I was thinking tonight, as I faced up to doing some more work - Friday
nights are surely meant for better things (remember the time zones! It's
Friday night here) - but allowed myself the pleasure of trolling through
the email first, that I am definitely an email junkie. Partly its
because of email's ability to distract me from dreaded work. But one of
the main pleasures of email is seeing what you PhysL people are up to.
That could be interpreted as meaning that I should get a life! However I
do have one actually, but I think that listservers & newsgroups can be
the busy person's equivalent of a soapie. I enjoy the topics discussed
with fresh insights (even if I groan at "yet another debate about
energy/heat/whatever") but it's also the vicarious fun of seeing the way
largely anonymous, articulate people interact!
The other thing that always amazes me is how helpful people on this
listserver tend to be. I thought at first that that was probably just a function of listservers -
the ease & satisfaction of firing off a quick reply to a query, without all
the usual distractions of continued contact or the difficulties in making
contact - but I've been on a couple of other such groups and this is
definitely the most helpful I've been involved with so far. I actually
think that that is more a function of the sort of people who do Physics,
especially after working with engineers & other professionals.
Physicists are not keeping their work secret pending patent
applications! They tend to be overanxious, if anything, to share their
world view with everyone - scientific evangelists?
Enough ramblings. The work I've been avoiding tonight is writing a
"business plan" for a new course I'm proposing. Physicists are nothing if
not versatile!