Tree of Science, February 2

A quiet, shadowless Groundhog Day on the Science Quad.  Two pictures tell us something about this time of year at the college.

First, we see lone tracks through (yet more) fresh snow, heading across the quad against the grain of sidewalks.

All new building projects would do well to look at the surrounding landscape to see the natural paths that students take.  These paths are the ideal orientation for new sidewalks.

Second, a fresh cut on an ornamental crab apple outside the Science Atrium in front of the Tree of Science.

The horticulturalist has been out performing dormant pruning of trees this past week, which is necessary for many trees to flourish in an open growth environment. This fresh cut may seem drastic, but it is necessary to direct the tree's growth up and away from where they can become entangled and damaged by students and vehicles.  Some types of bushes (e.g. lilacs) are frequently cut to the ground to keep hedges from growing out of control.  The College has traditionally maintained a small nursery for trees and shrubs that require occasional replacement.

It doesn't take much effort to see this process parallels the intellectual training that happens on campus, as well.

Tree of Science, February 1

Today, there was an interesting presentation from a group of students who constructed a 3D printer from scratch.  Here, we see them in Chemistry 202, with the Tree of Science peeking through the window.

For those who seek it, Winter Study provides a great opportunity to work together on joint projects.  In this case, a dozen students worked with staff in the machine and electronics shop (we'll undoubtedly meet that staff later), to construct a device that is able to print 3D parts from ABS plastic. Students worked in groups to engineer the hardware and software.  Here, for example, they're discussing the calibration of the extruding device, a thermocouple controlled cone-shaped nozzle that, along with a stepper/ratchet shapes plastic with sub-millimeter accuracy.

You can read more about their efforts, here.

Tree of Science, January 31

Today, just a quick tip of the hat to Patricia Hurlbut, a custodian, here, in the Science Quad.

Pat is one of the hardest working people on campus.  Pat and her colleagues not only take care of the science buildings proper, but are often seen shoveling and deicing the walks around the Tree of Science.  They clean dorms after students (often ungracefully) abandon them at the end of the year.  They are often in early and work on weekends to make life easier for students, faculty, and other staff.

With the economic downturn of 2008, the college dramatically reduced the staff who work behind the scenes to make this one of the best places to work.  For many years I worked at a state university that had, as far as I could tell, no one responsible for upkeep on buildings. As a graduate student I helped others to keep the Computer Science hallways well swept and graduate offices painted.  The staff at Williams—including Pat—have been doing more with less...even while administration has grown.

Thank you, Pat, for all your hard work.

Tree of Science, January 30

On the way in to work I meet two people that are frequently found near the Tree of Science.

* * *

Paul Smernoff works in Jesup Hall as part of the Office of Information Technology, or OIT.  

Paul is a member of the hard-working Network and Systems group, making sure that various aspects of the computing infrastructure work well for the hundreds of employees and thousands of students.  It's a hard job and, as is often the case with service jobs on an academic campus, under-appreciated.  Paul took a moment to discuss with me the college's current efforts to integrate several different calendar services on and off campuses.  For those who doubt the complexity of providing resilient computing services, I have one question for you:

What will computers look like in 5 years?

Enough said.

* * *

As Paul and I were talking, junior Ethan G—, met us (in front of what we now know to be the Gargoyle benches):

Ethan's back from time abroad in Tanzania.  Ethan, a double major in Philosophy and Computer Science, spent time doing field studies in the wild in the morning, and sightseeing during the afternoon.  "It was wild!" is a phrase Ethan uses as punctuation in discussing his experience.  As is typical for students who study abroad, spending time with gracious host families has given him better perspective on opportunities he has been afforded in the US, and the relative isolation we all face in the  social bubbles that surround each of us.  During his last month he spent time studying independently, producing a report, An Avian Analysis of Wooded Vegetation Encroachment at Enashiva Nature Refuge, Tanzania.  Ethan, of course, is not a environmental biologist, but he seemed quite appreciative of the opportunity to intensively study a subject outside of his (several) "bubbles of comfort".

* * *

When people ask me about my job (and this seems to happen surprisingly often), I remind them that I have the best job in the world.  I study what I want, in-and-out of my own personal "bubble of comfort", and working with some of the smartest people I've met.  Staff like Paul make this possible and students like Ethan push me forward.

Tree of Science, January 29

Today I flush out a backlog of images from this week.

* * *

The first is a pair of images from senior Alex W—, who is working with Professor Jeannie Albrecht on software for coordinated task management across a fleet of quad-copters (seen upper right).

Alex, was testing the flight ceiling for for this 'copter on Tuesday and was kind enough to grab us a snapshot of the Tree with the forward-pointing on-board camera.  This particular view is from an angle we cannot get from buildings on the quad.

Perhaps later, when Alex and his collaborator Donny H— have cleared off their schedules we'll stitch a 360-degree view of the quad from their flying machine.

