![\"hummous\"](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3762\/11612639414_fc1c3475ff_z.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n- \n
- <\/dt>\n
- Hummous in Israel, recently<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
We visited a Crusader castle (Kalat Nimrod) at the tip of the Hermon Mountains that stretch from northern Israel into the Golan Heights, Lebanon and Syria.<\/p>\n
![\"Nimrods-castle-21\"](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/5547\/11612368675_252da630d7_z.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We stayed at my spouse\u2019s parents\u2019 kibbutz, and visited Haifa, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea and Jordanian valley.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/files\/2011\/12\/Steve-Dead-Sea.jpg\")
<\/a>Salt crystals at the Dead Sea–the lowest place on earth<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/files\/2011\/12\/salt-crystals.jpg\")
<\/a>Salt crystals–a crystallographer’s nightmare. Dead Sea, Israel<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/files\/2011\/12\/Dead-Sea-shore.jpg\")
<\/a>The Dead Sea shore–shortlisted for the world’s greatest wonders<\/p><\/div>\n
And finally we visited Jerusalem, one of the most fascinating cities on earth\u2014where I lived for 10 years.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/files\/2011\/12\/el-Aksa-mosque-and-old-city-from-the-east.jpg\")
<\/a>El Aksa mosque and old city from the east<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/files\/2011\/12\/Hezekiahs-tunnel.jpg\")
<\/a>Hezekiah’s Tunnel leading below the walls of the Old City to the spring and Pool of Shiloah<\/p><\/div>\n
Without getting into the very complex politics of the middle east (not that I shy away from voicing my views, but in this piece I\u2019d rather focus on other issues), I couldn\u2019t help wondering over and over how my life would have been had I returned to Israel 10 years ago. Would my science have led me to the same discoveries and areas of research, or would I have been influenced by the availability (or lack thereof) of specific equipment? Would Israeli students in my \u201cparallel lab\u201d have yielded the same findings as the rather international collective of students in my US lab? Would I have been happy? There\u2019s little question that life in Israel is inherently more stressful on a day-to-day basis than life in the US; the traffic and driving, the need to be aggressive to achieve even the simplest tasks, the economic differences, security and on and on. \u00a0But then again, one can sometimes appreciate the simpler things in life\u2014picking your own clementine oranges, papaya, lemons, etc. from a tiny garden in your own yard.\u00a0 Without living a parallel universe, it\u2019s hard to know how things might have turned out; we never really have a control, and can only judge how things are in our current universe, without a real basis for comparison. I\u2019ve touched on some of these issues more deeply in my recent novel, \u201cWelcome Home, Sir<\/em><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
Somehow I always get drawn back to politics\u2014but it\u2019s because in discussing parallel universes I recall what a columnist once wrote years ago before Israel\u2019s current prime minister (Netanyahu) was elected for the first time. He wrote (and I paraphrase) \u201cIt would be interesting to elect him if we had a spare country or spare universe\u2014just for the sport of it\u2014but horrible to have him actually leading the country.”<\/p>\n
Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could second-guess our decisions in life and science through a parallel universe?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Research and life have many things in common. In particular, it has always intrigued me that when following a line of research in the lab, we are constantly presented with branching points that make it imperative to make decisions about … Continue reading