The Cosmos in Short Bursts

I just spent most of this week at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas, what I think of as a “tsunami of astronomy”.  There were more than 2,500 astronomers in attendance, all talking about everything from solar physics to the physics of the earliest cosmic objects. Many astronomers who gave talks at this conference had only five minutes to tell of their latest and greatest discoveries, plus a few minutes for questions. If they’re smart, they give “poster” papers, where they print out their talks in huge posters and then stand in front of them to talk with anybody who wants to know more about the research. I find the poster approach much more satisfying, especially when it’s been ME who’s been doing the paper. But, then, I like to stand around and talk to people, so that’s probably why I like it.

I was thinking yesterday of what a future AAS meeting would look like if it was held in the virtual world (instead of this meatspace environment) — something like Second Life, but for astronomers.  It’s not a new idea, and I’m sure we’re pretty close to it today what with our tweeting and blogging and virtual conference rooms.

Would astronomers talk ab0ut their work by short bursts, much as we do with Tweets today?  Or put up virtual posters?  Would we have virtual newsrooms where you could virtually walk around and read astronomy papers in bloggy goodness?  I suppose if we were all online, we could figure out some way to just directly transfer the news, brain to brain, without the virtual walls of an online astronomy cave.  It sure would make the evening’s afterparty an interesting event!

I suppose, even at a virtual event, there’d still be info overload after awhile. And, you would miss the chance to stand around with your colleagues in a noisy ballroom on opening night, eating hors d’oeuvres not to be construed as dinner, getting caught up on the latest, a social event as important as all the science being shared.

I’m still reading through all the materials I picked up and will post a “here’s what I saw and learned” entry later today or tomorrow. I just gotta tell you about the color of the Milky Way and the cute little baby planets, and some of the other things I learned about this week.  Stay tuned!