* * *

For most of my college years, my dorm room easily fit within a large car.  The reality today is that students bring a lot of belongings. Whenever students leave or return to campus (at this time of year, from study abroad), storage boxes—"pods"—appear on campus.  On Monday, we caught a pod being dropped off (forklift peering from around the corner of Morgan):

A couple of days later, temperatures reach 60 degrees, snow melts and winds come in, blowing over the empty shell:

Several days later, Mullens, has yet to retrieve their storage unit.  One suspects the price of a damaged pod is far less than the money earned from a semester (or more) of storage fees. 

Tree of Science, January 28

There are ominous weather forecasts for this afternoon—freezing rain and sleet.  Someone who probably knows quite a bit about Williamstown weather is Aaron Beer, the postman whose route includes the facilities around the Science Quad.

Aaron, who's been working this route since 2005 says he delivers, "maybe 2000 pieces of mail and 20-40 packages" every day.  Will there still be Saturday delivery in a year?  "Honestly, I don't know. Things have been picking up, recently."  Williams is one of the few institutions where mail is delivered to faculty and staff boxes with full public access.

The older among us may recall the 1987 introduction of the Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) as the new standard for US postal vehicles. These are one of the few vehicles on the road today that do not have license plates. These aluminum-bodied trucks, powered by GM engines and assembled by Grumman, resist some of the damage that occurs with steel vehicles, but the aluminum also makes them relatively light weight (2,700 lb).  In inhospitable climates—like Williamstown—the unmodified postal truck does not handle well in snow, or, uh, today's weather of freezing rain and sleet.  So, locally, these trucks are loaded down with cement ballast to keep their rear wheel drive in contact with the road.  Recently the 24-year expected lifespan of a mail truck was extended to 30 years.  The last of these trucks was purchased in 1994, and a report by the General Accounting Office estimated that, in 2005 dollars, the fleet of vehicles would cost $5.8 billion to replace. Replacement seems necessary: these vehicles get 17 miles per gallon and the cost of retrofitting these trucks with more efficient fuels (to meet federal fleet efficiency guidelines) would cost more than replacing the truck outright.  Each truck costs approximately $31,000 in 2011 dollars.

For those of you reading back from the future: starting today, it costs 46 cents to deliver a letter.

Tree of Science, January 27

On these crisp, clear winter days, it's not necessary to work the contrast too hard on the pictures you take.  Here, at what appears to be 4:05pm, the long shadows of the trees of the Science Quad cross the street, dappling the front of the First Congregational Church.

Visitors are often found photographing what they believe to be a typical, white clapboard New England Congregational Church.  In actuality, the building is a yellow brick Neo-Romanesque building built in 1869.  In 1914 it was remodeled after the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, in Connecticut.

Tree of Science, January 26

Last night, a light dusting of snow, and a beautiful cold day today.  Students have mostly left campus, either heading home for the weekend or to Boston or New York to visit friends before the semester begins.  Students have a habit of calling this time "Dead Week", though, in reality, it has rarely been a week.  As we shall see, "Dead Week" more accurately describes a period of exodus before graduation, perhaps peculiar to Williams, but we'll come to that soon enough.

Thompson Physics looks particularly elegant in this weather in amongst the Berkshire Hills. Dusted in snow and to the left, is Mount Williams (2951 feet), a spur off of Mount Greylock.  Just hidden by Physics is Mount Prospect (2690).

Heading abruptly up this north slope of Prospect and then turning left to top Williams is the Prospect Trail, a segment of the Appalachian Trail that is steep enough in some parts that you can nearly touch the trail ahead of you while standing upright.  Later this year, we will see the campus from the tops of both of these hills.

Mary and I are headed out of town, when we pass Sheep Hill, a Rural Lands tract that is mowed, it appears, up-and-down.  A little snow and wind expose interesting features.

The tracks that cross the mowed areas are probably paths left by adventurous sledders.  Williamstown children learn to sled early, and at great speeds.  In the college's research areas in Hopkins Forest, land last tilled many decades ago is overgrown in trees, but still obviously furrowed this time of year.

As we head down Cold Spring Road, we pass by this iconic view of Mount Greylock's "Hopper" made popular in a print by Bill Tague, a wonderful photographer for the college and local papers.  Aside from shots of campus, this view is probably recognized by more Williams College alumni than any other.  When they're in town in fall and early summer, this is a popular place to take a shot of the land relatively undisturbed.  To the left, is the south slope of Mount Prospect.  Behind Prospect, just out of view, is Mount Fitch (3110) that stakes out the far end of the north flank of Greylock (right center, 3491), which is topped by the Massachusetts Veteran's War Memorial.  Stony Ledge (2580) lifts up, to the right.  We will see the town from Stony Ledge, no doubt, some Friday in October, when students climb this hill on Mountain Day.

