definitive dataset, made with integrity and interpreted honestly, is the most innocent thing in the world, but whenever we produce one, Bill and I feel like Bonnie and Clyde celebrating yet another clean getaway. “In your face, universe!”
I shook my fists toward the ceiling on that night; then I ran my fingers through my stringy hair, trying to massage some fresh oxygen into my brain—a habit that I had picked up in graduate school. “You know, we’re both getting too old for these long nights.” I glanced at the clock and noted that my son had gone to bed several hours ago.
“But how shall we designate the apparatus?” Bill, energized by success, wanted to brainstorm over a funny name that could be condensed into an even funnier acronym. “I’m thinking we can work ‘CAT’ into it based on the nickel-catalyzed disproportion reaction.”
No writer in the world agonizes over words the way a scientist does. Terminology is everything: we identify something by its established name, describe it using the universally agreed-upon terms, study it in a completely individual way, and then write about it using a code that takes years to master. When documenting our work, we “hypothesize” but never “guess”; we “conclude,” not just “decide.” We view the word “significant” to be so vague that it is useless but know that the addition of “highly” can signify half a million dollars of funding.
The scientific rights to naming a new species, a new mineral, a new atomic particle, a new compound, or a new galaxy are considered the highest honor and grandest task to which any scientist may aspire. Strict rules and traditions govern the naming conventions within each scientific field. You must muster all you know about what you’ve discovered and the world you live in, take what you remember and then figure out what makes you smile, make an allusion to something both contemporary and eternal, and finally christen the precious article as best you can, hoping against hope that some part of your clumsy label might stick through the ages to come. But on that night I was too brain-dead for the semantics-fest; I just wanted to go home and go to bed.
“We could call it ‘four hundred and eighty thousand dollars of taxpayer money,’ because that’s what we spent making the damn thing,” I suggested with a hiss toward the disobedient budget sheets that I was torturing toward reconciliation. I couldn’t figure out who the hell to petition for more funding now that the project was over; we had maxed out all of our usual sources the previous year, and the budgets of every governmental agency that funded our research were shrinking. As much as I have loved being a scientist, I am ready to admit that I am tired of all the hard things that should be easy by now.
Bill watched me for a moment and then got up, slapping both thighs. “We don’t have to call it anything. I’ll just grind your last name into it. That’s all it needs.” We made eye contact and recognized fifteen years of our shared history reflected back in each other’s eyes. I nodded my acknowledgment, and as I was still struggling to find the right words to thank him, Bill turned and walked out of my office.
He is strong where I am weak, and so together we make one complete person, each of us gaining half of what we need from the world and the other half from each other. I inwardly vowed to do whatever it took to raise more salary for him and to keep us going. As with many years before, I’d just have to find a way. Within two separate but adjacent rooms, we tuned two radios to different stations and went back to our work, having once again reassured each other that we are not alone.
2
LIKE MOST PEOPLE, I have a particular tree that I remember from my childhood. It was a blue-tinged spruce (
Picea pungens
) that stood defiantly green through the long months of bitter winter. I remember its needles as sharp and angry against the white snow
I shook my fists toward the ceiling on that night; then I ran my fingers through my stringy hair, trying to massage some fresh oxygen into my brain—a habit that I had picked up in graduate school. “You know, we’re both getting too old for these long nights.” I glanced at the clock and noted that my son had gone to bed several hours ago.
“But how shall we designate the apparatus?” Bill, energized by success, wanted to brainstorm over a funny name that could be condensed into an even funnier acronym. “I’m thinking we can work ‘CAT’ into it based on the nickel-catalyzed disproportion reaction.”
No writer in the world agonizes over words the way a scientist does. Terminology is everything: we identify something by its established name, describe it using the universally agreed-upon terms, study it in a completely individual way, and then write about it using a code that takes years to master. When documenting our work, we “hypothesize” but never “guess”; we “conclude,” not just “decide.” We view the word “significant” to be so vague that it is useless but know that the addition of “highly” can signify half a million dollars of funding.
The scientific rights to naming a new species, a new mineral, a new atomic particle, a new compound, or a new galaxy are considered the highest honor and grandest task to which any scientist may aspire. Strict rules and traditions govern the naming conventions within each scientific field. You must muster all you know about what you’ve discovered and the world you live in, take what you remember and then figure out what makes you smile, make an allusion to something both contemporary and eternal, and finally christen the precious article as best you can, hoping against hope that some part of your clumsy label might stick through the ages to come. But on that night I was too brain-dead for the semantics-fest; I just wanted to go home and go to bed.
“We could call it ‘four hundred and eighty thousand dollars of taxpayer money,’ because that’s what we spent making the damn thing,” I suggested with a hiss toward the disobedient budget sheets that I was torturing toward reconciliation. I couldn’t figure out who the hell to petition for more funding now that the project was over; we had maxed out all of our usual sources the previous year, and the budgets of every governmental agency that funded our research were shrinking. As much as I have loved being a scientist, I am ready to admit that I am tired of all the hard things that should be easy by now.
Bill watched me for a moment and then got up, slapping both thighs. “We don’t have to call it anything. I’ll just grind your last name into it. That’s all it needs.” We made eye contact and recognized fifteen years of our shared history reflected back in each other’s eyes. I nodded my acknowledgment, and as I was still struggling to find the right words to thank him, Bill turned and walked out of my office.
He is strong where I am weak, and so together we make one complete person, each of us gaining half of what we need from the world and the other half from each other. I inwardly vowed to do whatever it took to raise more salary for him and to keep us going. As with many years before, I’d just have to find a way. Within two separate but adjacent rooms, we tuned two radios to different stations and went back to our work, having once again reassured each other that we are not alone.
2
LIKE MOST PEOPLE, I have a particular tree that I remember from my childhood. It was a blue-tinged spruce (
Picea pungens
) that stood defiantly green through the long months of bitter winter. I remember its needles as sharp and angry against the white snow
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