Letter from Boston

Trip To Les Houches

By MASAKO YAMADA

Toward the end of April, my advisor suggested that I attend a "conference" sponsored by NATO. It was held in a small town in the French Alps called Les Houches. The topic was "Hydration in Biological Processes."

Researchers in biology, chemistry and physics got together from May 4 to 15 to discuss the various methods used in the different fields to study the properties of water in biological systems. Some of the researchers conduct experiments, others take a pure theoretical approach, yet others focus on computer simulations. The researchers were from many different countries and spanned a wide range of ages as well, so the total group of about 70 participants was extremely interesting.

The reason conference is in quotation marks is because the coordinator of the event emphasized that it wasn't really a conference at all. At conferences, researchers announce the results of their latest work to a group of peers. This event, however, was called a school, because people from different fields came to learn from each other. Rather than simply announcing theories and results, the lecturers made an active effort to give broad background information on the procedures used to get those results. There was also a great deal of social interaction during off hours. It was called Advanced Study Institute on paper, but it was more like a combination of school, conference, summer camp and resort vacation.

I had never been to such a school before — and I had never been to Europe. At my advisor's suggestion I immediately said that I wanted to go. Although I had a busy week of finals planned during the conference, I made arrangements with the professors so that I could take them early. My colleague Francis and I made numerous phone calls to the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., to ask them to fund us for the trip. Those last few days were hectic, but I managed to leave Boston on schedule.

I had a pleasant trip to Paris, but, of course, sitting inside a plane is not too difficult. I knew I was on my own after I got to Paris. I had to find my way from Paris to the village of Les Houches without knowing anything about the French train system — and without knowing any French. I knew that the trip would involve changing trains about five times.

Fortunately, I found my way around the train stations fairly easily. I was able to guess many French words, and pointing to things helped greatly. Since France is an industrialized Western country, I didn't feel much culture shock. As a matter of fact, I felt pretty comfortable right away.

After I got to the airport, I took a few subways to one of the main train stations in Paris. From there, I boarded a high-speed TGV train to Annecy. A handsome guy sat in the seat beside me and he spoke to me in French. I avoided answering him by smiling and pretending to fall asleep. I actually ended up falling asleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up, I noticed that he was reading a paper on water. I slowly asked him in English, "Are you going to the water conference?"

To my surprise, he said, "Yes." To my further surprise, it turned out that he was American — an American in Paris. We started talking and continued to chat through two more train changes.

The countryside rolled by outside the train window, and I was fascinated by what I saw. Since I have grown up near cities, I hardly had any opportunity as a child to see sheep or cattle grazing, or wild birds of prey gliding through valleys. I was able to see these things on the train, though. What was more breathtaking, however, was the location of the actual Ecole de Physique. The lecture halls and cabins were located on a hill overlooking Mont Blanc. There were sheep grazing (and bleating and ringing the bells around their necks) all day in front of the buildings.

The ambience was wonderful, but the main reason I went to this school was to learn new things from other researchers, and, indeed, that was what I found most interesting about my trip. The two-week schedule was packed with lectures, workshops and tutorials. I really did learn a lot about the different ways to look at water in complex systems. However, I also learned a lot from the others during off hours, and I'd like to write of these things in more detail next week.

Shukan ST: June 5, 1998

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