The term "mountain", of course, is relative.  This point is the highest in Massachusetts, some respect is due, though one might compare it with Mount Sunflower, the highest point in Kansas at well over 4000 feet.

Tree of Science, January 25

Recently, I've noticed that some wood chips have appeared under our tree.

(I'll apologize; my camera is slightly out of focus because of my cold adventure last night in the moonlight.)

This is, surely, the result of woodpecker damage.  Above this point in the tree, there is a growing hole at the end of one of the upper limbs.  This sight is not uncommon, in New England, especially has a variety of insects make the beautiful trees there home.  Sugar Maples are under great pressure from disease, and once weakened they become more susceptible to boring insects and, eventually, the birds.  I once saw a tree demolished in less than a week as woodpeckers drilled a hole a foot or more in diameter through the trunk of a maple.

The damage, here, is likely to parts of the tree that have already died back for other reasons, but it is worrisome, and we will, no doubt see other signs of decay as the year progresses.

Tree of Science, January 24

Today was one of those wickedly cold days that is associated with deepest winter. Although the days are getting longer—the sun is setting nearly half an hour later than a month ago—the sun's new effort is barely holding off the effects of having gone south so long.

In the labs, the humidity hovers around 2%, so static electricity makes working with electronics difficult. On the other hand, it was the perfect day to clean out my large freezer: the frozen foodstuffs barely warm on the back porch.

Tonight, the sky is crystal clear, with the moon nearly full it was already overhead at 8pm. The moon is so bright that its reflection off snow in our back yard makes it look like we've left the outside light on. Moon shadows stretch out under the tree of science:

Looking upward, the shifting atmosphere and wind-blown tree limbs cause the stars to twinkle or even disappear. In a 20 second long exposure of one star actually yields a dozen.

Even the blue emergency light is almost overwhelmed by the light of the moon, which casts shadows downward across the limbs.

Tree of Science, January 23

Schools with great history are among the oldest living entities in modern society, and among those in the United States, Williams is certainly quite old.  The very earliest, of course, were the now "ivy schools" that grew roots in the rough political regions established by the King.  We see then, Harvard, of Massachusetts,  Princeton, once the College of New Jersey, Dartmouth College of New Hampshire, Columbia, nee King's College, of New York, and so forth.  One institution was typically enough for any locale.

In the early days of the new nation, many schools grew from a desire to educate a wider population that was less willing to travel long distances.  Williams (and, eventually, Amherst) grew from early efforts to bust up Harvard's monopoly on the education of young men.

Mark and Albert Hopkins played an important role in shaping the college in its first century.  President Garfield, a graduate of Williams and advocate for its approach to education, "defined a university as 'Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other"' (Kunitz and Haycraft, American Authors 1600-1900, p. 384).  Students and faculty new to Williams often find this characterization a great burden.   Still, Albert Hopkins built the first educational observatory not far from the Tree of Science, and its tight quarters remind us that often the best learning environments bring both the teacher and the student close enough together for both to be involved in the prayers of the other.  Perhaps that is why Williams semesters are so short?

Susan (locally, among our youth, "Suzy") Sedgwick Hopkins funded the construction of the "Hopkins Gate", the left side of which is visible here, with the Tree of Science in the distance, just to its middle right:

The origin of the phrase "Climb High, Climb Far, Your Goal the Sky, Your Aim the Star" is still somewhat unclear, though it is believed that Suzy found the phrase among the Hopkins papers.  To make the puzzle all the more interesting, the Kappa Alpha Gate at Union College, from the same era, has precisely the same admonition (from this youtube video):

As we shall see later this year, no doubt, this is not the first fraternal relationship between Williams and Union.

* * *

The Hopkins stairs are the most direct way to West College from Spring Street in Williamstown, where several student watering holes are found.  I sometimes wonder if the inscription might not have had a slight error in spelling, and was actually meant as a reminder to students heading home on a late weekend night, distressed about the hill they had yet to climb to their rooms in old West College:

CLIMB HIGH

CLIMB FAR

YOUR GOAL

THE SKY

YOUR AIM

THE STAIR

Tree of Science, January 22

An important disclaimer to almost everything I say about Williams is the fact that I am an alum of the "Fairest College",  Amherst.  Indeed, while I was at the "Singing College", I sang for many years with the Glee Club, a boy-sterous group that sang sacred music to madrigals, spirituals to anthems, bawdy beer songs in solo to more refined pieces partnered with Smith and Wheaton. We sang, always in tails, and whenever possible, without music.

At this time, one year, we sang civil rights music together with our longtime friends at Morehouse and Spelman at the National Cathedral.  There is no more challenging environment in which to sing than a quarter-mile long stone building, carpeted by a floor of people in down coats.  Nor more rewarding.  Our brothers and sisters from those other fine singing schools taught us something that night: good friends make better music.

