dead

Enthusiasm is often borne out of ignorance, the manifestation of a lack of understanding that makes the remote seem achievable if one just tried hard enough. The enthusiasm of a student who's willing to work like a slave for years in defiance of the supremacy of instant gratification, instead pursuing a vague dream of success and glory that shimmers just out of sight, is a powerful example of that.

"You can sleep when you're dead", my Ph.D. adviser used to say at times of experimental intensity, when a project was heading for culmination and endless rounds of double-checking, replication and confirmation were required before our results could be unloaded onto an unsuspecting world. Odd as it sounds now, I found these words deeply moving. It was as if deep wisdom had been revealed to me. But it wasn't so much the words that inspired the many sleepless nights by the bench that paved the way to my Ph.D., it was the way they were spoken. My boss burned with the near-self-delusional motivation that characterizes good scientists, and he was always ready to spread the contagion.

Since those days of youthful exuberance, my passion has somewhat cooled. It would be far from the truth to say that the fire has died within, but sense has frequently demanded to be heard in discussions over future directions, definitions of success and balance in life. Things besides science are on my mind when I go home and sometimes even at work, and when projects move slowly, I sometimes get tempted by the devil, imagining alternatives to the life of a bench scientist.

Recently, things have gone at a crazy pace. One project went from zero to sixty in a few days in summer and has been accelerating ever since. Another came out of nowhere, success now a distinct possibility where only an ignorant student or a deluded PI could have seen it before. I'm in the middle of it, too weak to say no to passion, focus and dedication.

So it happened that last night, the night of the dead, a student and I found ourselves at Diamond, a large research facility in the Oxfordshire countryside. Time there is precious and used with relentless efficiency. Widespread automation has piled the pressure on humans, driving them to perform machine-like, with hurried glances over vast arrays of screens and quick gestures onto what'd better be the right button. Occasionally, you can see what looks like zombies on the loo run, zonked researchers slotting hurried toilet breaks between successive experiments.

It was Halloween, but the night was all business. Access control prevented any stray trick-or-treaters from finding their way onto the site and lighting up the mood. Had they come, they would have had rich pickings. Wherever work continues through the night and especially in those dreary places where night and day are but abstract concepts, mere numbers on the clock because light comes from neon tubes overhead that are always on, cheap fixes of instant sugar rule. Where people have nothing but their will to fight the pernicious pull of time, discarded chocolate wrappers and empty pop bottles mount.

There were no trick-or-treaters, but shortly before midnight, data knocked on the door of our hutch. I opened the detector wide and slurped up reflections by the thousands. Software wizards started their magic as soon as the experiment had ended and congealed all the information into neat little columns of numbers. Fifteen minutes later, I had assurance on my hard drive that the trip wouldn't count as a complete failure. Thanks to the student, his eyes burning brightly with desire when his body could hardly take the abuse anymore, we had to go a little longer and push a little harder, poking into the unknown with an ever finer stick. When we finally packed up, it was deep into the next day. Shortly thereafter, we collapsed into beds, our bodies like dead but our dreams still alive.