Monday was OK. Electrodynamics started without any mercy, jumping right into waveguides calculations. Pretty intense. This is just what I wanted to test my masochistic change from coffee to tea.
A very unscientific feeling tells me that coffee is bad for me. I spent the week before classes started at Merideth's and there was no coffee there. So I drank tea. And I felt different, better. So now I am drinking tea instead. I bought a box of green teas. On Thursday the I had a ginseng tea, which I suppose did not had that much caffeine. I got a massive headache by the afternoon. Yesterday I bought some regular black tea, hopefully this will work.
Tuesday I had the other two classes, Quantum and Statistical Mechanics. In Quantum we had a review of to much stuff, it got pretty boring, pretty fast. In Statistical Mechanics, the professor talked about thermodynamics. Now I had a pretty good thermal physics class in the RUM, but it was a long time ago. Time just flies! So I have to review my thermo... I also had my first TAing meeting on Tuesday afternoon. It was pretty boring, since it is the type where all the course staff comes, so they focus more on the professors. I got to pick my lab sections: last fall I had sections L06 and L08, so this semester I went with the odd ones, L03 and L05. This time I am going to TA for four hours straight! It is going to be nasty, and nasty to grade, but I think I shall survive.
On Wednesday I got to pick my graduate seminar topic! Nobody wanted one of the first slots, on February 14. So I thought to myself, I can just get this over early! So I signed up for the first day, and I got to pick my topic first: The search for supersymmetry. It is going to be awesome.
The rest of the week was alright. Lots of procrastination, to much in fact. Friday was the COLDEST day ever. It felt like -10 degrees Fahrenheit. It was horrible. Today I went to the post office and applied for a passport. Oh yeah, passports are expensive!
27 January 2007
23 January 2007
Snow!
Last night was the first snow "storm" of the season! I saw so snow in Wellesley last Thursday. It is pretty damn cold...
21 January 2007
Trips
I live in Stony Brook, New York; my girlfriend lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts. How do I visit her?
In the old days I used to first take a bus from the university to the ferry dock in Port Jefferson, then the ferry from Port Jeff to Bridgeport and there a train to South Station. At South Station I would meet Meri, and take the Boston "T" to Harvard, then a bus to Wellesley College. PHEW! Sometimes I would have had to take the train to Port Jeff.
In numbers:
I must confess that while I was always taking the "money road" mentioned above, my girlfriend was happy taking a bus to NYC. I believe that her total expenses for the fall were less than $190. This is makes me angry, but I happy that she got to save some money.
So now I will be taking the Greyhound buses to Boston. Let's compare cost:
Will there be a difference? Not really. My reasons for taking the ferry-train route were that I believe it was more comfortable and lending more to study-like. The buses are not bad at all, besides the first time I took one last December, where the guy in front of me keep pushing his seat as back as possible. But I literally put him in place... Besides that, I should be able to read or do homework while riding.
My next bus trip is in two weeks!
In the old days I used to first take a bus from the university to the ferry dock in Port Jefferson, then the ferry from Port Jeff to Bridgeport and there a train to South Station. At South Station I would meet Meri, and take the Boston "T" to Harvard, then a bus to Wellesley College. PHEW! Sometimes I would have had to take the train to Port Jeff.
In numbers:
- Bus to ferry dock - $1.00.
- Train to Port Jeff - $2.25.
- Ferry one way - $15.50.
- Train one way - $61 - 76.00.
- Boston "T" - $2.00.
I must confess that while I was always taking the "money road" mentioned above, my girlfriend was happy taking a bus to NYC. I believe that her total expenses for the fall were less than $190. This is makes me angry, but I happy that she got to save some money.
So now I will be taking the Greyhound buses to Boston. Let's compare cost:
- Train to Penn Station - $9.50.
- Subway - $2.00.
- Bus to Boston - $15.00. (with coupon, do not forget it!)
- Boston "T" - $2.00.
Will there be a difference? Not really. My reasons for taking the ferry-train route were that I believe it was more comfortable and lending more to study-like. The buses are not bad at all, besides the first time I took one last December, where the guy in front of me keep pushing his seat as back as possible. But I literally put him in place... Besides that, I should be able to read or do homework while riding.
My next bus trip is in two weeks!
16 January 2007
Holidays
What did YOU got for christmas?
I treated myself some books: Mirror Symmetry, and Path Integrals and Anomalies in Curved Spacetime.
Of course I cannot follow them. Soon! I had been reading some Lie groups, mainly introduction to groups and other stuff. It is sad that I did not got to the Lie part... I also tried reading Sean Caroll's Spacetime and Geometry. With a real, fast pace I reached the third chapter on curvature. I cannot said I fully understood the previous chapter on manifolds, but I am happy to explore these ideas.
