Sketches from Trieste (29th of September, 2012)

On Friday, 28th of September I returned to Zagreb from Trieste. There I attended the >> Workshop on Physical Virology where I was invited to give a lecture "Importance of Electrostatic Interactions for Virus Assembly and Structure".

The name "physical virology" is already quite well known and accepted, and represents a small and interesting community of physicists, chemists, and biologists interested in physical aspects of virology. I found most of them in this workshop, only 5 or 6 scientists in the field, and whose work I follow were missing. It was nice to be among people who I never saw and who never saw me, yet we sort of know each other through our work in science. That was an interesting aspect of the workshop.

As when I was attending >> conference in Toulouse, this time also I made many sketches of speakers, some of which I present in this post. I will not mention their names here, but one can easily read them on the sketches.

A lot more is known today regarding physical interactions in viruses, yet it is still not completely clear how important for the structure and assembly are specific effects (e.g. specificities in the nucleotide order of RNA) with respect to unspecific ones (e.g. generic electrostatics, van der Waals, e.t.c.). A poor progress has been made in relating the viruses to the creation of life and positioning them on the "tree of life". That was the reason I enter the field, but I also did not have much success in answering these (tough) questions.

The sketch above shows a Vietnamese scientist whose surname is Nguyen and whose papers I read while I was writing >> "Problem of the Observer", and later also. Family name Nguyen is the most common family name in Vietnam and the characters in my book, Jim and Joe Nguyen, also have it.

In the conversations between and after the lectures I participated in, I felt a certain worry for the present state of science. It seems as if the situation is worst in Europe, in which, even in very developed countries (Netherlands), closing of the institutes and departments and a significant reduction of a number of employed scientists takes place. I got an impression that the situation in the USA is somewhat better, and the best situation seems to be in Asia, e.g. in Vietnam and China, even Iran. Many scientists from these countries return there from USA and Europe.

Trieste is a nice city, with a large main square and lively nights, expensive taxis and poor bus connections to the part of the city where the ICTP (International Center for Theoretical Physics) is located. Guesthouses of ICTP are already old, but they are preserved and kept well. The rooms are modest, but clean. The food, at least in ITCP Adriatico Guesthouse is not very good, but it is tolerable. If you decide to go from the ICTP to Trieste on foot, it will take you almost two hours, so beware.

Conferences and workshops are good because you meet people. I don't mean here what most scientists mean when they say "meet new people", i.e. to meet scientists to collaborate with. I have in mind here recognizing certain character(istics) in people, which can be as different as are their faces and sketches I made.

Sometimes the characteristics are easier to recognize in other people and one can search for them in oneself. We will be happy to find some of it in ourselves and we will be scared by some.

Conferences can therefore be a pedagogic experience. By meeting other people whose professional lives are somewhat similar to yours, you will also meet yourself. You will better understand who you are, and especially who you are not.

Conferences present the opportunities to change some things.

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Last updated on 29th of September 2012.