Delft

Another day in Delft.  Started the morning walking about a mile to my conference.  Some sessions are quite a distance from the hotel, whereas others are much closer.  We started with a plenary talk from Sir Harry Kroto.  He won the Nobel prize in 1996 for the discovery of C60, commonly known as buckminsterfullerene, a molecule of carbon atoms that forms a ball shape that is similar to the classic soccer ball.  He also gave a talk at the Bridges conference last week.  There were a few other interesting talks I went to during the day.

Here is a picture from yesterday when I was building a beaded dodecahedron under the direction of the master of this, Bih-Yaw Jin.  He is a chemistry professor from Taiwan.  He made the larger piece visible in the lower right.  I am thinking this will be a fun exercise for my class.  I have printed plans from him for a C60 beaded structure.

Me and my tiny dodecahedral model.
Each bead represents an edge of a dodecahedron.

I had dinner a a nearby place and walked around a bit.  It is raining off and on this evening.  I took a few pictures of the Old Church, which is really close to where I am staying.  Escher also made a print of the entrance to the old church in his 1939 Delft series.

The entrance to the Old Church, Escher's version (left) and mine (right).

Another view of the church.

Overall my hotel room is nice.  It is about twice as big as the room I had in London.  It was a vaulted ceiling with a skylight, plus two additional windows.  This provides some nice cross ventilation.  The other thing I am really excited about in my room is the inspection toilet, the first of this trip.  Recall this type of toilet collects solids on a shelf for later inspection.  Unlike the American style which immerse solids in water to avoid out-gassing, the shelf toilet allows ample opportunity to maximize the stench during usage.  Also, there is not always sufficient water pressure to dislodge all material from the ledge, requiring multiple flushes, scrubbing, manual movement, or a combination of these.  There is also a problem that the space between a pile and your bottom can be uncomfortably close, especially during cleanup.  I'll spare you pictures, but you can do a internet search if you are curious.

There is some thunder rumbling.  I am not sure how much of a storm we might have, but there is a little color on the radar map.  I am not sure how to close the skylight, which might be interesting if the weather is severe.