Williams, too, has a strong history of song, with an especially large number of groups singing a cappella.  Some actually do sing in chapels!  Tonight, at St. John's Church, in sight of the Tree of Science, I was lucky enough to hear the sweet tones of Pickup, a small, informal, spontaneous group that that surfaced this fall to sing 4- and 8-part pieces.

The audience in this acoustically lovely room just barely exceeded the group in size, but the offerings from Tallis to Pearsall warmed this cold night.  Congratulations!

* * *

It's tempting, these days, to place people in boxes: Red State Senator, Yankee fan, science student, glee club/frat boy, southern preacher.  It's all the more surprising, then, to find all people lead lives with many facets.  When our local super market (or the "SUU-per MARR-ket" as our local locals used to say) was open 24-hours per day, I'd shop at 1 or 2am when the music tended more toward Rocky Horror or Queen balladry.  It was not uncommon to run across students in Aisle 3 seeking a late-night snack, dancing and singing with great abandon.  The moment was typically one of mutual shock: this student sings or that professor eats. As Tom (or, perhaps, Ray) pointed out, Reality often astonishes Theory.

Among the few I know above: a cabinet maker and glass artist, a cyclist and arranger, and a puzzlist and font designer.  I can't wait to hear more!

* * *

And, now, because I can, and you can't even comment:

To the Fairest College

To the fairest college of them all,

  We will sing with hearty will.

Till the echoes from each classic hall

  Fill our hearts with answering thrill.

We will sing of many a victory,

  On diamond, field, and track.

Midst the golden haze of college days,

  Our hearts to thee turn back.

Hail Alma Mater!

  Our well-loved mother,

Old Amherst, here's to thee:

We'll love thee ever,

  All bound together,

And ever faithful be.

Tree of Science, January 21

Today it may be warm for the Inauguration in Washington, but the temperature is dropping in Williamstown.  Today, I'm re-presenting an image from January 7, but slightly doctored...

Here, we see two images of the Tree of Science side-by-side.  By now, you probably understand that the tree leans slightly toward the science buildings, but here we see the trees of this image seem to lean apart.  With a little effort, you can convince yourself that this is simply two copies of the same image in parallel.

Your brain is used to a world where two parallel objects appear to converge as they recede from view.  Here, of course, the two images are parallel, so your brain interprets this as two objects that diverge.  That's wrong, of course....the Tree of Science teaches us something, again.

Tree of Science, January 20

Yesterday I missed an opportunity to get you a photograph, so this morning, two.  The sun is indecisive, today.  It's interesting to see the thawed area beneath the tree.  Does it represent the area where the tree sheds water?  Is the tree, somehow, responsible for moderating the temperature extremes?

The hill below West, of course, is more exposed to the sun, but also the steam pipes moderate the temperature of the lawn in that area.

The above image is due north.  This one is east-northeast:

The gold-domed building wedged between Thompson Chapel and Morgan Hall is Griffin Hall, home to Faculty meetings and one of the most enjoyable places to teach on campus.

Tree of Science, January 18

It's Friday, so today a treat: a 3D view of the Tree of Science.

This image is viewed with red-blue glasses.  These glasses have a red lens on the right, and a blue or blue-green lens on the left.  These colored lenses allow light of the corresponding color to pass through while absorbing other colors.  The image is constructed from two images taken from two different positions, horizontally, with a common point of focus at the center.  The easiest way to combine the two images is to take the red channel from the right image and the blue and green channels from the left image.  These partial images are re-composed, ensuring that they are level and aligned at the focus point.

In one of my courses, on computer graphics, I have students generate synthetic images using this technique.  Students are always amazed by this simple technology.  I'm amazed that given telescopes that look far back in time and microscopes that identify individual atoms, the popular focus of technology is always on generating more vivid images and 3d reconstructions.  We can generate movies at high frame rates, but exceeding the physical limits of the eye and brain is a waste of effort.  At the same time, we have relatively limited understanding of what makes a representations of humans realistic.  (If you disagree, simply look at rendered images and special effects from a couple of years ago; they always appear unrealistic even though, at the time, we were amazed by their realism.)  There's a reason that successful animation studios have shied away from human subjects.

In fact, year after year, the most popular images from graphics classes involve transparent or reflective objects.  They're hypnotic in a way that makes you wonder if there's a biological reason.  My apologies, then, for this relative mundane offering.

Tree of Science, January 17

The light was gorgeous on the way into work.  The sun, having risen, but still low in the sky, shined horizontally under the clouds.  Everything seemed to glow and the shadows have the crispness of a day 40 degrees colder.

January, Iterterm, or, locally, Winter Study terms were all in vogue in the '70's when the price of oil was high and it was expensive to keep colleges open.  Starting the Spring term later allowed the institution to reduce its fossil fuel footprint by not requiring students to return to campus in January.  Williams is one of a handful of schools that actually require students to take a for-credit course during this period.  Younger students typically sample a full spectrum of choices, while research students are found in the library or lab.