I should do some more readings before classes start. I ordered the textbook for Statistical Mechanics yesterday. Fun!
I treated myself some books: Mirror Symmetry, and Path Integrals and Anomalies in Curved Spacetime.
Of course I cannot follow them. Soon! I had been reading some Lie groups, mainly introduction to groups and other stuff. It is sad that I did not got to the Lie part... I also tried reading Sean Caroll's Spacetime and Geometry. With a real, fast pace I reached the third chapter on curvature. I cannot said I fully understood the previous chapter on manifolds, but I am happy to explore these ideas.
I should do some more readings before classes start. I ordered the textbook for Statistical Mechanics yesterday. Fun!
15 January 2007
What IS Physics?
Not to long ago I found myself in the following situation:
A group of graduate students visit one of the national laboratories and were asked during the introductory briefing what was physics. A long silence continued...
Sure, we all study and work with physics, sometimes 24 hours a day. But when encountered with this simple question, I must confess I was stunned.
We could try to define physics, just like the dictionary does. Physics is the science, dicipline, etc; that studies ... what? According to Wikipedia, physics "is the science concerned with the discovery and understanding of the fundamental laws which govern matter, energy, space, and time." From this we could think that the most elemental things are matter, energy, space and time (four concepts that were unified in pairs by Einstein in the theory of relativity). All this might be enough to define physics, but I am more interested today in other aspects.
There is a famous interview to R.P. Feynman where he tells the story of a physicist making a flower ugly. I could see how people who do not like (or understand) physics think that all the equations, symmetries and principles governing the growth, life and death of a flower is ugly. But to somebody who understand them, (like Feynman) it all seems highly beautiful. So the question here is more one relative points of view; either I like the physical framework of the flower, or develop a poetical decription. The thing is, these two approaches are equivalent, because they describe the same idea. This is a hand-waved argument, since we cannot be sure wether the poet is talking about a physical flower, or one that he/she made up ideally. So this leads us to the next point, the accuracy of physics.
AHHH! This post sucks. It sounds to philosophial. I cannot take it anymore. I will do something worthwile with my time, like reading a book on some good physics.
A group of graduate students visit one of the national laboratories and were asked during the introductory briefing what was physics. A long silence continued...
Sure, we all study and work with physics, sometimes 24 hours a day. But when encountered with this simple question, I must confess I was stunned.
We could try to define physics, just like the dictionary does. Physics is the science, dicipline, etc; that studies ... what? According to Wikipedia, physics "is the science concerned with the discovery and understanding of the fundamental laws which govern matter, energy, space, and time." From this we could think that the most elemental things are matter, energy, space and time (four concepts that were unified in pairs by Einstein in the theory of relativity). All this might be enough to define physics, but I am more interested today in other aspects.
There is a famous interview to R.P. Feynman where he tells the story of a physicist making a flower ugly. I could see how people who do not like (or understand) physics think that all the equations, symmetries and principles governing the growth, life and death of a flower is ugly. But to somebody who understand them, (like Feynman) it all seems highly beautiful. So the question here is more one relative points of view; either I like the physical framework of the flower, or develop a poetical decription. The thing is, these two approaches are equivalent, because they describe the same idea. This is a hand-waved argument, since we cannot be sure wether the poet is talking about a physical flower, or one that he/she made up ideally. So this leads us to the next point, the accuracy of physics.
AHHH! This post sucks. It sounds to philosophial. I cannot take it anymore. I will do something worthwile with my time, like reading a book on some good physics.
A-B+B+AA
I survived the first semester in graduate school! YAY!
I am soooooo happy! The final outcome was: Quantum Mechanics - A-, Classical Electrodynamics and Classical Mechanics - B+, Seminar and Teaching - A.
I cannot overstate the fact that I am very happy of my grades. I personally belive that the Electrodynamics grade was my Christmas gift, but that is ok. I shall try harder this coming semester. Basically I will be taking second parts, and Statistical Mechanics. I will have the same set of professors, so I have an idea of what to expect from each.
I am soooooo happy! The final outcome was: Quantum Mechanics - A-, Classical Electrodynamics and Classical Mechanics - B+, Seminar and Teaching - A.
I cannot overstate the fact that I am very happy of my grades. I personally belive that the Electrodynamics grade was my Christmas gift, but that is ok. I shall try harder this coming semester. Basically I will be taking second parts, and Statistical Mechanics. I will have the same set of professors, so I have an idea of what to expect from each.
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