February 13 2016

Still enjoying the thrill of  the direct experimental observation of gravitational waves!

Yesterday, I was at Argonne National Laboratory (where I used to work before I retired) and attended the physics colloquium that started at 11 am. The colloquium was about human caused earthquakes, like those induced or triggered by drilling or fracking, and in particular by injection of waste fluids into deep wells. The presentation was given by Cliff Frohlich of the University of Texas at Austin, and his talk was entertaining as well as informative. Afterwards, I enjoyed lunch and conversation with several colleagues (Gordon and Jerry and Don and Sigurd, all of whom also attended the physics colloquium, and all of whom who like me have affiliations with Argonne. We talked about earthquakes and gravitational waves and a wide range of other topics until about 3 pm.

Today, it was so cold this morning that the Saturday birding was cancelled. Now, in the evening, it is a good deal warmer, 20 degrees Fahrenheit is the reading on the outdoor thermometer in the window a little while ago, but its reading seems sometimes to be affected by its proximity to the single-pane windows having metal frames. The official temperatures were a low of 10 degrees and a high of 16 degrees in Chicago today.

So we stayed home all day. But that was very pleasant because it was a lovely clear blue-skied sunny day with great views of the lake and the city and, during the afternoon, sunlight streaming in all the west windows to please our plants and us.

“Think not the king did banish thee, but thou the king.”  – Shakespeare, King Richard II. Act 1. scene 3

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Caroline Herzenberg

I'm an old grad from the University of Chicago. Born in New Jersey in 1932 (Wow! That long ago!), grew up in Oklahoma, undergraduate at MIT, University of Chicago PhD physics 1958. Various academic and research positions. I've been retired from Argonne National Laboratory for over a decade now. I haven't been engaged in any recent professional work in physics, but have been exploring other interests during retirement.

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