It's also the time when the fitness center population reaches its peak.  And it's when broomball and curling are practiced.

Williams boasts a few teams that are competitive at the national level, and some compete on snow. During the first months of the year, skiers chase the Winter Carnival circuit around the country.  It's a lot like the aurora borealis—mostly north of here, colorful, and always on the move. Winter Carnival arrives in Williamstown near Valentine's Day, right as the semester gets going.  Friday classes are canceled. In recent years, as the snowline has pushed north, the athletes actually leave town to find deeper trails while the rest of us, with a desire to carve snow sculptures, reminisce about days like today when the snow packs well.

Last night students created a number of snowmen around the Tree of Science, perhaps optimistically honing their skills for February.  One, on the memorial table for chemist Hodge Markgraf (715 Molecules by Jenny Holzer), caught my eye—a snowbride?

Coal, being out of fashion, was swapped out for warmer pennies.  But the dress looks cool!  (Sorry.)

Speaking of brides, my eldest child, Megan, stopped by on her way through town, presumably to make sure that her parents were earning their keep.  Megan is a Williams grad (*sigh*), having majored in Chemistry and Art History.  Her research and coursework at Williams typically found her in one of these two buildings: Chemistry, on the left, and Biology on the right.

Having spent the requisite time in a Boston lab, she headed to the University of Massachusetts' Molecular and Cellular Biology program where she's taken on an additional banner—physics—working on the biophysics of cell movement in the Ross Lab.  That's about 10 words more than I know anything about, so I'll stop.  Still, parents out there will likely attest to the truth of the following:

Axiom C. Your children are your best work.

Tree of Science, January 16

Few scenes are as beautiful as a fresh snow in New England.

Barely plowed, the campus is slow to wake this morning.  Few people are out, even at 9am.  The unusual architecture of Morgan Hall is to the right, and Thompson Chapel is off in the distance.  Each of these buildings is built from the local stone which, in years to come, will be hard pressed to fight off our local acid rain. Recent work published in Nature by researchers from Cardiff University and the University of Iowa suggest that olive oil may help to combat the damaging effects.  The research laboratory: the stunning, eight century old York Minster Cathedral.  We may have more time left.

Not quite visible from the science quad are the gargoyles that try to annoy those who enter Morgan.  Two of these creatures are obvious, guarding the entries to the two halves of the building that, for many years, were not internally connected.

Tree of Science, January 15

Today, two photos for your pleasure.

On the Quad today are the Bälters, Olle and Katarina, from Sweden.

Both are teaching Winterstudy this year.  Olle has a class on numerical methods in the classroom looking out the second floor windows on the left with a lab in the room on the second floor in the center. Katarina's class is on epidemiology and public health, which meets on the classroom just to the right of the Tree of Science.  Olle taught our introductory computer science course, with me, several years ago, under a STINT fellowship.  Over his several visits, Olle and and I have a tradition of extended lunches at the Thai restaurant on Spring Street.  We laugh and discuss children (we each have three), students, teaching, Disney World, meals off of I95, Swedish immigration to Delaware, national holidays, international politics and, today, real estate tax policy and community development in Sweden and the US.  Frankly, little is beneath us.  Katarina, of course, is more reserved and circumspect.  We are lucky to have her on campus this January; typically she is found collaborating at Harvard with a graduate student in tow.  Both are dear friends and we look forward to their visits to give us an alternative view from outside our little bubble.

As we headed to the building, we came across Tyler S— '15, with a frame in hand.

As it turns out, Tyler is an economist (in our "Division II", social sciences), taking a humanities course (typically in "Division I"), in a science ("Division III") building.  A liberal arts institution, of course, pushes students to branch out and look around. Tyler's frame, however, is really a means of constraining his view of the universe.  I hope it sometimes includes the Tree of Science.  Tyler was good to play along with my silliness, no matter my crooked intent.

Tree of Science, January 14

A gorgeous day, but the chill is coming in.  Clear skys above the campus mean radiational cooling.  The very large flag, just visible in front of Chapin Hall (hidden in trees below and right of center), is straight out: the winds are here, bringing a change of weather.  The weathervane atop West shows the winds coming from the West.

This picture is taken from the 3rd floor hallway between Physics (right) and Chemistry (left). Once there was no connective architecture here, just a parking lot.

We live in a community where many drive, sometimes long distances, to get to work.  In our attempts to be competitive with other forward thinking institutions, when we build, we build "green" buildings.  Rarely, however, are we found ripping up a parking lot.  Few people walk to work or carpool.  Public transportation is rarely used.  Students drive their cars across this small campus to get to the gym. Hybrid cars abound, consuming lithium deposits in South America and China at a disturbing rate, and in a way that may haunt us soon.  A single conventional sedan, with two people has considerably less impact than a hybrid with one.  A Wellness program focusing on walking or riding bikes to work would, of course, improve the health of our community even more.

