The Other Office

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Clifford at 7:13 pm, February 5th, 2006

Well, I was supposed to be off to the beach for a bit of a wander and a think (it is sinful to work here at home on a gorgeous day like this!), but I still seem to be here, having a late lunch. Since everybody else is probably watching some Big Annual Football Game or Other that I’ve heard is on right now, I’ll put something up for you to read if, like me, you are not interested in the game, and want a bit of distraction.

the gear I decided that I really really needed to get away from it all and get some clarity, so yesterday morning, I packed the essential gear (right - including this wonderful stick made from a tree that grew in my very own garden!) and headed for the hills. Well, the mountains, in fact. The San Gabriel range…. the huge things you can sometimes see in pictures, lurking behind the towers of downtown LA. The same one that has Mount Wilson…. You’ll recall a hike I did there to see the telescopes. This time I decided to go check out the upper part of the Arroyo Seco area….for the rocket scientists among you, this (well, the lower part of it) is directly behind NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Actually, I think I passed a fair amount of scientist-types while up there…. and found myself wondering if any of them read this blog….

Well, I won’t bombard you with too much from the hike (I’ll keep most of the 100 photos or so to myself), and show you a few shots of what it looks like up there. Perhaps if you visit Pasadena or LA (or if you live there) you might consider taking advantage….?

There’s a fair amount of fording of streams going on with this hike (the Arroyo Seco’s arroyo is not seco during the Winter and Spring), which is why my new bit of gear -the stick- could have come in handy from time to time (it was not needed though, but was a good companion). The stream winds back and forth across the path, and is strewn wiht rocks, stones and boulders, which is rather nice…..
arroyo hike

There are several lovely trees of various sorts along the way, giving a wonderful light and pleasant swishing sounds as you go:
arroyo hike

… and every now and again you’re treated to a lovely-shaped big one that you just want to jump up onto and climb all over:

arroyo hike

Eventually the hike opened up a bit and I see the rest of the range in which I was hiking:

arroyo hike If one were to do some big jumps (Incredible Hulk-style) off (well, a touch more North) in the rough direction of that pointy crest to the East there, one would soon get to Mount Wilson, by the way, and see how the telescopes are doing.

I had plans to go for a lot longer than I actually did. After two and a half hours of rather leisurely going, I happened along a lovely set of pools and a waterfall:

arroyo hike

..and decided to have lunch, as the sun was falling so nicely on the spot, and dappling the water rather pleasantly. If you look closely, you can see me in the pool:

arroyo hike

arroyo hike Somehow, lunch -and staring at great length into the water and the sunlight reflected therefrom- got me to thinking even more about the physics I was mulling over on the hike….. And then some ideas started flowing…. and flowing. And I sat there for quite a while longer, thinking. Then I was really excited and simply could not go further. I wanted to go back home and check something in a paper, and see whether my idea held water. So I set off back for the return journey at a fast pace. This was good, since it was all back uphill, and my previous pace downhill was not really giving me much in the way of exercise. Also, it was afternoon now, and this meant that there were occasional people in the distance that helped speed me along since I could challenge myself to catch and pass them, which is a fun little internal game I play sometimes when on my own on a trail. (I imagine other lone hikers do that too?)

arroyo hike So I got back to the car (no I don’t cycle everywhere…. I drive too, but mostly on the weekends) all exhilarated in under a couple of hours, and with 95% of a short paper written in my head. I did stop to take a rather pretentious-looking (now that I see the result!) shot of me walking along (left). (Lucky for you, I’m mostly obscured by the fronds of some little bush or other that was in partially front of the camera…. no that’s not a headphone cord! …it’s part of the plant..)

Now I’ve got to find the time to (a) debug, dig deeper, and decide whether this paper is worth writing out on paper and putting out there, and (b) see if I actually have the physical time to do it soon before the week fully intervenes and I lose focus or get bored with the observation.

Hence the working-on-the-beach idea: the other other office (see end of this post).

-cvj

Academia, Personal, Science
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13 Comments on “The Other Office” rss feed

Plato on Feb 6th, 2006 at 1:17 am

The contrasts between the workaday world and natures introspective effects “which fuels the thinker” are always amazing to me.:)Sitting in a garden, as some recall implodes from an earlier episode of talking with mom(track back link here?) or the universal garden that continually scratchs the surface of ones thinking?:)?

