Science at Burning Man: Say What?

Burning Man… what a controversial topic these days. The annual festival received quite a bit of media attention this year, with a particular emphasis on how the ‘tech elite’ do burning man. Now that we are no longer in the early September Black Rock City news deluge I wanted to forever out myself as a raging hippie and describe why I keep going back to the festival: for the science of course!

This is a view of my camp, the Phage, as viewed from the main street in Black Rock City. I have no idea why the CH-47 is doing a flyover… everything else is completely standard for Burning Man. Notice the 3 million Volt Tesla coil which my roommates built.

I suspect that at this point, this motivation may seem counter-intuitive or even implausible, but let me elaborate. First, we should start with a question: what is Burning Man? Answer: this question is…