Forbidden Laughter

I attended a small conference today focused on solar cell and water splitting catalyst technologies. Located in the government owned and operated Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. The room was filled with numerous armchairs all of which were scattered about and at one point belonging to the long and wide conference-style table centrally located. The current speaker had a nasally voice and was giving an introduction to the speakers at the conference. "Inorganic solar cells made from malachite, pyrite, and chalcocite." "Charge seperation in molecular heterojunctios." "Probing Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital and Lowest Unoccupied Molecular Orbitals with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy." He finished listing the titles. The first speaker began and during the middle of his talk a man with a discernable german accent and a defensive tone inquired, "Why are band gap energies so important for solar cell materials? Do these energies even correlate to overall quantum efficiencies in the devices?" An entourage of near unintelligible squabbling broke out amongst a select number of people affiliated with the speaker in response to the man's questions. After awhile what appeared to be the research director of the speaker waved his hands around and spoke in a jovial tone on the importance of band gap energy. "We think that it is important because otherwise we will get no absorption in the visible spectrum of light." "However, like you suggest Alex, there is little correlation between band gap energies and quantum efficiency since there are many other factors like junction interfaces and material band gap matching." After a couple minutes of warming discussion they quieted down and the speaker continued. I found myself looking for a spot to sit in the room, but the only open chairs were located in the front of the room. I have never liked crushing myself through legs and arms to get to a seat, so I sat on a table in the back of the room next to my colleague who I arrived with. The table turned out to be creaky and unstable. I prayed the table would not collapse in a scene which would be brutally embarassing for the me and the new colleague who brought me to the somewhat esoteric meeting. He suggested I grab a chair promptly after the first speaker finished.

I met him through interactions with a professor that emailed me after I visited the University for the first time. He is a post-doctoral researcher from Denmark who recently received 1.5 million Euros over 5 years to start up his own lab in Sweden based on Gold Nanorods coated with Small Molecule Electron Donor-Acceptors. He also was giving a talk and introducing me as a new member of his project. I pushed myself through legs and took a seat in the front.

The second speaker began. About half way through his talk I heard what sounded like a gasp for air coming from a lady sitting a couple seats behind me. I thought either she was getting into an extremely cold lake or there was an impending "AAAACHOOOOOO" to be soon released. "AAA....AAAA...." and then I heard a loud snorting and farting noise which took me by complete surprise. I let out a small jut of laughter. Someone quickly blessed her. I thought about the crowd, and the speaker who continued talking like nothing happened. No one else thought that the sneeze was funny. This lackadaisical attitude made my reaction worse. I let out another jut of laughter. Did they not hear that crazy sneeze? It was even funnier that no one else was laughing. I could not wipe the grin off my face and at this point I could barely retain sustained deep stomach wrenching laughter. The reaction faded as I thought about the implications of disruption, but then would reemerge compounded and amplified. I struggled with the waves of laughter until I started inflicting acute pain on my arm and lip to try and forget the sneeze had ever happened. Then through focus on the minute esoterica of the speaker I forgot about the sneeze. This method is successful after about 5 minutes.

What is it about laughing when you should not laugh. Like at a funeral or during moments of silence and especially during musical orchestrations. And apparently during science presentations.