Since you asked, I should indeed say a few words about how things have been going since I left my previous position and moved to being faculty at the Santa Barbara Department of Physics.
It’s Simply Wonderful!
(Well, that’s really four I suppose, depending upon whether you count the contraction as one or two.)
Really though, I’ve been having a great time. It is such a wonderful department with welcoming colleagues doing fantastic work in so many areas of physics. There’s overall a real feeling of community, and of looking out for the best for each other, and there’s a sense that the department is highly valued (and listened to) across the wider campus. From the moment I arrived I’ve had any number of excellent students, postdocs, and faculty knocking on my door, interested in finding out what I’m working on, looking for projects, someone to bounce an idea off, to collaborate, and more.
We’ve restarted the habit of regular (several times a week) lunch gatherings within the group, chatting about physics ideas we’re working on, things we’ve heard about, papers we’re reading, classes we’re teaching and so forth. This has been a true delight, since that connectivity with colleagues has been absent in my physics life for very many years now and I’ve sorely missed it. Moreover, there’s a nostalgic aspect to it as well: This is the very routine (often with the same places and some of the same people) that I had as a postdoc back in the mid 1990s, and it really helped shape the physicist I was to become, so it is a delight to continue the tradition.
And I have not even got to mentioning the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) a couple of buildings over! There are all sorts of activities there, and almost everyone in the field of theoretical physics comes through at some point. This was true in a major way (in my field) in the last few months, since there was a workshop on string theory (called “What is String Theory?”) during which there were fantastic talks and discussions from many workers around the world. I was on leave from teaching and in a guest office there for the whole time (and a bit beyond), and have been thoroughly enjoying my time there, not just on the string program, but also looking in other fascinating programs from time to time.
So with that and so much else (perhaps I’ll say a bit about some of that later), I’ve been insanely busy, but of course, for rather splendid reasons! This might help explain why I’ve not been blogging too much since my arrival – I’ve just been having too good a time in the day to day to find time to stop and blog about it!
Now that settling in (whatever that means) has proceeded well, and the workshop is over and I can find a bit of time to breathe, I am hoping to get back to doing a few longer posts from time to time on a variety of things (physics wise and otherwise).
Keep an eye on the activity here as well as on the usual social media channels on which I post (see sidebar), and thanks so much for reading!
–cvj
