I just landed in Geneva, Switzerland for an all-too-brief 40 hour visit to CERN, followed by 3.5 days in the French Alps. I’ll write about the reason for the quick trip later this week. All in all, it’s too short of a stay compared to the ~6000 miles and the 18 hours it took to get here! To get the most bang for my time, I want to partake in the local culture as much as I can (when I’m not doing my job, of course). For me, that means Chocolate, Cheese, and Wine – in reverse order of importance!

We physicists like to partake in the local specialties of where we visit – see Clifford’s post on the fresh roasted peppers in Aspen. To some, we seem to prattle on like spoiled children living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. But honestly, it’s just plain hard work to be away from home so much – to make it easier we tend to indulge ourselves. Or at least I do. Plus I’m downright curious about everything!

To make this too-quick trip more palatable, I have set out 3 goals. (1) Chocolate. There is a special kind of chocolates available only in Geneva (at least to my knowledge), known as Pave de Geneve. It’s a dry, dusty, not-so-sweet type of chocolate that comes in cubes. I need to conduct a serious taste testing to determine which chocolatier makes the best! (2) Cheese. In this neck of the woods, my mind envisions cheese in two forms: Fondue and Cheese trollies filled with numerous delectable cheese, such as Epoisses (my personal favorite). I had Fondue for dinner tonight and then read this article which cites a study claiming that Fondue is fourth on the list of the worst foods you can eat for your health. Oh well – too late now! (3) It goes without saying that I will take advantage of the good French wine available without the import costs we pay in the US. There’s a good wine shop right next to the CMS pit (i.e., the collider hall for one of the LHC detectors) and there’s a good chance I will visit it and bring some bottles home.

Nothing wrong with having some fun along with the work.

Got a bit of shopping in, partly because I needed some supplies, and partly because it’s fun to just wander around Aspen (if you don’t let several of the people get to you). It’s a sunny day, and lots of people are out enjoying it. I’m stocking up for a medium-length hike up to Cathedral Lake tomorrow with Cliff Burgess and David Tong (two other physicists on the workshop here). This will be fun since we’ll take it at a nice pace (none of us are the mountain-climbing physicists of the “death march” variety), enjoy the scenery, and talk about everything under the sun including physics. (Come to think of it, we’ll probably go well beyond what can be found under this sun, or any sun, for that matter.) Who knows, we might write a paper on what we’ve figured out when we return!

Yep, there’s still a good supply of totally pointless stores selling overpriced ridiculous knick-knacks. These are the vast majority of the stores, in fact. The great thing about Aspen is that it has at least one of each of the really useful stores that you need, selling stuff at regular prices. There’s a fantastic hardware store (where I got a 4mm hex key wrench for a handlebar project) and a sort of old-fashioned General Store that has lots of useful things from a pharmacy to a newsagents to good supplies of art materials. There’s an excellent bakery selling good bread, at least two shops well-stocked with good wine, and a wonderful independent bookstore. (The grocery stores are fine for the basics). So I don’t mind the high-end tat-shops (find them quite funny actually -you won’t believe some of the stuff they’re selling) at all; this is a tourist trap after all.

Of course, there’s the Saturday street market. There’s a lot of tat there too, but there’s always a few good stalls selling fresh produce. Yes, the peach lady who I always get peaches from each year was there, and (yes!) the people selling the freshly roasted peppers are here again! The still-warm peppers (in the hot, steaming plastic bag, next to the loaf of bread) have now pleasantly filled the whole apartment with their amazing smell and I wish I could share this scent with you.

Bit of calculating, cycling (after installing some bar ends on the handlebars of the Brompton for wider firmer gripping), cooking, and then maybe taking in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and that’ll be the day for me.

-cvj

The inaugural Café Scientifique Syracuse took place last night and, in my opinion, was a rip-roaring success. I’ve gone on at length before about what this event was all about, and so won’t repeat it here. All I want to do is give an update.

