Elegance

Here is the derivation of some fairly well known (aka - know them or die) physics equations from electricity and magnetism as derived using the variational principle. I skipped a few steps here and there, mainly with the first couple lines of the variational principle, but the blanks can be filled in if necessary. I am posting this because I found this derivation so elegant and absolutely wonderful. We derived it for General Relativity in order to get familiar with some mathematical tricks; but still, it's beautiful.

Tropicana

Depending on how much you drink orange juice, you may or may not have noticed a new program being put on by Tropicana. The company has teamed up with a conservation group, Cool Earth, in order to protect the Rainforest in Peru. By opening an account, for free, you can enter a particular code on your orange juice container which "saves" 100 sq ft of Rainforest. I'm not entirely sure how this works in the long term. According to the Cool Earth, the funds they receive go to hiring "protection". This protection is in the form of a responsible official whose job is to patrol an area of Rainforest, every so often, in order to make sure that no illegal loggers are operating in the area. It seems that in the long term, funding from the purchase of one bottle of orange juice is not enough to sustain active patrol.

Either way, I have opened an account and whenever I purchase Tropicana I make sure to enter the code in order to "do my part". There is one caveat: the larger the bottle of orange juice you purchase, makes no difference. I didn't find this out by trying it and hoping to get more point, but a bottle double the size of the carton is only a dollar or so more! If you don't want to open and account, but purchase Tropicana, just drop me the code number and I'll enter it. Do not worry, there is no monetary award for any of this and last I checked there was no reward at all for any of it, just the comfort of thinking that you're doing something. Whether it actually is doing something is hard to say, but just in case!

Physics Question #3

Since I know everyone loves a brain teaser, I have another physics question for everyone to ponder! This is nothing new and I am sure that everyone has heard the scenario, if not the solution. It is the infamous Twin Paradox.

One result of Einstein's Special Relativity is that moving clocks run slower! I will not delve into the details of this, but if you would like to know, feel free to inquire. So here is the scenario:

Two twins, Alice and Bob, are both at rest at some point in space, at some initial time, with their clocks synced. Alice moves away from Bob and travels for 30 years, according to her watch, with uniform velocity (near c), in a straight line. After 30 years, Alice returns back to rest where she began, next to Bob, who has remained at rest. When Alice returns, though, she notices that while she is 30 years older, Bob has fared worse than she, and has aged considerably more.

It is obvious to us, the observers, that there is no paradox here, since Alice was moving, thus her clock runs slower. But now consider it from both the reference frame of Alice and Bob, separately. In Alice's frame, Bob is moving away from her at constant velocity, and it would appear that she is stationary, while on-the-other-hand, Bob sees Alice move away from him with constant velocity and he appears to be stationary! So what does this imply? It suggests that Bob would believe that Alice is younger than he is, due to her motion, but Alice would believe that Bob was the younger twin, not her! Yet, he has clearly aged more than she has. How can Bob and Alice reconcile their different views of what should have transpired?

Welcome Home

To the crew of STS-119, welcome back to Earth and congrats on a safe and successful mission. While there were several mission objective, the most highlighted of the trip was the installation of the last set of solar arrays on the ISS. It takes true endurance to make the round trip to the ISS and back and those that do it are amazing people. American society has seemingly gotten away from paying tribute to the astronauts that make these trips, but I believe that they deserve hero status.

Visit NASA's webpage to read more about the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station along with every mission sponsored by NASA.

Whizzing Past

I simply cannot believe it. Starting Monday I enter into my third term at graduate school! Did I not just begin!? While the goings on of my second term were not really reported I hope to keep the public informed about the status of this next one. Ahead of me are two classes: Galatic Dynamics and General Relativity, along with my teaching assistantship. As with last term, I will again be aiding with the laboratory work of P14, which is the second term of the University Physics at Dartmouth. Topics include: electricity and magnetism, DC/AC circuits, and special relativity. I wrapped e&m waves in with e&m, which means they also get into light and so forth (obviously)!

Before classes begin on Monday I do need to wrap up reducing my data from MDM back in February. I need to double check some aspects of what I have done thus far. That will likely be completed tomorrow before and after I set up tea and attend colloquium. This weeks tea is apparently extremely important since 17 prospective grad. students will be visiting. It will be interesting to see how many new grad. students the department takes on next year, considering the budget cuts due to our thriving economy.

Anyhow, I will lay out what I hope to accomplish in the next few days. I will hopefully tell you about: My research, my classes, and other stuff. Do keep checking in!

Also, if you have not perused the IYA '09 website, please do! This year is the international year of astronomy, 400 years since the advent of the telescope! There is a great gift/toy on the website called a Galileoscope. It is a nifty little telescope that is highly affordable. I have purchased one of my own and donated one as well! I urge you to do the same!

Sorrow

I write tonight with a heavy heart. Today, around 4pm, my pup Sammy took his last breath and entered into the realm of infinite biscuits. I will never forget St. Patricks Day 2009; it will live forever inside me, as will the memory of a pup that touched the lives of everyone he met. With a simple wag of the tail he commanded a room and won the hearts of each and every person he decided should pet him. It was with great sorrow that we had to make the decision to ease him into the next world, but it was the correct one. It would have been cruel for us to keep him in this world longer than he could handle. But, I believe that is the ironic part. His body was going to hell, to be blunt. Standing up after a good nap was a difficult chore and going to the bathroom was no longer a concious decision and yet his heart was pumping as strong as ever. His doctor was amazed at how healthy and strong it was for his frail condition. Sammy loved life. He loved running circles around the yard waiting to find something to bark, and snoofing around the woodpile, searching hopelessly to find a critter to chase, and who could forget all the chores he could do to get food! Sammy loved his food... he loved everything... he was the happiest being on the planet



Sammy... you are missed dearly... I love you.
[June 15, 1994 - March 17, 2009]

Told You

See, here's the thing... I wasn't going to say it, but I feel as if I should; so I will. I told you so. I knew in the depths of my heart that keeping up with the blog would be difficult for me. I don't know what it is. I enjoy posting my thoughts and informative pieces about whatever I choose, but the whole idea of regularly doing it just doesn't bode well with me. I have plenty to say at times, but just do not feel like sitting down at the computer and typing away. Call me lazy (I sure do), but outside of that, I do not know what it is. I am going to attempt, once again to keep up with this regularly.

Things to look forward to: Recap of this past terms classes, introduction to my area of research, some details of the research, and other general astronomy stuff. Oh, and who can forget hockey. I think I'll begin with that.

If you follow sports news at all, then you should know that Martin Brodeur has tied Patrick Roy's record of 551 career wins. This is huge! As a Roy fan I am saddened to watch as the record WILL fall this year, probably this very week, but at the same time it's fantastic to see such a greater goaltender enter into the record books. I may not be the biggest Marty Brodeur fan, but his talent is undeniable. He is unquestionably one of the top 5 goaltenders (where and how you rank goalies has always been a matter of debate). I most certainly think he is the best goaltender to ever play the sport, but I'll also put up a good argument for Patrick. To all who care about hockey: hockey history is being made this week, you'd be wise to pay attention.