Ah, Vancouver in the spring. I grew up here, and there are some things about Vancouver that just seem to me to be perfect: the skyline of the mountains on the North Shore, for example, or the dark, damp green of the coastal forests. When these things register on my senses, my brain just pushes a button that says “home.” I moved away for good (so far, at least) after I got my Ph.D. in 1987. I’ve been back several times since then, but since none of my family lives here anymore, I’ve not stayed long. This time we are here for a month, which will give me a chance to get to know the place again. As with any friend you haven’t seen for 25 years, there have been some changes. One is obvious as soon as you arrive – it used to be a real pain to get from the airport to downtown by public transit, but now there is a quick and easy rapid transit link.
We are living on the 29th floor of an apartment building in a trendy part of downtown called Yaletown. We have a nice view of lots of other tall apartment buildings, and if we lean the right way we can see Mt. Seymour. Yaletown didn’t exist when I was a kid, as far as I know. What is now Yaletown used to be a wasteland of light industry and warehouses; it was a part of town one never had any reason to visit. In the mid-80s is became the site of Expo 86, the World’s Fair. After the fair, they sold the area to a developer who tore down everything and built lots and lots of hi-rise apartments. It is now the most densely populated area of the city. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but in fact it is very pleasant. We are a couple of blocks from the waterfront, where there is a great sea-wall walk and bike path. There are dozens of restaurants within a 10 minute walk of our apartment, most of which are quite reasonably priced. Transit is close and convenient. There are parks. It would have been nice if our apartment had been dusted before we arrived, but otherwise we have no complaints.
I’m working at UBC while I’m here. That’s another place where there have been many changes. I haven’t counted, but I am sure that more than half the buildings on campus have been built since I left, and most of the others have had bits added to them. There is ongoing construction at half a dozen sites, and I gather this has been the norm for the last 20 years. I guess I am technically visiting the Math Department. My office is in what used to be the Computer Science Building; it has a new name and new occupants, including the Institute for Applied Mathematics, which is where I am sitting as I type this. Downstairs is the Complex Fluids Laboratory, where I have been spending a fair bit of my time. My hosts are Neil Balmforth, who is Director of the aforesaid Institute, and Ian Frigaard, who divides his time between Math and Mechanical Engineering. Both do research on yield-stress fluids. Neil is interested in geophysical flows, like landslides and lava flows and such, while a lot of Ian’s research has applications in the oil industry. I will be spending part of my time working on an experiment that is supposed to model what happens when water flows beneath a glacier. Not only does the water lubricate the flow of the glacier, in some cases it can also cause the ice sheet to lift up significantly. Neil and his postdoc Ian Hewitt have been working on a mathematical model of this process, including the forces on the water due to the elastic deformation of the ice. The experiments will involve syrup flowing under a rubber sheet; the rubber sheet will exert forces on the fluid that mimic those due to the ice. At present we are at the “looking for stuff” stage of the experiments, but hopefully we’ll get everything set up this week. Meanwhile, I am enjoying the west-coast spring weather!