h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yesterday the Nobel Prize for Physics was shared by three scientists, Willard S. Boyle, 85, and George E. Smith, 79, who invented the Charged_Couple Device (CCD) and Charles K. Kao, 75, who discovered how to transmit light over longer distances by using purified glass in fiber optic cables.

All of this work was done just before I was born in the 1960's. Twenty some years later I was seriously contemplating returning to university to get a second degree.

I got my first degree in a hobby... That's the standard joke for photography majors, but it does have a bit of truth to it. I didn't know what I was going to do when I chose my major. I was technically a pre-law student for my first semester at school but on the night that Jean-Michel Jarre played his historical concert using the downtown skyline of Houston for his laser light show I had to stay home because I hadn't finished a term paper for my freshman English (rhetoric) class. I ended up dropping the class anyway but the anxiety attack I had that night prompted me to pick a major quickly. I really had no idea what I wanted to study but when someone mentioned that you could get a degree in photography I jumped at it as at least it was a direction.

The two things I really enjoyed in high school were photography and physics. If someone had mentioned the word 'physics' that week things might have turned out quite differently for me.

A few years later I was having another bout with existential angst. I was out of school and out of work. Prospects in the field of photography weren't looking good. I'd done some low wage work in labs and some very sparse work as an assistant. Those assistant jobs gave me insight into the lives of working photographers and I wasn't overly fond of what I saw. Too much sales and not enough work/pay. Ugh... now what. Well, that's why I looked into returning to school. I now qualified for some decent financial aid. I decided to study some field of physics. The University of Houston, Clear Lake was the nearest school worth considering. Since it is just down the road from the Johnson Space Center it tends to specialize in technical fields. In their curriculum, they offered bachelor and graduate degrees in something called "Electro-Optics". I wasn't completely sure what that was but I knew that it had to do with lasers, imaging and quantum physics so I was interested. I spoke with the physics counselor and we worked out a degree plan. (The head of the department was the geology dean and he tried to make geology classes a prerequisite for an electro-optics degree to the bafflement of the physics department, but I found a loophole in his course plan and I would be taking more physics classes instead.) Again, I had a direction.

Halfway through the summer sessions, while I was catching up with some maths and chemistry, my father gave me an ultimatum. Get a job or get out! He didn't care if it was at McDonald's. So much for school. I dropped out and went back to the photo labs and worked for a complete asshat for slave wages. I hated my life for the next few years. Until the day said asshat insulted me so much that I almost became violent but instead, interviewed for the job I have now. That was twelve years ago.

Now I'm reading about scientists working in electro-optics 40 years ago are awarded the Nobel Prize and I have to wonder what work being done now in that field might be like. The CCD and fiber optics is technology that has changed our world. With the advances in quantum physics we're currently seeing, what technologies will be shaping our world 40 years from now? And what if I had gotten that second degree? What kind of work might I be doing now?

Oh, here's the article I was reading that prompted that.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33188514/

DEar Count Zero,

Write and congratulate the three.

Then suggest that they need an assistant and you would be willing to work for them

Nothing ventured - nothing gained my friend.

well done on wanting to do it - and also on still being so keen on doing it. If you remember the first time that we conrresponded you told me all about the Johnson space Centre and I saw the photos of the the first landing on the moon.

Go on - do it.

With much affection

Christiane.
AR80
Wednesday 8th october 2009 17.30

Oh, no. I'm quite content with where I ended up. I was just pondering, "What if?". The reminder of electro-optics just made me think of those very distinct moments in my life that were obvious branching points where alternate versions of myself traveled down divergent paths in the multi-verse than I did.