Saturday, January 13, 2007

The Seattle Diary-I :What lies Beyond?

I was fortunate enough to attend the AAS Jan meeting in Seattle.A lovely city.A great experience.So I decided to write about it.Even before I started I was wondering how i should unravel it all.Should I talk about the best things first?Should I start from the start and end at the end or start at the end and end at the start?There were so many different perspectives being processed at the same time.I am partly confused.Howvever I need to begin.Here it goes....

It was a Saturday evening and for the first time I was seeing some 2000 to 3000 Astrophysicists from almost all the Universities,Research Institutes and other organizations.What made all these people choose astrophysics over other lucrative careers?Let me state something first.From personal experience :It is not easy being an astrophysicist.It is more tough being a smart one.So unless one had this burning desire to actually know what happens many light years away at size scales that are unimaginable,this kind of a meeting would never happen.If people did not think that this was a worthy exercise it would never be supported in the first place.So,what lies beyond?This seems to be the question which keeps UGs,Graduate students,post-docs,profs and other scientific personnel so busy.The meeting served not only as a platform to get to know what was going on in the field of Astronomy& Astrophysics,but also served as a networking event.All this for one cause:To know what lies beyond.So it was at the reception hosted by the American Astronomical Society at the Hyatt that I got hold of a glass of diet coke for four dollars(#@!%) and continued with my journey to understand more of what lies beyond!

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