Blogs / Cosmic Variance

I’m now back in Syracuse after an enjoyable couple of days in D.C. As I advertised last time, on Saturday afternoon I sat on a panel on Exploring Non-Traditional Outreach Methods at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellows Symposium. The whole day turned out to be a lot of fun. Part of the qualifications for NSF postdoctoral fellows is that they be top-flight young researchers, who also have an extremely active interest in teaching and outreach. This combination made for a very lively day of talks and panels. It’s refreshing to hear the same people switch from giving relatively technical discussions of their research on, for example, searching for quiet X-ray binaries, to discussing their involvement in setting up an entire campus astronomy museum (in this example, Ginny McSwain, from Yale).

All the talks and panels generated interesting questions and discussion, and one thing that impressed me was the overall spirit of cooperation, as opposed to competition, that this group seemed to have, which I think bodes well for the future health of the field.

The panel I was involved with was the final event of the symposium. The other members were Chris Mihos, from Case Western Reserve University (who I’ve known for quite a long time, since I was a postdoc there) and Phil Plait, of Sonoma State University, who I, and perhaps many of you, know from his renowned Bad Astronomy blog. This was the first time I’d met Phil, and he turned out to be a fun guy with lots to say about the state of astronomy, academia and, naturally, the blogosphere.

We each gave a thumbnail sketch of the kinds out outreach that we do and then opened it up to questions from, and discussions with, the audience. Not surprisingly, many people are curious about blogging. They wanted to know about the logistics of blogging, how much time it takes, how does one distinguish oneself from the general noise out here among blogs, and how is it that people get to know about individual blogs.

But there were also quite a few questions about the worries that people have about blogging. The recent articles discussing whether blogging can be a problem when it comes to either hiring or tenure time are quite well known, and I think they have certainly reinforced the barrier to more academics getting involved. We talked about this a little and I voiced my opinion that, as long as one applies the usual rules of public discussion that one would apply to, for example, public talks, then I don’t think there is too much to worry about. If one strays from this, and insults one’s colleagues or institution, then obviously this might lead to a problem, as it would if you just came right out and said it in your department.

There is the perennial issue that one might worry that time spent blogging is seen as time that could be spent on research. But I think this concern, while possibly valid, applies to any outreach and is not blogging-specific.

The discussion was fun; even touching on how one finds that elusive balance of science, society, politics, home improvement and gardening. Given the amount of interest among this group of young scientists, I expect we’ll see many more science (in this case, physics and astronomy) blogs in the near future.

During the breaks in the symposium, I wandered around the hotel a little and watched the throngs of astronomers arriving for the January 2006 American Astrophysical Society (AAS) Meeting. From the balcony I saw a few people I know, such as Ted Baltz, and Ned Wright (who you might recall from my China posts, and whose cosmology tutorial is a treasure), but didn’t have time to say hello.

That’s the last I saw of the astronomy hordes, because I think they had a banquet last night, and I left my hotel quite early this morning to get to the NSF in Arlington for a meeting with my grant manager.

All in all I had a lovely time at this symposium, and I’d like to thank Josh Faber and Ginny McSwain for inviting me. Now that I’m back, I’m going to use the rest of the week to finish up some papers and get last-minute things in order before the semester starts next week and I head off for a one-day trip to give a colloquium at the University of Wisconsin Madison next Wednesday.