robcoyne [dot] com

Today.

Today was a day of breakthroughs.

It started innocently enough, with an early bird wake up call at the ungodly hour of 10:30am. A text message from a colleague inquiring about lunch plans was a good way to start the day, and little did I know that it would only get better from there. As the day progressed, I just about finished up my general relativity assignment (in which I spoke like a pirate, and wrote a short story about Captain Kirk and the USS Enterprise), and snagged a delicious cup of coffee from everyone’s favorite coffee shop all before heading off to GR at 3:30.

It was then that the cogs began to spin.

A mere hour and fifteen minutes later, I had another 10 pages of immaculately taken notes, and a head full of ideas on how to resolve some of the field’s most terrible contradictions. Take, for example, some of the biggest issues with Loop Quantum Gravity. For those of you who don’t know, LQG is one of the biggest opponents to String Theory as a quantum theory of gravity (it has about 8% of the market share, where String Theory has 90% and everything else has about 2%). It remedies the singularity problem by showing (in an interesting way) that gravity becomes repulsive on very small length scales (we’re talking Planck-scale here, so don’t even think about trying to reduce your weight during your annual physical). This has the interesting side effect of turning the “Big Bang” into a “Big Bounce” where a “previous universe” collapsed to a near-singularity, and then expanded again into what we’re living in right now.

Sound cool right? Definitely. The only thing is, how do you explain the fact that - according to our most recent estimates of Hubble’s constant - not only is the universe decidedly not collapsing, but worse off it might actually be accelerating in it’s expanse! This means we’re probably not going to end up dealing with a “Big Crunch” which - while good for anything still alive at that point - is bad for LQG. After all, how do you explain that in one universe, there wasn’t enough energy to keep it expanding so it collapsed, but when the same universe went around again for a second (or third, or forth, or nth) time, it suddenly had more than enough energy than it needed? Conservation of energy has something to say about that, and you know what? So do I.

It’s all the fault of a giant, multidimensional pencil! It’s grievous graphite has destroyed our universe and sentenced us (or at least our great^358,483,294,895 grandchildren) to the cold death of the universe! (Though, to be fair, unless we’ve moved into a new solar system by then, we should be more worried about being enveloped by the sun).

Let’s go on a little thought adventure. Picture the universe not as a strangely complex 4-dimensional object suspended in nothingness (nor as an absurd 10, 11, or 13 dimensional object suspended in a sea of 10^(way too many to ever test) possible universes), but rather as a two-dimensional plane. Now, imagine if you will that the customary theory of multiple universes extends here, wherein we might find a number of two dimensional planes representing different universes. Perhaps they overlay one another as would the pages of a book.

Now, what I want you to do is make a model of this on your desk. Go ahead, take a second. It’s not too hard. Grab four or five sheets of paper, layer them on top of another, and then grab a soda because you’re done. Next, I want you to find the nearest pencil (if you don’t have one a pen will do). Now, hold the paper in such a way that you can punch the pencil through it without damaging anything.

Now punch the pencil through the paper.

No. You’re going to want to use the sharp end, try again.

Okay good.

Did you hurt yourself?

That’s okay, I’ll wait.

…

Alright, hopefully you put a band-aid on that. You really shouldn’t have put the paper on your thigh. I mean, where did you think the pencil was going to go? I’m trying to illustrate a point, not show by some freak twist of reality that paper will somehow be strong enough to stop a speeding pencil. Geeze. Anyway, if you remove the pencil (and ignore the blood stains) what you’ll notice is that the paper bends down. That’s what happened to our universe! All sorts of dark energy must be bleeding into the universe from our neighboring universes because some douchebag created a rift between the universe because they stabbed us with a giant pencil!

I hope they stabbed themselves in their leg too.

That wasn’t all though. Through a combined discussion with Josh and Jamison I determined that a space rhinoceros’s favorite food is tachyons, and that they can interact with them because thanks to a charm in Exalted they can move faster than the speed of light. Which means - assuming the minimum requirements for Wind-Racing Essence Infusion - a space rhinoceros must have a stamina of at least 67,061,659. This means that if a Lunar were to take the form of one, they would have a ludicrous lethal soak of 33,530,830 (since Exalts get to round up).

A stamina value that high would allow them to move faster than the speed of light according to the charm’s use, thus allowing them to interact with tachyons. This opens up a whole new group of questions though, like “if they can eat tachyons, what the hell are they doing gobbling up the particle pairs formed at the border of black holes?”

Huey’s theory on Hawking Radiation might be in grave danger.

All of this before 6:00 too. What a great day.

