Nobel 2014 5: This Might Be On the Test
Day 1: The Nobel Lectures – Monday December 8, 2014
Waking up, I first took a look outside the window. |
| Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore! |
This was shot around 9:30A. The camera is making things look brighter than they actually were. It wasn’t “dark” at 9:30A, but neither was it “bright”. At this time of year, “daylight” occurred between about 9:30AM and 2:30PM. It was definitely still dark around 8:30A, and it felt like night by about 3PM.
From there, we made our way down to the breakfast buffet. Sadly, I never took pictures, but let me tell you: this ain’t your typical Holiday Inn/Best Western/Hilton Garden/Marriot Courtyard breakfast buffet. No strange waffle machines, no steamer tray of powdered eggs, and no OJ or milk machines. Nope, instead there were silver trays of meats, fishes, smoked meats and fishes, cheeses, fruits (including, of course, lingonberries), and other delicacies. There were several loaves of different kinds of fresh-baked breads that you could hack hunks off of, along with fresh-baked muffins, scones, biscuits, and other starches. There were crepes and pancakes. There were made-to-order eggs. There were various hot and cold cereal choices. There were pitchers filled with fresh squeezed juices of various types, different milk coices, and several kinds of teas and coffees to pour. I’m probably forgetting a bunch of stuff, but it was, you know, just your run-of-the-mill five-star hotel sort of buffet. It was the best start to a morning you could ask for, and we got it every day!
The winners of the Nobel Prizes are officially required to present a public lecture in Sweden within 1 year of receiving the award. In more modern times this lecture has long been scheduled as part of Nobel Week and that’s what’s happening this year. The Physics, Chemistry, and Economics winners are all scheduled to present at Aula Magna, a lecture hall at Stockholm University.
Based on the info we had from the Nobel Desk, we knew that we could easily attend only those lectures that we wanted to. In other words, buses were available to take us to and return us from the Chemistry lectures. We certainly could have attended the Physics lecture (held earlier in the morning than Chemistry) or Economics (held after Chemistry) had we wished to.
Once inside Aula Magna we took our seats in a section reserved for guests of the winners and the head of the selection committee made a few quick introductory remarks. He then introduced the first Chemistry Laureate (Heil) and ceded the stage to him. Each Laureate had 30 minutes and it appears that this lecture is the most nerve-wracking event for all the winners. Certainly in Weo’s case he had made it clear that the lecture was the milestone that he needed to get past before he felt he could really relax. Weo followed Stefan, and Eric Betzig followed Weo.
There’s clearly an accepted format or set of conventions that defines how these lectures are structured in this day and age. It seems that the norm these days is to try to lead the audience on a journey of what motivated you to undertake your work and use that as a way to also give credit to those that inspired you personally and/or professionally. Along the way some actual science is discussed, but hopefully presented for the non-science professional. Hell’s lecture was pretty tightly focused on himself and his work with almost nothing about what others may have done to inspire him. Self-promoting would be a less kind description. I honestly felt like I was hearing a sales presentation. Both Weo and Eric were much better at making it clear that no scientist ever wins this award in a vacuum in which only the winner discovers things. In other words, they were both more generous in crediting and thanking others.
By the way, Aula Magna is a STUNNINGLY gorgeous lecture hall, with tons of warm woods arranged in visually pleasing undulating waves. It also has tremendous acoustics, which was proven by the 3 students high up in a spot-light platform on house right. They were speaking in what they THOUGHT were low voices, but their comments (in Swedish, so unintelligible to us) were magnified all over the hall. Audience members were continually craning their heads up and around to stare daggers at them, but they remained oblivious. Finally, someone said “SSSSHHHHH” in Swedish (English translation: “SSSSHHHHH”) and they got the hint.
Later in the afternoon we had to walk over to a couple of different shops to have our (Doug, Robert, Andrew) final fittings for our formal wear for the Awards and Banquet. Doug went to the same store as all the other men and my fitting was a quick affair. We had to go to a different store for the boys. Their fittings took a bit longer as kids are often caught between sizes and therefore it takes some time to find the right starting points for them from which tailored results will be delivered to our hotel later. Ironically, when we finally get dressed on Wednesday we’ll discover with horror that what has been delivered to us is NOT what we had fitted for the boys – it is too small in both cases. We’ll theorize that the two sons of Physics Laureate Nakamura, who are the same ages but smaller than as our boys, got our stuff and we got theirs. (We’ll confirm this visually onstage Wednesday when we note that their two boys are wearing clothing much too large for them). So the boys are sadly going to wear suits too small for them. In Robert’s case it will be a close thing, indeed – he was not too far from ripping the seams out of his too-small shirt and coat. (“Hulk angry at small suit!”)
The illuminated reindeer above are in a small park just across the street from the hotel and are something we passed as we walked over to the clothing stores. To give a sense of what dark Swedish winter is like I’ll point out that this photo was taken about 3PM.
What happens next? Tune into the next episode by selecting another page from the "2014 Nobel" menu, above. These instructions cheerfully supplied as a public service for those who haven't won a Nobel Prize.
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