Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Hi Mia!

It’s a tradition that the Swedish ambassador to DC invites Nobel
laureates to dinner and arranges White House reception for them
beforehand. The date is set by the White House and you can see (it was
Dec. 1) they put it off until the last possible moment. Six laureates
and spouses in turn shook hands with Bush–we had all* made up our
minds to be polite, because being otherwise wouldn’t help anybody but
could embarass the Swedes, who have been so nice.

Ambassador Jan Eliasson is very impressive, with a background in
diplomacy and mediation:
http://www.swedenabroad.se/pages/general____7038.asp

The announcement that he’d be President of the UN General Assembly is
very recent:
http://www.swedenabroad.se/pages/news____29882.asp&root=6989

In person he is charming, a good speaker, thoughtful, etc. His wife
Kerstin is Deputy Minister for Culture–she comes over from Stockholm
to be part of the DC event each year–he joked that this was one of its
many benefits.

He is also so modest that we didn’t hear about his new UN position
until Justice Sandra Day O’Connor congratulated him in an after-dinner speech.
I also met the more-palatably-politicked Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg–for some reason she was wearing tiny black crocheted gloves. Let’s see, other DC gossip–Condi Rice should
buy bigger or better shoes; she was very trimly dressed but with little
white “ouch” pads peeking over her high heeled shoes where they rubbed
the back of her ankles.

I wish the US had the good luck to be led by somebody like Jan Eliasson.

Love and xxx
Betsy

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* I think at least one laureate
supported Bush. Other points of view expressed by “Nobel Laureates
Other Than Frank Wilczek” (NLOTFW): “It’s the office, not the man. It’s
the office, not the man.” “I’ll be polite but I’m not making any small talk.” As it turned
out, small talk was not required. See my next post for more…

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Why is theoretical physics like like Dungeons and Dragons?

I was picturing basic
levels of understanding as a series of dungeons–you fight your way through one, hoping to find the next.

The 19th century: science was looking at atoms, molecules, periodic
table, yadda yadda…

Then Rutherford
kicked open a hidden door–tiny indestructible atoms turned out to be tinier nuclei under a
fluffy cloud of electrons. A new world to explore, a whole new level.

And so on, yadda yadda, protons to quarks to gluons…of course the
best find, on any level, is the hidden door to the next–like figuring out how the strong interaction works.

Anyway, thanks to Scripps Howard reporter Rebecca Trela for including
me with her Nobel Prize interviews yesterday. Even if she did claim my
husband disagreed with me and found pictures and (non D&D)
metaphors “his biggest helpmates.”

Physicists know about lots of phase transitions–“an
abrupt sudden change of one or more physical properties,” says
Wikipedia–for example, ice melts into water–water boils up into
steam–some supercooled substances turn into superconductors….

I’m getting ready for the phase transition from pre-traveling-Betsy to Betsy-in-transit.

I just finished putting our garden to bed for the winter–I know I won’t have another free minute before December 18.
Pre-traveling-Betsy is wearing blue jeans, with one sneaker dripping
water all over the floor. (As I coiled up a garden hose, it soaked my
hosiery.)

In-transit-Betsy, I hope, will look cool and serene. She’ll be wearing a suit in shades of black,
silver, and gray, plus her favorite red
walking shoes. She’ll definitely have dry socks on both feet.

Now, to get past the intermediate state, which seems to be blogging-Betsy….

My Swedish* “language emergency kit” covers essentials like finding bathrooms or an Internet cafe. Frank will be facing a much, much bigger challenge.

I just found out this morning he’s agreed to give a “little talk” to
some schoolchildren, ages 7 and up. I’m sure he’ll come up with
something interesting to say–in English, that is. The challenge will then be to
extract a few key words or a sentence that he can also say in Swedish.

Translating “gluon” or “asymptotic freedom” wouldn’t make the words any less Greek to a bunch of young Swedes.

At the opposite extreme, Frank could memorize a Swedish version of Churchill’s “Never give up speech“.* *

One can never go wrong with “thanks very much”, but it isn’t very surprising.

I look forward to seeing what Frank comes up with!

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* We spent time in Uppsala last summer, thank heaven–so I already got past my original Muppet-Swedish-chef-Swedish.
* * According to legend, Churchill’s speech to the students at Harrow
School ran as follows: “Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, give
up. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.” Then he sat down
again.

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Once Nobel Week is over, Frank and I will head north for a week of auroras and anti-midnight non-sun. Swedish physicist Sverker Fredriksson
has been sending us fascinating email about what to expect–today I got
permission to post some. So here he is, my first-ever guestblogger.