[Edit: Of course, just so we're all on the same page, don't cite any of this in a scientific paper. I'm pretty sure it'll get you laughed at, in the same way Josh and I laughed at each other for discussing it this afternoon.]

Rob Tabletop RPGs, pseudoscience exalted, Geek, jamison, josh, pseudoscience

This just keeps getting better. Not only is Obama palling around with spider man, but he’s saving us from Darth Vader too! I wonder if he’s related to Luke Skywalker. The two of ‘em look like they might share a parent or two. Which either means Obama’s committing patricide in this image, or Padme was a little less than faithful to little ‘ol Emokin.

Anywho, funny picture aside this isn’t going to be another political post. I have a limit on those things, and from what the voices in my head tell me there will be some very unhappy people if I exceed it. Instead, I’d like to mention that I was reading back over this postat Wil Wheaton’s blog and for some reason or another it struck a chord with me. Maybe it’s because I get exasperated when I see another geek get frustrated with stupid people, or maybe it’s just because I was too young to have anything against Wesley Crusher (okay, I’ll admit it, I wanted to be a super-genius, socially awkward, and sometimes badly written deus ex machina machine just like him). In the end though, it just really bothers me that despite millions of years of genetic development there are still people who can’t dissociate two simple concepts like actor and character.

You know how they say most animals don’t recognize themselves when they look in the mirror? Yeah. Same thing. Of course, this isn’t my field, so an expert might disagree with me. Thankfully, the people who are crazy enough to study physics are typically smart enough to not be that dumb.

Remember kids, though it might be easy to mistake them, Wil Wheaton and Wesley Crusher are not the same person. Yes they’re both super geniuses (gogo gadget Wheaton!), yes they both have superpowers (Journey’s End versus Blue Beetle), but for the love of all that is holy they’re… hey wait… they are an awful lot alike. Only Wil writes better than Wes ever spoke… OH MY GOD. Wil Wheaton is Wesley Crusher! He must have traveled back in time to dissociate himself from his character! I’m going to have to go get him to set the clock on my VCR that’s collecting dust in my basement. No matter what I do I can’t seem to get it to stop showing the proper time. Realistically, I think Wesley Crusher is the only boy-genius in the universe smart enough to save me.

Or at least I should get him to come play DnD with the crew. From what I hear Wil’s pretty good at that.

While I’m on the topic of former Star Trek: The Next Generation actors. I had a bizarre dream the other day in which I discussed Shakespeare with Patrick Stewart. As grossly informative an entertaining as that conversation would probably be, I can’t help but feel that I would be utterly outclassed and made a fool of by his vastly superior knowledge of Billy’s work. That and his accent. Hell, he’d probably talk me into an overstimulated coma just by asking how to get to the nearest McDonald’s. I’d end up being reduced to little more than “that guy” - you know, the one who blathers on incessantly about nothing particularly interesting or relevant? And ends up asking really stupid questions?

Yeah.

That guy.

Rob Geek obama, patrick stewart, Random, star trek, wil wheaton

You lied to me CNN! Barack Obama didn’t spend his inauguration day giving speeches and eating at fancy luncheons, he was saving the day with his new partner: Spiderman! Dammit, I knew I liked this guy for a reason. How could I have missed something like that? Our President is a freakin superhero! And I was so sure that he was just your mild-mannered political upstart that changed history.

Well, though I might have been unaware of all of that, this much is for sure. Barack Obama isn’t wasting any time.

Just look at him! By the time he was 24 hours into his tenure as the President of the United States he put together a draft executive order to shut down Guantanamo Bay, froze terrorism trials so the system can be evaluated, cut the fiscal projections for White House staff by capping a number of salaries that are probably already paying these people more than they deserve, eliminated avenues through which political operators could remain incognito and by doing so ensuring a higher degree of transparency in Washington, spoke to the leaders of Egypt and Jordan, came down hard on lobbyists that want to work with this new government, set up a meeting to discuss a responsible withdrawal from Iraq, started up a committee to take action on the failing economy, and still had the time to share a luncheon with selected members of Congress (poor Teddy Kennedy), have his first dance with his wife as Mr. and Mrs. President, took the time to swear in a few cabinet members and he still probably found some time to get to sleep.

You know, of all the run on sentences in my life (and I’ve written a great many), I think I’m most proud of that one. It feels damn good to be an American right now. I mean, at this rate he should have this whole mess cleaned up by what? Next Tuesday? Well, you can sign me up for the “I’ve still got three years and fifty-one weeks left of my Presidency and jack-shit left to do” party he’s probably going to throw next week. I’ll have to pick up a six pack or two, but that’s okay, he’s worth it. It’s the least I can do for a guy who pal’s around with Spiderman.

