Oh, those GQ physicists!

Now, I haven't known a ton of physicists in my life, but I've known a few. And my husband, who was an economist by trade and training, was pretty much a physicist by desire. On his bucket list - alas, never fulfilled - was a trip to the Large Hadron Collider/CERN in Switzerland. Not that I have any desire to go there, but I do have a bit of Jim's residual ashes and I wouldn't mind sprinkling this bit of him on the LHC grounds.

So if I can extrapolate a bit from my experience with the handful of physicists I've known, and from my experience with my husband - who was not exactly a snappy dresser -  it's that physicists are not exactly the kind of folks who like to dress up. 

Oh, maybe in the old days. The one where he's wearing a ratty old sweater aside, in most of the pictures you see of Albert Einstein, he's wearing a suit and tie. Sure, the suit may be rumpled, the tie askew, but he's suited up. And Richard Feynman, when he won the Nobel Prize in Physics, did wear white tie to the awards ceremony. 

Still, when I think "sartorial" and "physicist" - which, admittedly, I seldom do - I'm thinking comfy clothes: worn-in flannel shirts, khakis with frayed cuffs, Einstein's ratty old sweater.

So I was a bit taken aback to see the dress code for the upcoming 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference, to be held in Bangkok this June. (For those wondering why I would have seen anything about the upcoming 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference: TY, Twitter.)

According to a recent posting on the conference site, physicists (male) should some wearing a dark colored suit with leather shoes. And socks that match their attire. Which, I guess leaves out the standard physicist dress code of Birkenstocks worn with or without white socks. (Not my husband: the other physicists I've known.) Oh, and no visible tattoos or piercings. So much for that ear you got pierced because your GF (or BF) asked you to. And if it looks like business casual that's more business than casual will be okay - as worn by the dude in the grey suit pants and white shirt - the fine print states that, for the opening ceremony, suits are required.

For women, the biggest no-no is the pants suit. Given that women are going back to work in yoga pants and nice tops, this seems plenty ridiculous. The skirt length requirement sends me right back to Catholic high school: "Skirt should be a little below the knee, and never shorter than above the knee. It should cover your thighs completely when you sit." Because no one wants an alluring female physicist doing any sort of come hither to her colleagues. And, seriously folks, admittedly it's been a few years since I've attended a business conference, but thigh reveals were seldom much of anything to worry about when I was a regular participant in them.)

Turns out, while business casual is the suggested attire for the conference, the strict dress-up rules were proposed for the opening ceremony only. And that's because member of the Thai royal family will be in attendance, and it's well known that any royal family should be able to demand/command respect from their "subjects," whether they're their subjects of not. And, I guess, they just might get the vapors if they saw a common nerdly physicist in their usual garb.

Needless to say, given the third rule of motion (for every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction), there has been pushback on the code.

Professor David K. Smith responded to the dress code by saying “We are creative academics. We go to conferences to share ideas. As long as people aren’t wearing bikinis or speedos and don’t have swastika tattoos on the side of their face, I really couldn’t care less what they look like.” (Source: ThaiPBS World)

David K. Smith is a chemist (professor at University of York in the U.K.), but chemists are physicist-adjacent. And I'm with him.

So are a lot of others, including plenty of bona fide physicists. In any case, conference organizers have responded to the feedback: 

We fully understand the concerns that were raised, which are totally valid. We ourselves have similar concerns even before they were raised. Please note that those requirements were from an early communication between us and the responsible officials, and are not yet finalized.

I like that the organizers had "similar concerns even before they were raised."  O-kay.

Anyway, it's anticipated that the final dress code guidelines will be in the business casual arena. That, I suspect, will be challenging enough for some of the attendees, but is more in keeping with how normal people dress and how normal people dress when they're attending business conferences. 

As for having to dress up because you're in the presence of "the royals", well, don't get me started...