How will we change?

Tree of Science, January 13

Today, it's mild, and the fog has disappeared.  The campus is preparing for another Patriots game.

Or, perhaps, they've already prepared.  In the foreground, a Bud Light can, left for those among us who have the wherewithal to take it the extra 20 feet to the trash can.

One of my least inspired photographs, so far, but reflective of my mood.

They say it takes a village to raise a child.  Part of that village, of course, is found in college.  One hopes that exposure to the larger, responsible population, the student who left this can in the quad will learn how to live with the planet that he or she will inherit.

As an instructor at a premier institution, I think it's important to remind students that they cannot depend on being able to look elsewhere for solutions to the problems that confront us.  They will be asked, in one way or another, to use their collective leverage to move the world.  Whether they are teachers of their own children, firefighters, lawyers, engineers, architects, politicians, or teachers of others in that same village, they have a responsibility to help show others a best way forward.  I firmly believe this, but it is also very clear that education, taken over time, has a long way to go and, on occasion, appears to be losing ground. I remain optimistic.

Don't kick the can down the road.  Pick it up.

Tree of Science, January 12

Today, the temperatures increased and sublimation has started to fill the valley with fog.  Tonight, if the temperature approaches the freezing point, black ice will be the result.  Meanwhile, temperatures in San Diego have been, for most of the day, 10 degrees cooler than in Boston.

Tonight's picture was taken at 8:15.  It's 41 degrees Fahrenheit.  The Tree of Science sees a lot of activity, even tonight, but long exposure times allow a faculty member and his dog to pass across the scene and several students to enter the atrium doors, all without capture.

The blue light—an interesting source of light pollution on our campus—causes reflections off the surface of my lens onto the UV filter, thus the blue and yellow lights above the building.  (Blue lights on campus signify call boxes, or, as it happens, objets d'art.)   The four skylights visible across the building point northwest, away from the telescopes that are atop Physics, just to the left.  At night, windowed areas aren't lit by the sky, but light the sky, contributing, generally, to the large amount of light pollution even small towns contribute to our atmosphere.   Light pollution is a real problem for astronomers at night.  No one, of course, is observing tonight.

Thinking about temperature, a blog is probably the right place to inform you of a common misunderstanding about the definition of our standard units of temperature.  In high school, we learn that 0 degrees Centigrade is defined to be the freezing point of water, and 100 the point at which it boils.  Actually, it's a little more complex. All measurements are made relative to the first defining point, absolute zero or 0 degrees Kelvin, or -273.15 degrees Celsius.  The second point that defines the standard temperature scale is the triple point of water, the point where water can be found in three states: a solid, a liquid, and a gas.  (A reason for this, I suspect, is that the triple point of water is easier to verify than the freezing point.)  This point is taken to be exactly 273.16 degrees Kelvin and 0.01 degrees Celsius.  Thus, neither the freezing or boiling points are defining temperatures, and, to compound the problem, neither of those happens at exactly 0 or 100 degrees in Celsius.  This may not be surprising, but now, it turns out, the triple point is ever so slightly higher than 273.16.  Our high school friend, Centigrade, is an archaic term, supplanted by Celsius in standards definitions.  To this day, Centigrade appears more accurately defined than its 'equivalent', official scale, Celsius.  Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Tree of Science, January 11

Today we find Sally Prasch passing by the Tree of Science.  Sally was visiting Jay Thoman's (Chemistry) glass blowing class.

Sally Prasch (right), Jay, and Jay's wife, Lee Vanolia

Sally spends much of her week at Syracuse University in her position as a scientific glassblower.  The rest of her time she's found working in her personal shop, or collaborating with others around the country—often as an instructor—to bring the magic of glasswork to a wider audience. Sally has inspired Williams glassblowers, now, for several years and is disarmingly friendly.  When I arrived in class she was planning Jay's "next honeymoon" with his wife, Lee Vanolia: "A Snow Farm glass class! (And they have such great food there!)"

Today, Sally constructed a glass handbell, footless cordial with arms, a delicate petal seeking a flower, a swan barometer, and a mushroom-in-a-marble pendant that would make Grateful Dead groupies proud.  "Can you talk and work at the same time?," asks a student.  "Sure." Sally approaches the flame as one might imagine the sculptor approaches a raw stone.  "Let's see what this is."  Moments later, a 2-inch human form is drawn from a rod of clear glass, running, with hand over forehead. Talking through single motions, a nose is formed, eyes appear, and biceps are formed from stranded muscle.  She notes in the same tone she uses to explain her techniques, "He's thinking, 'It's hot in here'."  After tens of thousands of hours at the torch and in hot shops, she's worked with many of today's influential artists.  "He's so relaxed," she points out about working with one.  It seems like a side comment, but really, a relaxed attitude is important to working effectively in this medium. When discussing an embellishment technique, she recollects a time when a master tweaked the approach and it completely fell apart.  Failure, of course, is the first step to learning.

