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Apr. 12th, 2011 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesSo, the interview meme. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
padparadscha asked me questions, I gave answers, and I can try to ask you questions too, if you like.
1. OBVIOUS QUESTION: Astronomy! It's a vast subject! What is your focus within the field, and how did you choose it?
My focus is planetary astronomy. So far my specific projects have been on rings and dynamics (how things move), but given NASA's current situation, I want to keep an open toolkit (my boss also did his PhD during the Voyager era where you worked on whatever was flying). I don't know enough to do some of the stuff that the Martians do -- they're at the point where their work is really more like geology and meteorology than astronomy (it's a difference in scale and data volume) -- but I like to think I can pick up a solar system or exoplanet project with study and contribute. I also consider myself an observer who occasionally does modeling/theory -- I'm happier when messing with explaining data than making predictions from physics.
As to how I got into it, it was a long story. I did my undergrad at my local state school, where we had maybe two active astronomers. So I worked on observing active galactic nuclei (basically galaxies where the central supermassive black holes are gobbling down stuff and we see the glow of the stuff before it falls in), except for a summer where I modeled galactic rotation (badly) at a different school.
Anyway, I visited Cornell in my senior year of college, and one thing they made a Big Deal of was the fact planetary science was part of the program, and that you can do anything (within limits of finding an adviser) at Cornell. Planetary science is in this funny place right now, where some of us are astronomers and some of us are geologists/meteorologists*, so a lot of times universities will put their planet programs in with the geologists rather than the astronomers. Cornell also doesn't assume you know any astronomy when coming in -- partially because many of us have physics degrees because a lot of smaller schools can barely get someone to teach Astro 101, let alone enough classes for a minor/major.
So, they parade Steve Squyres in front of us to talk about the Mars Rovers, and I wonder why everyone didn't come to Cornell. Steve's the kind of guy who is good at making a cool mission seem even cooler, and if you ever get the chance, you should hear him speak. Seriously, at the time I assumed I could never do planetary astronomy, since I didn't take all those geology classes in college, so Cornell rekindled a dream I've had since I was a kid.
Anyway, Cornell runs most of its astronomy classes on a two-year rotation, so the only planetary astronomy class in my first semester is Physics of the Planets, taught by my (future, at the time) adviser. The class was a great intro one to the material, and was more from an astronomer's point of view, which helped me ease into it. (Even though I joke about how many times I've done the radiative transfer equation in astronomy.) When it came time to select a professor to work with over the summer, I was a bit shy to ask, though. I only knew three of the planetary science professors (my now-adviser, the director of grad studies, and the one who taught the course I TA'd for), and talking to a stranger I barely knew didn't appeal. So I ended up going with my adviser because I liked him, knew him already and enjoyed his course. Despite the fact I knew he had a couple of habits that would drive me nuts. (Seriously, I want to work with someone who understands the concept of 'on time'.) Surprisingly, I decide to stay with him even after the first summer didn't go well -- I wasn't used to asking for help, didn't know the rest of the group, and he was away for most of the summer on Cassini business. (He went on sabbatical last year and it was really noticeable how much better I was doing now at working without a professor to hold my hand -- some of it was because I could pester the postdocs, though.)
* A lot of the lunar and Martian scientists don't even come to the big Planetary Science conference unless it's somewhere (like Ithaca) with people they want to visit. They go to the ginormous geology conferences instead. At the same time, the people who study extrasolar planets are being drawn in from stellar astronomy as we get enough data to think of the planets as planets, rather than 'blips we see when we look at stars'.
2. Who's your favorite video game final boss?
Giygas from Earthbound wins awards for the sheer creepy factor. I mean there is the element of actually doing damage to him (and Pokey), but I appreciate the end it's not about your psi powers and bottle rockets, but about asking for help. Granted, it helped that I had the strategy guide so I knew that this was the one time Paula's Pray command would do something other than 'random thing'. (I'm told that if you put it on auto-fight at this point, she'll do it on her own.)
I didn't much like the parts of the game that led up to it, since later-game Earthbound has made it so everyone is a glass cannon, and field battles were pretty much 'can I unleash my death psi before the bad guys do so?' (helped by the fact I have a rolling hit meter, while they don't, so even if they hit me, I have time to kill them or heal myself before someone dies).
3. You are feeling creative! You get out your tools to make something. What tools are these, and what will you make?
Oh, geez. What don't I get out? Right now, I'm in the mood to paint, but that leads to 'watercolor on paper or acrylic on canvas-board (or paper)'. Or I could draw and color with markers, colored pencils or Photoshop. Or there's sewing or crocheting, which tend to be a bit more 'practical', in that I'm usually making something that's more than just a display piece (though doll clothing and costumes for me are mostly that). If I'm short on supplies, there's always writing...
