Long-Term History of the Geodynamo

At AGU squarkz and I went to hear a talk called Hot Spot Motion, Scales of Mantle Convection, and the Long-Term History of the Geodynamo because "the geodyamo is sexy," and because it was a named lecture and because the lecturer was from the University of Rochester. At AGU, though, the lecture was mobbed and we couldn't get in. However, the same lecture, or part of it anyway, was given today [Monday], here, as the weekly Astrophysics seminar. hot!

Coincidentally I'd just read about paleomagnetism in A Brief History of Science, one of those coffeetable science books which is floating around here for some reason. It was just the background reading I needed to understand the talk. The paleomagnetism stuff was pretty awesome, but escoteric enough to make me start to yawn; but I have to envy them for the fieldwork. And then he mentioned that his advisor was none other than Walter Alvarez, son of Luis Alvarez, which is all very exciting. For those not in the know, it was these guys that developed the theory that a meteorite caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. (Luis Alvarez, in turn, was advised by E. O. Lawrence, who invented the cyclotron and ran what was then the Rad Lab and is now the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, LBL.)

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School is going pretty well. I have had this journal entry partially composed for days now but haven't found the time to write it. It's really great to not have teaching responsibilities, my new office is rad, and it's great having Adrian as some kind of advisor. He helped me with the C-G coefficients, and gave Stefanos and I a copy of a textbook he wrote, inscribed: "To Stefanos and Tobin with best wishes for a distinguished career in Physics."

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I am thinking of going to Budapest for spring break (March 3 to 13) to visit Diane (roxymartini) and Nadia (nawl/janviere) and to see Budapest. I'm not sure yet since it does seem a little extravagent (expensive). But I remember visiting Sweden on spring break in 2000 (which lead to me spending the year 2001-2002 there), and how great it was with everyone (Brandon, Chris, Eric, Mom, and the Mizells) visiting me in Sweden: the shared memory meant I knew it wasn't all a dream.

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Current outdoor temperature, through which I'm about to walk home: -21 deg Celsius.

I will be 25 years old in less than a month. Ack!