Comments on: Travel, Travel, and More Travel

By: John Baez

John Baez — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 06:38:35 +0000

It’s true you can’t have cocktails and after-dinner interaction online - yet. But, it’s easy to imagine how! World-wide chains of virtual reality restaurants and cafes, with special rooms for conferences, are already doable with present-day technology. There’s just not the demand yet - but mainly because nobody is providing this service at an affordable price! And why not? Well, mainly because there’s not the demand. It’s one of those chicken-and-egg things that seems intractable until one day we reach the tipping point and suddenly things change.

The price of transporting bits will continue to drop, and the price of transporting kilograms will continue to rise. So, we can expect the trend towards telepresence to continue. And as it does, things that seem futuristic suddenly become commonplace. When phone calls became free, people started dating people in other countries via video. So, the idea that conferences require physical presence is starting to seem old-fashioned, and someday we’ll wonder why we ever thought that.

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 02:13:43 +0000

graviton383,

My experience is that far less people go to the movies now than in the 1980s.

By: Quasar9

Quasar9 — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:49:57 +0000

Gosh JoAnne,
I’ve got a full time job just planting the trees to compensate for the air miles and fossil fuels you, Risa & sean are burning.
Got no time for Physics - oh! but wait planting seeds and seeing tress grow that is pretty physic-al, though perhaps not much more fun than watching pain dry.

John Baez, Plato - I agree the conference can be held face to face on-line, and save on the airmiles, they can be just as productive online as in a windowless room (guess JoAnne uses Mac not Misrosoft, lol!

But I agree with JoAnne & Sean, you can’t have the cocktails and after dinner interaction online.

JoAnne meeting in Paris, and not enjoying good food, the magic in the air or the Parisienne night & sights? - You’ve been meeting with the wrong person.

By: graviton383

graviton383 — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 04:10:10 +0000

Count Iblis:

I guess those 500 teenagers I saw at the movies (in line for Borat) last week don’t count…Having gone to dozens of movies over the past year I’d say that young people are the DOMINANT antendees at movie theatres (unless they just hang around in the lobby after buying a ticket) & seem to have a wonderful time socializing there….

By: Eugene

Eugene — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 02:44:27 +0000

I think we should all date our next door neighbors and end our long distance relationships with extreme prejudice now!

By: Yvette

Yvette — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:22:29 +0000

Yvette - the point remains, Cleveland is no Paris.

Yes, but the point also remains: Cleveland is not the inside of a boring hotel conference room either!

By: Moshe

Moshe — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:04:16 +0000

For low cost and efficient video-conferencing, specifically targeted at high energy physicists, look at www.vrvs.org. I found their services to be very useful. Large experimental collaborations could hardly function without such mechanisms.

By: Hiranya

Hiranya — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:52:33 +0000

For the ecologically conscious, over the past two years I’ve found my long-distance collaborations have been hugely productive without flying through the use of videoconferencing. Sadly it doesn’t cater to occasions where you have to be physically present to give talks (and of course you meet new collaborators at workshops and conferences) — and I log a lot of transatlantic miles through personal reasons that have nothing to do with physics.

So thanks a lot to #5 and #10 for posting about the carbon offsets on flights. I have been feeling enormous guilt over the amount of flying I do, and I will forward these links to friends and colleagues with similar concerns also.

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:30:27 +0000

graviton383,

That’s only because the older generation hangs on to their old habits. Young people today hardly ever go to movie theaters.

Face to face communication can also be implemented electronically using virtual reality techniques. That costs too much bandwith today to be practical but in a decade from now it will be business as usual.

And a bit further in the future, humans themselves will become obsolete.

By: B

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:48:15 +0000

why do scientists travel: 15 hours sitting on a plane trying to ignore your next neighbors, and your hurting legs, gives you plenty of time to think, maybe more than you’d like to have. I have had some of my best ideas staring at a sign saying ‘Your seat cushion can be used as a floating device’. Call it a modern version of meditation. One day, there will be a wireless available on flight, and then that refuge is subject to the blogosphere as well…