I like being creative.
4. What made you fall in love with language enough to become interested in conlanging?
I remember I approached conlanging from more of a worldbuilding POV -- the first reference to it as more than the occasional glossary in the back of a SF/Fantasy book was on the NaNoWriMo fora and it was all that I could do to not drop my novel and do a conlang instead.
But I already liked language. I mean, I took Spanish past the point I needed to for school, and the time my sixth-grade English teacher taught us sentence diagramming, I was fascinated. I've always been the kind of person where knowing how to make a thing increases my enjoyment of it, so knowing things like grammar rules (and exceptions, and the way different languages have different grammar rules but are still consistent enough that, within a language, you knew what things meant, and how language evolved...) made me think language was even neater.
That and being able to read books that were never translated into English is neat.
5. Which extraterrestrial planet/planetoid/satellite within our solar system would you most like to walk around on, assuming magic personal force field protects you from all the elements?
Depends -- can I bring back samples or leave stuff there? Because the answer is different if it's for science or just for a hike.
For science, I'd totally want to radio-transmitter up (Saturn's moon) Hyperion to test my theories on its rotation. So walk around, put a bunch of transmitters on the surface, and then borrow a radio telescope to watch it spin when Cassini can't be spared to take its picture. Or a random Saturnian main ring particle so we can figure out what colors the rings (they're slightly too red and dark to be water ice) and where all the rock and metal went.
But if we're just talking playing tourist, I want to go to Titan (another one of Saturn's moons). Because it has lakes (of liquid methane and ethane) and rivers and sinkholes and all kinds of neat things, not to mention clouds and rain and such. Granted, it's all at temperatures where ice is pretty much as hard as granite.
It's weird, because Titan pretty much ties with Mars or Venus for being a place that would look a lot like Earth without the plants and animals. But that kind of makes it easier to see its beauty, while, if I went to, say, Iapetus's weird equatorial ridge (seriously, Iapetus looks like you took a walnut and painted half white and half black).
Though Enceladus's south pole or Io would be neat. Volcanic features are awesome.
(You can also see my outer-solar-system bias here. If I was limited to the inner solar system, I'd be more likely to say Venus than Mars, just because we haven't seen much of Venus from the ground. Because it melts electronics.)
padparadscha asked me questions, I gave answers, and I can try to ask you questions too, if you like.1. OBVIOUS QUESTION: Astronomy! It's a vast subject! What is your focus within the field, and how did you choose it?
My focus is planetary astronomy. So far my specific projects have been on rings and dynamics (how things move), but given NASA's current situation, I want to keep an open toolkit (my boss also did his PhD during the Voyager era where you worked on whatever was flying). I don't know enough to do some of the stuff that the Martians do -- they're at the point where their work is really more like geology and meteorology than astronomy (it's a difference in scale and data volume) -- but I like to think I can pick up a solar system or exoplanet project with study and contribute. I also consider myself an observer who occasionally does modeling/theory -- I'm happier when messing with explaining data than making predictions from physics.
As to how I got into it, it was a long story. I did my undergrad at my local state school, where we had maybe two active astronomers. So I worked on observing active galactic nuclei (basically galaxies where the central supermassive black holes are gobbling down stuff and we see the glow of the stuff before it falls in), except for a summer where I modeled galactic rotation (badly) at a different school.
Anyway, I visited Cornell in my senior year of college, and one thing they made a Big Deal of was the fact planetary science was part of the program, and that you can do anything (within limits of finding an adviser) at Cornell. Planetary science is in this funny place right now, where some of us are astronomers and some of us are geologists/meteorologists*, so a lot of times universities will put their planet programs in with the geologists rather than the astronomers. Cornell also doesn't assume you know any astronomy when coming in -- partially because many of us have physics degrees because a lot of smaller schools can barely get someone to teach Astro 101, let alone enough classes for a minor/major.
So, they parade Steve Squyres in front of us to talk about the Mars Rovers, and I wonder why everyone didn't come to Cornell. Steve's the kind of guy who is good at making a cool mission seem even cooler, and if you ever get the chance, you should hear him speak. Seriously, at the time I assumed I could never do planetary astronomy, since I didn't take all those geology classes in college, so Cornell rekindled a dream I've had since I was a kid.