We had just over thirty people attend, a very nice talk from my biology colleague Scott Erdman on the Human Genome Project, and some wonderful sushi and egg roll appetizers provided by John Sansone and his great staff at Ambrosia. Beer, wine, coffee, soda, mojitos and margaritas flowed as liberally as people desired, and may have contributed to the long and lively discussion session that followed. It was great to have a diverse collection of people discussing science. There were plenty of “This is probably a stupid question, but …?” questions, and I learned most from the answers to them, which is the way it’s supposed to be.

The whole event lasted about two hours, after which the organizers and speakers stayed around for a light dinner. Now that the first event has gone so well, we can turn our attention to wider advertising and tweaking the format, and we started that process already over dinner last night.

I’ll report again after our second meeting, on Tuesday September 6th, same time, same place.

(Thanks to PZ Myers at Pharyngula for his supportive comments. We have at least one person attending because they saw his post mentioning our Café Scientifique.)

As I mentioned a few weeks ago in a teaser on Orange Quark, next week sees the inaugural Cafe Scientifique Syracuse event. As you can find out on the Cafe Scientifique web site:

Cafe Scientifique is a place where, for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology. Meetings have taken place in cafes, bars, restaurants and even theatres, but always outside a traditional academic context.

The first Cafes Scientifiques were held in the UK in Leeds in 1998. Since then, Cafes Scientifiques have sprung up in Newcastle, Nottingham and Oxford and the network has now begun to expand to other cities in the UK. We hope that by 2003 there will be a thriving network of 20 to 30 Cafes that meet regularly to hear scientists or writers on science talk about their work and discuss it with diverse audiences.

Cafe Scientifique is a forum for debating science issues, not a shop window for science. We are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accountable.”

I learned about this idea a few years ago, and thought back then that it was the kind of outreach that I wanted to be involved with. It took me quite a while to get around to it and, in the meantime, I read over at Pharyngula that PZ Myers was setting one up. It was helpful to read about the process and so, in the Fall, I approached a group of colleagues spanning the science departments at Syracuse University, to see if they’d like to help start a Syracuse branch.

In addition to me (representing Physics), the organizers are Ana de Bettencourt-Dias (Chemistry), Scott Samson (Earth Sciences), Paul Verhaeghen (Psychology) and a Biologist to be named very soon.

The format is that an invited speaker gives a fifteen-minute talk, outlining the broad ideas behind the topic. The subject will then be opened up to questions and, ultimately, debate, moderated by one or more of the organizers. We’ll be having speakers on physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, geology, medicine, engineering, science writing, science policy, and probably other areas I haven’t thought of. It seems like a very promising format to me, but I’ll be able to report back with data after next week.

Our inaugural meeting is next Tuesday, August 2nd, at 7pm at Ambrosia restaurant in Armory Square in Syracuse. Ambrosia is a very modern and minimalist bar and restaurant with a menu that might be described as Japanese/American fusion. They have a slick cocktail bar space in which we’re going to run Cafe Scientifique and, of course, the area’s usual function won’t be lost on us, since I happen to know I can get a good martini there. We have decided to institute a $5 door charge, to cover both some delicious snacks provided by Ambrosia, and our own bartender so that we don’t constantly have to go into the main part of the restaurant to order drinks. For the first meeting though, we’ll cover the door charge for the first thirty people who arrive.

All of this organization took time and effort, of course. However, the trickiest thing to decide was the topic of the inaugural meeting. Cafe Scientifique will take place on the first Tuesday of every month, and so we’ll have the opportunity to address pretty much any scientific issue of interest that we, or our participants, can come up with. I expect, and indeed hope, that we will discuss topics that are often misunderstood or controversial, such as stem cell research, evolution, and alternative medicine. But for the first meeting we’d like to get some practice moderating discussion in this new forum before we get to a topic that will demand us to be well oiled in this regard. In addition, we do not want any of the organizers to speak for the first few events, because we wouldn’t want to give the impression that the meetings were about self-promotion of scientists.

Despite these constraints, we have really lucked out with our first speaker and topic. We’re fortunate to have Scott Erdman, from Syracuse University’s Biology department, introducing us to the topic – “What Use is the Human Genome Project?” I’m hoping this’ll be a superb topic and for sure I’m going to learn a great deal. I’ll let you know how it goes.