California IS Different, But It’s Not TOO Different

When my friends and I were growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, we regarded California as if it were a foreign country–if not another planet.  The widespread speculation was that California was one big movie/TV studio, that had beaches for the thousands of blond-haired surfers who spoke some extremely hip language, and had adoring, bikini-clad girls clinging to them.

Yet living here soon taught me that, though this perception of the Golden State was in some measure true for the cities and towns on the Pacific, a trip 30 – 40 miles inland exposed a culture that wasn’t altogether different than that of Central Pennsylvania, or Central Alabama for that matter.

I bring this up because of the recent announcement (see above) that the University of California, with its 10 campuses, won five Nobel Prizes recently.   UC Santa Barbara alone has 11 Nobel laureates, nine of which are in physics and materials science.  That’s a lot of intelligence floating around in a city whose population is only about 89,000.

Per my point, however, 2GreenEnergy “headquarters” is about 30 miles inland from Santa Barbara.  Where they have people speaking French and discussing quantum physics, we have saloons and rodeos.

I’m not complaining (too much).  It’s still a great place to live, and if I want to find someone to converse with on the subject of quarks and neutrinos, they’re only a short drive away.