Rock Painting at IMA

At the IMA2010 Conference this year they had a variety of things scheduled in addition to Science. There were sporting events, music performances, and rock painting!

I chose to do a free-hand interlace knot:

The IMA Medalist is a snappy dresser

My interest in clothing and fashion is normally restricted to 12th Century and earlier. I just don’t find the trends that fashion have gone through since then to be pretty. However, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful black linen which formed the suit worn by Frank Hawthorne, winner of the IMA Medal for Outstanding Contributions in Mineralogy Research. Most modern men’s suits are polyester if they are cheap (and how they can tolerate to wear such a non-breathable fibre is beyond me), or wool if they are nice (much better!), but his is the first I’ve seen in linen (one of my favorite fibers), and despite being in a cut which doesn’t interest me, I couldn’t help but admire the colour (black shirt, black jacket, black trousers, all of a lovely, dark, shiny, new looking shade), and even thought the colour of the dark purple tie looked nice in contrast with the rest of the outfit. (However, I still don’t like the shape and location of ties. What is wrong with nice, contrasting colour collar and hems, like were used in part of the Middle Ages?)

But enough about clothing. What about his talk? That was fascinating. He managed to put an awful lot of very complex information into a fairly short amount of time, and while most of it was totally new information to me, he did it in such a way as I felt like I understood what he was saying the whole time.

His topic was from theoretical mineralogy, focusing on the bond-topological basis of structure stability and mineral reactions. He explained how the bonds between atoms in a mineral can be used to predict the stability of a compound. For simple atoms it is necessary that that the atoms on either side of a bond have roughly matching levels of acidity or baseness, making predictions easy—if the cation and anion involved have just about as much level of acid as base, then the molecule will be stable. He also demonstrated how this principal can be extrapolated up to very complex mineral structures, but while it made sense looking at it as he spoke, I’ll not try to explain it now without the diagrams in front of me.

first day of IMA2010

Today is the first full day of lectures at the International Mineral Association’s 2010 Congress in Budapest. I spent the morning attending lectures on the topic of History. The first talk of the day was _The tradition of Theoprastus’ “On Stones” during the early stages of modern mineral science_ by A. Mottana.

He spoke on the ancient text written by Theoprastus usually called “De Lapidibus”, or “On Stones”, which was written around 313-305 BC. Its arrival to Italy in 1427, brought from Constantinople to Florence by Trancaso Filefo, was one of the important parts of the resurgence/rediscovery of ancient learning in the Renaissance, being the first entire book written on stones and minerals. The source of the document that arrived in Italy in 1427 is thought to have been the Vaticanus graecus 1302, a codex written in Byzantium c. 1300-30.

The lecture opened with a definition of the period of the Renassiance, which started in Italy in 1392 when Manuel Chrysoliora was appointed to teach Greek Language & Literature at the University in Florence, and ended in 1611 when Johannes Keppler published Strena Seu de Nive Sexangula, which was the first mathematical text on crystal structure, and thus an important start to the age of science. From there he touched on the various Renaissance scholars who used this source in their own work, and who did translations, and when. The talk was fascinating, but due to the format (only 20 minutes available) it was necessary for him to hurry over the latter portion of the talk, and my note-taking didn’t keep up. (Any errors in the above are due to my rusty note-taking skills, and not to the speaker).

My flight to Budapest

I flew to Budapest this morning, to attend the upcoming IMA2010 Conference (Aug. 21-27, Budapest). When I finally turned on the computer this evening there was an e-mail from the conference organizers announcing that this event “includes in its programme 13 plenary lectures: seven IMA2010 Plenary talks and six Elements5 talks (the latter celebrating the 5th anniversary of our excellent journal). The topics cover all representative areas, and they are tailored for a broad audience, while the authors are well-recognized experts in their fields, but also attractive speakers.” They also announce that those of you who weren’t able to come out for the meeting can still follow along at home by listing to their live web casting (end public service announcement).

Because I had a morning flight it was necessary to leave my home at 04:00 to begin my journey to the airport. Therefore I decided to just stay up all night, thinking “I can sleep on the plane”. However, what I failed to consider was that the flight path went along the south side of the Alps, for a rather large portion of the range’s extent. Consequently, while I did nap in the bus on the way to the airport, and at the airport itself, I spent the flight with my eyes focused out the window, enjoying the lovely view. Some of the peaks in the second row in still have snow on them, which sight is balm to eyes that have had to endure summer’s heat. I have no idea where I’ll be going when my current contract ends, but I sure hope it is somewhere that I can see (and walk in!) mountains on a daily basis.