In reality, Prasch is, like many glassblowers, a scientist performing experiments in a medium that, after thousands of years of trial and error, frequently yields more questions than answers.  The result, of course, is art, but the artist works hard to understand the chemistry and physics that is so important to their success.  Seemingly stable objects explode ("It's all about coefficients of expansion.  I keep telling him, but he never listens."), true color arrives in glass only as it cools ("The pipe industry has really brought us many great colors.")...Wait, what?!  Yes, the Pipe Industry.  "When you get to a certain age," she admits, "you decide, having all that smoke in your lungs is not a good thing.  But, really, there are lots of great colors now."  Sally has a playfulness that makes it hard to believe she spends a lot of her time building scientific instruments.  Somewhere in lab, though, there's a glass stopper with an embedded smiley face ("with lots of hair") or an alien.  And then you remember, it's all about relaxation.

Tree of Science, January 10

Here, senior James Wilcox, tests winter bicycle security on the science quad.

The fence the bicycle is resting on is similar to class benches found at some colleges.  Student progress in college is often recognized by inclusion on lists or induction into societies.  James, for example, became a member of Phi Beta Kappa after his junior year.  In earlier times, upperclassmen were allowed certain liberties, including sitting on special furniture like the Williams fence.  You can see the Amherst senior benches just right of the tree in the center of this image (click for larger view):

Those benches are there today.

[Update 1/30:  It turns out that these benches have served a purpose much as described.  These benches are know as the Gargoyle Benches, and are where juniors would sit when being "tapped" for induction into the Gargoyle Society.  Here, we see a junior selected by a Gargoyle member, sometime before the construction of Bronfman Science Center:

The Gargoyle Society is a leadership organization that is responsible for helping to focus student action on campus.  More on this, no doubt, later.]

Back at Williams, we're in a Science Quad, of course, so it's no surprise that where James is standing is actually part of a large double-slit experiment where students leave the Science Atrium through two breaks in this fence.  James is standing to the right of the right break in this image from Google Maps:

It's not clear, yet, the interference patterns that might arise. Still, we'll see indications this year that students sometimes enter the quad as individual people or, at other times, as waves.

Stay tuned!

Tree of Science, January 9

Today we find a beer bottle beneath the Tree of Science.

It's hard to imagine how a beer bottle ends up in the snow, finished and upright.  Did the owner sit in the slush beneath the tree and finish it off?  Or was it carefully carried to its resting spot and left to recycle itself.  I'm not sure whether large Bavarian bottles are covered by the Massachusetts recycling act, but they should.  (Recently the town of Concord banned single serving bottled water, which are not covered by Massachusetts recycling laws.)

It's timely, I suppose, coming after a study is released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that reports that one in eight women in the US consume six or more drinks in a single sitting, three times per month.  Men are no better, of course, but it's particularly worrisome for young women who are more likely to be drawn to beer-like drinks made with higher alcohol content.  It seems there are links between heavy drinking and breast cancer.

It's nice, however, to see that our students (can we assume it was a student?) are leaving the Keystone Light behind.  It's sad to see a student (surely of age) leaving the liquor store with 48 cans of inexpensive beer when a smaller number of quality labels could be had at the same price.  There's an inductive proof in all of this, somewhere.

Tree of Science, January 8

A beautiful day today, with lots of sun early on.

A Few Statistics

So, you've begun to see some of the beauty of the Tree of Science (TOS). Now, it's time to think a little more about its details. First, the tree is a Sugar Maple. Here's our local botanical tag:

The TOS is obviously a tall tree, so measuring its height requires a little care. Today, I've approached this much as the ancients might have. I've used this method before with young children in elementary school science class visits, so it's easy. 

1. First, look at the tree and observe where its top is. Now, mark the place on the ground that is directly below this point. This is fairly easy to do with trees, and if you're worried, you can use a level to ensure you're looking straight up. In the case of our tree this is due west, about 6 feet. 
2. Now, find something you can look along that can be observed to be 45-degrees above the horizontal.  I used a carpenter's square and a torpedo level. A 45-degree angle is convenient, but any known angle will do, with some thought.
3. Raise the instrument a known elevation above the ground (I'm about 6 feet, elementary school kids are 3), and look up along the angle.  Walk closer or farther away until you can see the tallest point of the tree along the instrument when it is exactly 45-degrees above the horizon.  Make sure you can see the location below the top of the tree, that it is clear, and that it is relatively flat between your location and that spot.
4. Observe where you're standing and push the location back (away from the point under the tree) a distance equivalent to your height. (This last step necessary because you're correcting for the measurement above the ground.)  Mark this location.
5. Now, measure the distance between marks.

