Homesick science (randomness)

May 23, 2007

Albany, New York


I’ll tell you why I like the East. The weather here is metaphor for normal human existence, or what I consider normal. There are cycles, seasons, times we consider bad contrast the good—indeed, the winter prepares the soil so the seeds may grow.

The winter comes, skies are grey, ground freezes, trees become bare. There is little life to be seen outside, no one in the parks, some chick-a-dees in the trees, a solitary crow drops out of a pine and splits the snow muffled silence of the day with its crowing. The world seems dead, but it is not; it is sleeping. It is preparing.

The world tips, tilts, pitches toward the sun. Whenever thinking of dynamics of seasons and how they are a manifestation of the world wobbling, it thrills me. Call me a nerd, but I find it absolutely humbling that a simple phenomenon of this planet’s rocking to and fro creates enough difference in temperature that we get seasons. So the world is pitching toward the sun, the rays of our solar body are hitting our part of the world at a less acute angle, i.e. we are receiving more direct sunlight.

Life, however it started here, on this earth, has yielded so beautifully to the higher forces. I suppose it didn’t have a choice, as the name of the game is survival. I like to blunt the raw truths of nature down by slamming them with personifications. Therefore, I liken interactions between living organisms and physical forces to partners in a dance. This is certainly NOT an original notion or comparison, but I think it is so apt. The leader is the physical forces. They are affect one-another, but lumped together they create the physical world: mass and energy; gravity and entropy; diffusion. The follower of the dance does not “sense” cues until they have occurred. The leader signals, the follower reacts appropriately and the dance continues. The physical realm changes, organisms evolve with it: sometimes by small degrees, other times in huge “leaps”, and other times they just die. But the dance, in its four-billion-year-old glory goes on.

All organisms have been created as they are by these rules, these laws. Some have found ways to dampen their influences: winged creatures negate gravity for a short time (relatively), dolphins are shaped such that the friction and viscosity of water is minimized. Cells, not considering some large exceptions, are all small and started out small because of a simple little law that governs 3 dimensional Space: as you increase the surface area of a sphere (or any shape), you increase its volume by another order. The volume quickly out-grows the surface area around it. Now, if you need to get things (oxygen, for example) across this surface area to the center of the space within—and each unit of volume needs a certain amount of surface area to “service” it. Imagine a loop road around a city that services the interior of the city. As the cities area grows the loop road gets longer, but not fast enough to keep up with the needs of the city.

Anyway, all that brings me to Spring. I love the Northeast for its Spring. I love the trees here. Northern California cannot compare to this verger. It is really not a fair comparison, they are two very different environments (biomes even). That does not change my penchant for oaks, maples, beeches, birches and pines. The deciduous trees are a glorious sight in a park or in the center of a field. They spread out, like a child on a king-sized bed, all around and up. As they age they become full—thousands upon branches. In the Spring they bud, then explode it a bright green chlorophyll splendor. They’re sheltering branches have been written about so numerous times before—I don’t care. I will not let my appreciation of nature be eclipsed by reiterations, man-made dilemmas and bullshit.


Right now I am in a park. It is about 70 degrees in the shade, the air has enough moisture that it holds the heat. In San Francisco, if you get out of the sun the air becomes cold, because it is so dry.

In about a week and a half, I’ll be started out on a weeklong bike journey to LA.

UVM medical school: my status is uncertain. More time in SF?