Per Aspera Ad Astra

Two churches located across the street from each other. At least the Catholics have a sense of humor.

Tue, 31 May 2011 20:51:21 -0230

rachelneedsapplausetolive:

karofskyhaikus:

somebodysinmyheadagain:

wizarding:

paranoidrobot:

…Do the Presbyterians think Rocks are animals?

Dying.

lol remember when?

this is too funny

i have to reglob it again

i am dying

omg omgggggg

LOL I kind of like Catholics now :)

I still love this.

Fuck yeah Frankenstein

Wed, 04 May 2011 01:43:46 -0230

None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Chapter 4.

Science Challenge: Day 1

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:05:00 -0230

1. What does it mean to be a scientist?

When I had satisfied myself that no star of that kind had ever shone before, I was led into such perplexity by the unbelievability of the thing that I began to doubt the faith of my own eyes.

-Tycho Brahe.

The Science Center: 15 Day Science Challenge

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 02:13:40 -0230

The Science Center: 15 Day Science Challenge:

sciencecenter:

It seems like just about every other interest group has their own tumblr challenge, so I’ve devised my own for us scientists.

What does it mean to be a scientist?

What is your stance on embryonic stem cell research?

If you were a closed circuit loop, which elements - resistor, capacitor,…

Looks like i’m going to give this a try.

MTV Germany ads: 'Sex is no accident. Always use a condom'

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:57:36 -0230

solutreantoolkit: formankind: Sonya Renee “What Women...

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 15:22:12 -0230

solutreantoolkit:

formankind:

Sonya Renee “What Women Deserve”

I may or may not have started crying.

Yes.

Correct.

What a term.

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:02:00 -0230

Since we last spoke, blog, a few things have fallen in to place. I’ve been accepted to grad school at Midsized ~~Central Canadian~~ Southern Ontario University, completed my (goddammned) thesis and have only to finish my last 4 (!) finals to be finished the degree. First step, complete!

Scale (by Brad Goodspeed) Beautiful!

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 09:13:15 -0330

Scale (by Brad Goodspeed)

Beautiful!

The Coolest Star. Literally. : Starts With A Bang

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 22:06:37 -0330

The Coolest Star. Literally. : Starts With A Bang:

Holy crap! That’s only about 230 degrees celsius!

Map of scientific collaboration between researchers

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 11:17:33 -0330

Map of scientific collaboration between researchers:

In the spirit of the well-circulated Facebook friendship map by Paul Butler, research analyst Olivier Beauchesne at Science-Metrix examines scientific collaboration around the world from 2005 to 2009

Makes me wonder what my Erdős number is.

Animal hands!

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:43:47 -0330

Animal hands!

On Boltzmann Statistics and wasting time.

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:16:54 -0330

We had an interesting statistical mechanics seminar today. We were talking about the maxwell speed distribution, which for all intents and purposes is C x^2 Exp(-x^2). Part of the class, and my favorite part by far, is coming up with “Integration” examples. Basically, we have to scour the tubes to find interesting examples of what we’re learning.

While I was on my summer research term, I spent my lunches with a few of my colleagues in the physics department, but with an interesting addition of recently graduated economist. We often would have informative discussions, as I have no knowledge of economics and he didn’t seem to be too up on physics, but one in particular struck me as very interesting.

Another friend of mine brought up a paper he had read (on arxiv, more on this later) that used Boltzmann statistics to model the distribution of wealth in a closed economy. The paper showed, quite well, that for a moderately realistic system (Simplifying assumptions were: No money created or destroyed and the number of agents in the economy was constant.) the Boltzmann distribution worked quite well to describe the probability of having a certain amount of money.

I mention that this was read on arxiv because when I looked at the paper as it was published on arxiv for myself, there was no fit to a maxwell distribution, only an exponential gibbs law. When I checked the European Journal of Physics, where the paper was published, the content was drastically different. Sometimes it really helps to check the actual journal.

So, we I decided to use this as an integration example in stat mech this afternoon. We talked about it for a while, and one of the class members seemed very frustrated, and complained about how much time had been wasted “trying” to compare these two “completely different ideas”. This struck me as pretty strange. If the model explains the data, why does it matter how seemingly unrelated they are? The origin isn’t what matters, but the results. Statistical mechanics describes the physics behind large ensembles of particles, why should large ensembles of people necessarily be any different?

Science Scout badges!

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:51:42 -0330

For some pre-class fun, I decided to see how many science scout badges i’m eligible for. I was in boy scouts for a long time, but never really got any badges, so let’s see if I do better this time.

“quantum mechanics… I soooo get it”

I think my quantum mechanics and linear algebra courses qualify me for this badge.