The Tree of Science, measured using this technique, is approximately 81 feet tall.  (I might have said approximately 80 feet, but you'd grant me only one significant digit; I'd like more!)

At three feet around, the girth of the tree is 11' 9" or, as we say in science, 3.556 meters.  Dividing by pi (3.1416), we get 1.132 meters or, as we say on blogs, a diameter of 3 feet 8.5 inches.  There are not many Sugar Maples in suburban areas that have a trunk this big.  It's hard to imagine that in this area some of the trees from the pristine forests were 6 feet in diameter!

Using a wonderful application for the iPhone, GPS Device Data, it's possible to determine the location of the Tree of Science to be 42.71197 degrees north and 73.20565 degrees east.  You can see a Google Maps view of this location here.  Notice there's less snow in Google Land.

The elevation (within 3 meters) is 240 meters, or 787 feet.  I worry about how this will change if the oceans rise.  Walk to work!  Save the elevations!  Those of you worried about our aging GPS satellite fleet, keep worrying.  Here's a GAO report on the predicted future of GPS.

A good friend, Bill Lenhart, arrived under the tree with an "Uh, Duane?"  I explained.  My colleagues, fortunately, have been well prepared for my idiosyncratic life.  We'll see most of them, sometime this year, in shots like this:

Bill Lenhart

As I was packing up after my measurements, I came across today's Tree of Science subject, some Fruit Loops placed, no doubt, by a squirrel-friendly member of our community.  Enjoy!

Tree of Science, January 7

Happy Monday.

I'm currently working on the January Challenge from IBM Ponder. After spending a little time on the problem, I decided I needed to change gears, so I solved and submitted NPR's Sunday Puzzle, which was remarkably easy. I hope they don't call!

Sometimes you just have to change your focus.

On my way home I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to use panorama mode to map out the trunk of the Tree of Science. Straightforward efforts seem to totally confuse the iPhone's stitching algorithm (computer scientists might think about this). So, instead, I turned the camera on its side and got this upward panorama:

Tree of Science

Tree of Science 365, to January 6

My daughter, who was visiting us over the New Year's holiday, challenged me to come up with a contribution to the Capture Your 365 photo contest. So here it is...enjoy. [1/15: And hers is here!]

* * *

Each day, I'm taking a picture of what's happening around the giant maple tree in the Williams College Science Quad. This "Tree of Science" is very old and, as you will undoubtedly see sometime this year, is suffering mightily against the diseases that are taking out these beautiful trees of New England. This tree, whose value is under-acknowledged, plays an important role in the lives of many members of the Williams community. You'll see that too.

Let's Begin!

I started a little late, so I'll bring you up to speed with a marvelous photograph taken for the Williams Record, the local student newspaper. This photo is from Fall 1996. In this photograph, my daughter, Kate, is 8 and my son, Duane (née Ryan), is 5.

Children Playing under the Tree of Science, 1996.

This next photograph is a 360-degree panorama of my Computer Organization class (Computer Science 237) from Fall of 2003 (click for full view). If you look closely, you'll see that some of the students appear multiple times! The Tree of Science, of course appears once.

Computer Organization Fall 2003 under the Tree of Science.

Students, here, are Ersen Bilgin, Alex Constantin, Marcus Duyzend, Laura Effinger-Dean, Brian Hirshman, Jamie Kingsbery, Zack Kung, Davis Parker, Davy Stevenson, Robin Stewart, Robert Terchunian, Thomas Williams, and Zack Yeskel.

Friday, January 4, 9am.

Mary and I are headed to work, and it's cold, but the bitter cold of Thursday is gone (note the incoming clouds). Kate is headed home. This is our subject, the Tree of Science.

Tree of Science. Bronfman Science Center (left) and Clark Geosciences (right)

Saturday, January 5, 2013, just after sunset

This shot is taken at about 4:45pm, about a half hour after sunset. The Tree of Science, having seen many students and storms, has a uniquely ancient silhouette.

Tree of Science, after sunset.

Sunday, January 6, 2013, noon.

I'm headed into work, but the Science Quad is already home to several students participating in the Wilderness Rescue Training WinterStudy course. The first half of this panorama (click for full view) points generally east.

Panorama of East Science Quad.

Tree of Science, West Hall (the oldest building on campus), First Congregational Church, Thompson Chapel, Morgan Hall, Jesup Hall, Thompson Physics (the oldest physics building in the United States), and the home of Computer Science—Thompson Chemistry.

The second half (again, click on picture for full view) points, roughly, west.

Panorama of West Science Quad. 

We see here Thompson Chemistry (and Computer Science), CS Labs, Thompson Biology, Bronfman Science Center, Clark Geosciences, and the Tree of Science. Several students are practicing wilderness rescue techniques.

With luck, we'll have more posts next week.

-dab