National Academy of Sciences
Kavli Frontiers Symposium
Friday Oct 01, 2010 Filed in: Ming Hsu
Last week I attended and gave a talk at the Kavli Frontiers of Science
symposium. It was held at the National Academy of Sciences in
Irvine, and is one of those truly
interdisciplinary conferences where you get to
hear people from fields like material science to
astronomy talking to and with each other. The
2010 talks aren’t up yet, but the
archive or the past talks are. It was one of the
most enjoyable conferences I’ve been to. The
normal conference circuit is good but it’s also
a lot of work. You’re always trying to track the
latest trends and ideas, and implicitly or
explicitly measuring your work against others in
the field or adjacent fields. Here everybody is
so different that it’s worthwhile to just sit
back, relax, and learn something about the big
topics in other the sciences. It’s like being an
undergrad again without any of the downsides of
being an undergrad!
Still, just because the topics are different doesn’t mean the problems are completely dissimilar. I particularly like the session on Cryosphere Hydrosphere Interaction, not least because I learned two new words. The other thing I learned was that ice caps on mountains like Kilimanjaro are essentially in equilibrium with the surrounding environment, so it’s easy to understand the effects of global warming. Ice sheets on the other hand, are a totally different beast. Because they are so massive they change the environment around them; and to model the effects requires knowledge of parameters and mechanisms that we know very little about. Now since this is all from memory the details are probably totally wrong, but I think it makes for a pretty nice physical analogy to what makes economic phenomenon complicated.
Still, just because the topics are different doesn’t mean the problems are completely dissimilar. I particularly like the session on Cryosphere Hydrosphere Interaction, not least because I learned two new words. The other thing I learned was that ice caps on mountains like Kilimanjaro are essentially in equilibrium with the surrounding environment, so it’s easy to understand the effects of global warming. Ice sheets on the other hand, are a totally different beast. Because they are so massive they change the environment around them; and to model the effects requires knowledge of parameters and mechanisms that we know very little about. Now since this is all from memory the details are probably totally wrong, but I think it makes for a pretty nice physical analogy to what makes economic phenomenon complicated.