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* We are hoping to see a stratospheric balloon launched from Esrange during our visit.

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Packing is always a challenge, but for Nobel Week? Its many events line up under three different dress
codes:

• “casual”
• business suit/cocktail dress, and
• white tie/ballgown (three different events require these).

Frank can get away with a couple of suits and two pairs of
black shoes–it’s easy to rent the white-tie-and-tails in Stockholm.
I’m bringing a few more options for all this dress-up. We’ll each need
a grown-up black coat, plus mittens, boots, mufflers, longjohns, etc.
for sub-zero Sweden.

But then, in the early morning of December 14 (after the
late-late-night party with Jumping Frogs), we’ve been invited to visit
the Arctic Circle for a week that requires layers and layers more
clothing! Forget the wimpy lightweight Capilene longjohns, so usefully invisible under a suit. Bring on some expedition-weight fleece,
and never mind the bulges! The dress code is stuff for hiking or riding
in dogsleds–for hanging out in the midnight anti-Sun and chasing
auroras!

Now this is starting to add up to way too much luggage….

And then, we schlep it all to the Ice Hotel?
Guests sleep in a room made of ice, on top of a bed made of ice
(sleeping bags and padding in between you and the ice), surrounded by
sculptures made of ice…. The door and the toilet are not made of ice,
because the room has neither. It also has no space for luggage, which
gets stored all night in a locker somewhere. That’s too bad,
because I might want some ballgowns round about 2 a.m., to pile up on top
of my sleeping bag to keep warm…

I once spent a week on jury duty with John Nash.
I’m glad I was smoking back
then*, because it meant I got to hang out with him next to the gritty
Trenton courthouse. (No lawyer wanted either of us for a jury.)

This was after he won the Nobel Prize in Economics
but before A Beautiful Mind was written (let alone filmed), so he was a celebrity to nobody there but me, which suited us both just fine.

I wish I
remembered more of the things he told me about his Nobel adventures. I asked him if he had bought
something great with the money–he said the best thing was a
cordless phone!  He loved being able to have the phone with him when he
was taking a bath. (This was before anyone had  mobile phones.)
On the way home that night, I bought Frank a cordless
phone.

Merrell Yeti high boots. And two more pairs, one for each of our daughters. On the weekend my wonderful sister Marie came to help us all buy ballgowns, the Tannery shoe store was having a two-for-one sale . This required a quick detour from ballgowns… Amity, trying on Merrell Yeti boots, said, “Oh, these feel so good. I love walking in them. They feel so warm and so soft and so comfortable..” Marie looked at me and said, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Caveat–if
you get these beautiful boots, wear socks inside them. The black fleece
lining leaves your ankles and feet a dusty gray. Not the best look to
go with party shoes!

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* And I’m even gladder that I quit later that year.

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…or at least, snow and farewell. It’s pouring down snow, and roofs are getting white.

Frank and the camera crew left for MIT after shooting footage of just about everything you can imagine.

I am wondering what Swedish tv audiences will think of all the events this crew took pictures of:

• Snow falling on our garden, as seen from our bedroom window.
• Frank reading in his favorite chair.
• Frank playing the piano.
• Frank and Betsy sitting in two chairs talking. Have you ever
  tried to talk with your spouse non-stop for 10 minutes, pretending that
  just the two of you are there?
• Marianne the dog, watching Frank and Betsy as if we were a Wimbledon tennis match.
• Frank and Betsy being interviewed by Roland about Longing for the Harmonies, which W.W. Norton now plans to re-publish.
• Betsy blogging, with Frank looking on, bemused.

The crew then, intrepidly, shot some more footage outdoors. Frank and I
were instructed to shut the front door, count to ten, then open it and
stroll out, going for a walk. We are not allowed to look at Guy or Rob
or Roland or the camera. So, we do some walking following these
instructions. Then we are asked to do some more walking, starting from
a point outside the house and going together around the corner.

I said to Guy, “Maybe Roland would like to walk with us?” Guy said, not unkindly, “You haven’t done a lot of this, have you?”

So we walked to the corner and past it and kept on going. Snow fell on
us. Frank was wearing his brand-new black shoes, bought for Sweden, and
flakes of snow were melting all over them. I was having a great time,
maybe because, as Guy noted, I haven’t done a lot of this.

Now our house is quiet. Marianne, in her 114 dog years, has rarely seen or smelled so much
excitement. She’s conked out in her fuzzy dogbed now, so fast asleep
that she’s not even snoring.

Marianne has got the right idea.