Eccentric Orbits

Round and round and round they go, wobbling and bouncing in unstable eccentric orbits. A planetary fantasy that is also inspired by X-ray diffraction and scattering diagrams. For me, in my mind, the two ideas are inextricably intertwined.

The very large scale and the very small scale often oddly resemble one another. However for me their connection is more personal experience. When I was in grad school I'd work on writing and data analysis and diagramming during the day. At night the X-ray labs and electron microscope labs were quiet – it was possible to score the large blocks of time needed for complicated characterization of difficult and delicate samples.

So I'd head back to the labs after supper and work until well past midnight, in rooms kept darker than the night outside (to help see faint flickering hints of data and catch it, to protect the specialized films and detection equipment, etc). And I'd emerge into darkened hallways after even the night cleaning crews had left, and then out squinting into the night to find my way home.

I always enjoyed astronomy, and brought my telescopes with me to grad school (along with a few long-suffering tomato plants). The first thing I'd look at after emerging from the pitch dark labs and stumbling down the darkened hallways was the sky – the bright starlit night sky.

Often I'd have just spent hours trying to capture and "read" different types of diffraction patterns – electron diffraction and X-ray diffraction. And I'd step outside, look up, and start trying to make sense out of the stars. Their lack of sensible diffraction pattern symmetry would frustrate me for whole seconds before I'd realize that it is not sensible to Miller index the night sky.

That trick of the mind stays with me as a sharp and memorable point in my life. It's a personal reminder that sometimes a change in perspective – and the ability to shift one's mindset – is more meaningful than oodles of specific technical brilliance.