That in one sense you can be lost in the abstract(okay not lost) but in the abstract, and it is the “flowing river” that seems to raise this “continuity” of creativeness math flows?

Like someone turned on the tap, answers things(?) that were somehow restrictive, while letting loose in the wild blue/forest green, trees and branches which breaks barriers.

I seem to recall Witten refreshing the mathematical mind, by walking the stream the same way?

I have a thought held from previous discussion of another time, about “maintaining peace” and the cognitive functions of the math arising from one’s brain??? Some still argue about this, and I wonder.
Clifford on Feb 6th, 2006 at 2:03 am

Lovely sounds of wind in the trees and flowing water on the rocks definitely help a lot to unlock the flow of thoughts…. Corny, but true.

-cvj
Pyracantha on Feb 6th, 2006 at 2:44 am

Nice that you can get out into nature. There isn’t much nature here in Edge City, at least that I can hike in alone. And it’s freezing cold. Oh well.
It looks as though you are drawing a picture of a small rodent.
Burrow on Feb 6th, 2006 at 3:25 am

I’ve found the same thing to be true for me. Getting out into gorgeous scenery seems to unstick my thoughts. Great for when I’m writing something on a deadline. Thanks for reminding me about that little trick. (Don’t think olf outside too much this time of year….too rainy.)
Clifford on Feb 6th, 2006 at 3:29 am

Pyracantha said:

“It looks as though you are drawing a picture of a small rodent.”

cvj says: It could be a gerbe. These are known to show up in string theory quite a bit…

-cvj
Peter Armitage on Feb 6th, 2006 at 5:32 am

I’ve realized that the only places I get any real thinking done are in the shower and driving in the car. So I should probably just drive around until I get hot and tired, take a shower, and then repeat as needed…

But now I don’t have a car, so…. perhaps that explains my recent productivity.
Quibbler on Feb 6th, 2006 at 9:39 am

I have all my best thoughts in the shower.

Nature is too distracting for me to want to do anything involving reading or writing when i’m out seeing the beautiful mountains.

–Q.
Plato on Feb 6th, 2006 at 10:06 am

Quibbler,

So I guess “music” cannot inspired then either, while you work?

You always have to be “in the moment,” whilst it could serve as a background, its “infuential capabilites” would be deemed same as being only attentive to nature in your case?
Quibbler on Feb 6th, 2006 at 3:22 pm

I can work with music on, most of the time (sometimes, what can I say, The Magic Flute just trumps writing philosophy essays). But being in the middle of beautiful mountains is much too beautiful to have my nose stuck in a book, or or logic proof/essay/whatever.

–Q.
Clifford on Feb 6th, 2006 at 4:57 pm

Quibbler,

The idea is not to take your book, proof, essay, whatever with you. The idea is to go and enjoy the beautiful mountains/valley/beach/whatever. Then, to your surprise, you may find that ideas pop up unbidden. The trick is then to have a little pad of paper and a pencil handy to write them down. But you don’t neccessarily go with that as your sole intent…you should go for the simple pleasure of being outdoors just like everyone else. Similarly, you don’t go into the shower to get your ideas….they just are incidental to the process of getting clean. (There are the underwater pens you can get by the way…..)

Cheers,

-cvj
Jeff on Feb 6th, 2006 at 5:50 pm

Clifford — welcome to my neighborhood! I’m a JPLer, frequent reader of CV, and very frequent hiker/biker on the Arroyo Seco. In fact, I live off of a spur trail and when I ride my bike to work get to come on down that dirt path and pedal on into JPL. Wasn’t out there this sunday (on a flight from Italy to LA instead) but hope to run into you on the trail someday.
Clifford on Feb 6th, 2006 at 10:18 pm

HI Jeff,

Thanks!

Maybe I’ll see you up there some time…..

-cvj
Quibbler on Feb 7th, 2006 at 5:56 pm

There are the underwater pens you can get by the wayâ€¦..

Really? Where?? I want one!

–Q.

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