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My Presentation at MIT
May. 16th, 2006 10:37 pmSo for those who didn't know, I gave a talk on my bus research at MIT a week and a half ago, during my trip East. (And for those who don't know, I'm currently studying a mathematical model of a bus route, to determine how one can keep the buses evenly spaced and prevent them from bunching together.) My audience was a group of transportation engineers who are themselves interested in the mechanisms of bus transport, so it was somewhat intimidating for me, quite different from my usual physics audience.
So in short, the presentation went very well. They were very interested in what I had to say, and somewhat amazed that a physicist would be interested in their field at all.
No one told me that my work had been done 40 years ago, which is a nice thing not to hear. I got some feedback on my vocabulary, and the circumstances for which my model was valid. It was also pointed out that bus-bunching isn't always a bad thing; for instance, if there is a bus route where everyone gets on at the first stop, and then people slowly trickle off over time (e.g. Bus #71 in Boston out of Harvard Yard, during PM Rush), then it doesn't really matter if the buses bunch up, so long as the passengers get to where they're going as quickly as possible. Bunching only matters when there are passengers to pick up.
My only regret is that it is the end of the academic year, and thus the end of the seminar season; I would have liked to get some more mileage out of this talk. (I'm afraid that, by September, I will have changed everything again. :) Ah well.
Still, it is another line for my CV; though I'm not quite sure what to call it there, I will be sure to mention the letters M,I, and T. :)
So in short, the presentation went very well. They were very interested in what I had to say, and somewhat amazed that a physicist would be interested in their field at all.
No one told me that my work had been done 40 years ago, which is a nice thing not to hear. I got some feedback on my vocabulary, and the circumstances for which my model was valid. It was also pointed out that bus-bunching isn't always a bad thing; for instance, if there is a bus route where everyone gets on at the first stop, and then people slowly trickle off over time (e.g. Bus #71 in Boston out of Harvard Yard, during PM Rush), then it doesn't really matter if the buses bunch up, so long as the passengers get to where they're going as quickly as possible. Bunching only matters when there are passengers to pick up.
My only regret is that it is the end of the academic year, and thus the end of the seminar season; I would have liked to get some more mileage out of this talk. (I'm afraid that, by September, I will have changed everything again. :) Ah well.
Still, it is another line for my CV; though I'm not quite sure what to call it there, I will be sure to mention the letters M,I, and T. :)