“astronaut” Level 1

I’ve played many, many space simulators in my youth.

“non-explainer” Level 1

It’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to explain things to my parents. Spin waves in thin films is out of the question, but star formation might be possible

“Statistical Linear Regression”

No comment on this one.

“I’m into telescopes astro” Level 1

I’ve got a 4.5 inch reflector and a gallileoscope at home.

“I’ve done science with no practical application”

I think star formation falls squarely under this category.

“I will crush you with my math prowess”

I’m not sure if this is necessarily true, but if you say to someone you’re taking vector calculus, it usually ends the conversation.

“has frozen stuff just to see what would happen” Levels 1,2 and 3

Level 1: My parents and I always used to freeze stuff when I was growing up to see what happened.

Level 2: Second year physics labs. If you put a quarter on dry ice it screams and grows snowy hair!

Level 3: Third and Fourth year physics labs, as well as Undergraduate Physics Society. If you freeze food colouring, you get really neat balls of dye that don’t stain your hands (until they melt).

Cool!

My Classes

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 12:42:33 -0330

So I’ve decided to outline the classes i’m taking, and the route I’ve taken to get here.

My current classes, in the final semester of my undergrad, are as follows,

Electromagnetic Fields II. In this class we’ve started with Maxwell’s equations and are working through Griffith’s EM.

Statistical Mechanics. This is probably on of the more interesting experiences of my degree. We’ve got a relatively small class for my university, 4 people, and so the professor decided to turn it into a seminar course. We each take turns presenting material from the second half of Schroeder’s Thermal Physics. The second half seems to be more rigorous that the first.

Theoretical Astrophysics: This course ranks very close to Stat. Mech. It’s my first graduate course, which as of last year did not exist. My Honours supervisor ideally teaches two astrophysics courses, one in the fall, entirely stellar astronomy, and one in the winter, which introduces everything else. The winter course is very, very rarely offered, and so for the benefit of myself and his new graduate student, he designed a course very similar in scope to the winter course, but at a higher level, as to satisfy both our graduation requirements.

Advanced Physical Oceanography: I’m taking this course to satisfy a graduation requirement. It seems like it will possibly be interesting, but it happens to be cross listed required for the naval engineering program, so it’s possible we’ll just get bogged down in details.

Statistics for Life Science Students: I’ve taken 7 math courses throughout my degree, and needed an 8th to get a minor. My other course load is pretty heavy, so stats for biologists rounds it out nicely.

To get to this point, I’ve done the traditional intro mechanics (Kinematics, simple harmonic motion etc), introductory fluid mechanics and thermal physics, a beautiful introduction to modern physics, covering both special relativity and quantum mechanics wonderfully for that level, a remarkably useful course in computational physics, using Mathematica, Two courses in classical mechanics whose main use was the lagrangian and hamiltonian formulations of classical mechanics, The stellar astrophysics course I mentioned earlier, 3 various level quantum mechanics courses, another electromagnetism course mostly dealing with charged spheres and the like, two painful but helpful courses in mathematical methods, a neat course in optics and 2 very painful laboratory courses. Additionally, to build up the skills to do all this physics, I’ve taken the standard 3 calculus courses (Differential, Integral, Multivariate), 2 linear algebra courses, which were probably some of the most useful courses of the entire degree, a course in vector calculus and a course in ordinary differential equations, as well as an introduction to scientific programming in fortran 90 and C.

For anyone interested in Physics, this is pretty well the route you’ll have to take. Good luck!

solutreantoolkit: scienceisbeauty: yeah! I’m fully agree with...

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:57:19 -0330

solutreantoolkit:

scienceisbeauty:

yeah! I’m fully agree with this sentence. And probably that dichotomy between natural and artificial is the germen of the false ecologism, and therefore of the apocalyptic vision of climate change and some other similar demagogueries.

Not sure I’m in full agreement here, but I am familiar with the sentiment. The “apocalyptic vision of climate change” is a little bit more complex than a poorly rendered human duality.

Inaugural Post

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:33:11 -0330

This post is mainly administrative.

Science is nothing more than a never-ending search for truth. What could be more profoundly sacred than that?
-Ann Druyan

So I am, as of this writing, a 21 year old physics student at a moderately sized university in eastern Canada. I’ve recently begun the last term of my undergraduate degree, and I decided it would be a good idea to start now with a blog, to try and remind myself from time to time why I’m undertaking this sacred journey. I am currently in the process of applying to graduate astronomy programs.

I intend to blog about my life, my experiences as an undergraduate, applying to grad schools, astronomy and science, skepticism and other miscellany as appropriate.