? I've been following a few APS blogs and it appeared that no one was revealing anything too surprising.

Zz.

I didn't come across anything earth-shattering... a few of the invited talks were good, but those sessions of pure ten minute talks are just mind-numbing.

Honestly, I didn't get much out of the conference. I guess it was good for a little networking, but not very good for learning about physics... I was really a bit disappointed by the whole thing... oh well. At least I'm getting reimbursed for my expenses.

and P.S. my friday 10AM talk was very sparsly attended... seems like people start leaving on Wednesday and the overall attendence decreases exponentially from there... oh well again.

 

[ZapperZ]

as you might have thought: it's a drink with a lot of alcohol that tastes like it doesn't have a lot of alcohol.

Of course. And yes, that was my first guess. :)

I didn't come across anything earth-shattering... a few of the invited talks were good, but those sessions of pure ten minute talks are just mind-numbing.

Honestly, I didn't get much out of the conference. I guess it was good for a little networking, but not very good for learning about physics... I was really a bit disappointed by the whole thing... oh well. At least I'm getting reimbursed for my expenses.

and P.S. my friday 10AM talk was very sparsly attended... seems like people start leaving on Wednesday and the overall attendence decreases exponentially from there... oh well again.

That was my experience as well when I was slated for a Friday session. But then it all worked out because when I went to the one in Seattle (was it in 2001 where we had the "Physics Woostock West" after the discovery of superconductivity in MgB2?), I got the prime Monday morning session that was packed to the gills. :)

The only interesting bit of news that I gathered that was also reported at the March Meeting was a new report on the evolution from quantum to classical system via coupling to an external "bath", i.e. decoherence.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080313143055.htm

Not exactly my field of study, but that would have been something I would had tried to attend.

Zz.