Anyway, Cornell runs most of its astronomy classes on a two-year rotation, so the only planetary astronomy class in my first semester is Physics of the Planets, taught by my (future, at the time) adviser. The class was a great intro one to the material, and was more from an astronomer's point of view, which helped me ease into it. (Even though I joke about how many times I've done the radiative transfer equation in astronomy.) When it came time to select a professor to work with over the summer, I was a bit shy to ask, though. I only knew three of the planetary science professors (my now-adviser, the director of grad studies, and the one who taught the course I TA'd for), and talking to a stranger I barely knew didn't appeal. So I ended up going with my adviser because I liked him, knew him already and enjoyed his course. Despite the fact I knew he had a couple of habits that would drive me nuts. (Seriously, I want to work with someone who understands the concept of 'on time'.) Surprisingly, I decide to stay with him even after the first summer didn't go well -- I wasn't used to asking for help, didn't know the rest of the group, and he was away for most of the summer on Cassini business. (He went on sabbatical last year and it was really noticeable how much better I was doing now at working without a professor to hold my hand -- some of it was because I could pester the postdocs, though.)
* A lot of the lunar and Martian scientists don't even come to the big Planetary Science conference unless it's somewhere (like Ithaca) with people they want to visit. They go to the ginormous geology conferences instead. At the same time, the people who study extrasolar planets are being drawn in from stellar astronomy as we get enough data to think of the planets as planets, rather than 'blips we see when we look at stars'.
2. Who's your favorite video game final boss?
Giygas from Earthbound wins awards for the sheer creepy factor. I mean there is the element of actually doing damage to him (and Pokey), but I appreciate the end it's not about your psi powers and bottle rockets, but about asking for help. Granted, it helped that I had the strategy guide so I knew that this was the one time Paula's Pray command would do something other than 'random thing'. (I'm told that if you put it on auto-fight at this point, she'll do it on her own.)
I didn't much like the parts of the game that led up to it, since later-game Earthbound has made it so everyone is a glass cannon, and field battles were pretty much 'can I unleash my death psi before the bad guys do so?' (helped by the fact I have a rolling hit meter, while they don't, so even if they hit me, I have time to kill them or heal myself before someone dies).
3. You are feeling creative! You get out your tools to make something. What tools are these, and what will you make?
Oh, geez. What don't I get out? Right now, I'm in the mood to paint, but that leads to 'watercolor on paper or acrylic on canvas-board (or paper)'. Or I could draw and color with markers, colored pencils or Photoshop. Or there's sewing or crocheting, which tend to be a bit more 'practical', in that I'm usually making something that's more than just a display piece (though doll clothing and costumes for me are mostly that). If I'm short on supplies, there's always writing...
I like being creative.
4. What made you fall in love with language enough to become interested in conlanging?
I remember I approached conlanging from more of a worldbuilding POV -- the first reference to it as more than the occasional glossary in the back of a SF/Fantasy book was on the NaNoWriMo fora and it was all that I could do to not drop my novel and do a conlang instead.
But I already liked language. I mean, I took Spanish past the point I needed to for school, and the time my sixth-grade English teacher taught us sentence diagramming, I was fascinated. I've always been the kind of person where knowing how to make a thing increases my enjoyment of it, so knowing things like grammar rules (and exceptions, and the way different languages have different grammar rules but are still consistent enough that, within a language, you knew what things meant, and how language evolved...) made me think language was even neater.
That and being able to read books that were never translated into English is neat.
5. Which extraterrestrial planet/planetoid/satellite within our solar system would you most like to walk around on, assuming magic personal force field protects you from all the elements?
Depends -- can I bring back samples or leave stuff there? Because the answer is different if it's for science or just for a hike.
For science, I'd totally want to radio-transmitter up (Saturn's moon) Hyperion to test my theories on its rotation. So walk around, put a bunch of transmitters on the surface, and then borrow a radio telescope to watch it spin when Cassini can't be spared to take its picture. Or a random Saturnian main ring particle so we can figure out what colors the rings (they're slightly too red and dark to be water ice) and where all the rock and metal went.
But if we're just talking playing tourist, I want to go to Titan (another one of Saturn's moons). Because it has lakes (of liquid methane and ethane) and rivers and sinkholes and all kinds of neat things, not to mention clouds and rain and such. Granted, it's all at temperatures where ice is pretty much as hard as granite.
It's weird, because Titan pretty much ties with Mars or Venus for being a place that would look a lot like Earth without the plants and animals. But that kind of makes it easier to see its beauty, while, if I went to, say, Iapetus's weird equatorial ridge (seriously, Iapetus looks like you took a walnut and painted half white and half black).
Though Enceladus's south pole or Io would be neat. Volcanic features are awesome.
(You can also see my outer-solar-system bias here. If I was limited to the inner solar system, I'd be more likely to say Venus than Mars, just because we haven't seen much of Venus from the ground. Because it melts electronics.)