Here’s lookin’ to the future. Cheers!

Rob Politics Geek, obama, Politics

I have fallen absolutely head-over-heels in love with to-do lists. There’s a nice big one sitting out on my dining room table right now, in fact. It’s a standard letter sized sheet broken up into two columns, and it’s almost full of things that I either need to do before the end of break, or I have already done. The tasks that cover it  range from remarkable to mundane, from steps that will help solidify my future as a physicist to menial tasks like folding the laundry. So much potential! So many exciting things to do! And most importantly of all, so many things to cross off!

Lets be honest with ourselves here: nobody really cares about to-do lists themselves. It’s just the sense of accomplishment you get when you check something off of them. For me, it’s the knowledge that each time my red pen scratches out a line I am one step closer to not having anything to do. The sad reality of it all is - of course - that to-do lists invariably get filled up faster than they get checked off, so I probably won’t hit that blissful euphoria of nothingness until I’m curled up in my coffin, but insurmountable odds have never stopped me in the past and why should they start now? I mean hey, I ended up getting an A in that Fluids class, didn’t I?

I did, by the way.

Anyway, my to-do list is currently filled up with a number of fantastic little tidbits. On the docket for tomorrow is to meet with my professors, work on my thesis, put the next coat of paint on the sign blanks, buy some software for mi padre, and try to convince myself not to spend a ton of my money here. (I mean, come on?! How can you resist that? 649.95 for an Original Series Phaser? They’re practically giving them away!) After I get all of that done (and let’s face it, I’m going to fail miserably at the last one) I’ve got to buy an air mattress for this weekend’s trip to DC and figure out how to blog. Seriously Internet, I have no idea what you want, and since you got that restraining order it’s made it really hard for me to ask.

I suppose I’ll have to do some soul-searching. Needless to say, if that’s on my list, then there goes any chance I had of getting to that wonderful blissful state of nothing is gone forever.

*tear*

Rob Random blogging, lists, procrastination

I have to admit that I’ve always been an on-again, off-again blogger. I’ll go through these periods where I post incessantly, and then a few months later forget that I even had a blog and ignore it for long periods of time. Even back in my glory days of blogging where my livejournal was ablaze with depressing emo posts about how few friends I had and how much I wished that I had a girlfriend I couldn’t keep it going at a steady pace. This point was emphasized when I ran across my old livejournal in an attempt to archive my youth and I read over some of those old posts. Wow. Terrifying. I will say that back in those days I was certainly blogging a lot more, so with any luck I’ll be able to work back to that. Blogging - like almost any activity - requires the direct application of muscle (in this case, the creative writing centers in my brain), and mine are currently atrophied. I’ll have to put together some kind of workout routine. As Chris always says “Every day, something. Even if it’s small, something every day.” Of course, I’ve never actually known him to say that - at least not outside of that blog post - but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want from my life. Some of it has been driven by the same nagging self doubt regarding my potential as a Physicist that drove me to stop blogging in the first place a month or two ago. When I got my GRE scores back for my Physics section I was stunned, the results were about a hundred and fifty points lower than I expected. What’s worse is that those expectations weren’t inflated due to some misplaced concerns for my ego, I had been taking practice exam after practice exam and repeatedly scored between 740 and 780 on them. Three unique full length exams taken the week before the real deal all landed in that range, yet somehow I still managed to end up with a 610. In the end, I suppose a combination of bad luck, nerves and an overactive bladder all conspired together to ruin that test, but needless to say it did a number of my confidence.

Over the past few weeks though, those concerns have diminished. I’ve filled out five applications to PhD programs thus far, and I’ve realized that those GRE score really are the only bad mark on my record. Even then, while they’re no means good, they’re not as bad as they could have been either. So onwards I go, back to the thinking about my life that I’ve been doing. What I’ve decided after these extensive periods of self-reflection (which I guess are important when you’re trying to sell yourself to grad school without actually lying) is that in order to prepare myself for the next stage of my life I need to start doing things differently. Over the past two years my motivation and drive has improved by leaps an bounds, I’ve gotten to a point where my work is done, and it’s done well. When I start a project I can generally finish it, but with certain things like this website and my secret project, I just haven’t been able to get them to a point where they’re moving along steadily. Maybe that’s a personal failing, perhaps I’m stuck living in a life that will be full of periods of productivity in an otherwise unproductive work cycle. I don’t think so though, so I’m going to make an effort to start changing that.

Enter this post, one of the many “recent” posts that have been little more than self-affirmation and a promise to do more with this site. Wish me luck interwebs, if this is going to work, I’m going to need all the luck I can get.

Rob Self-Reflection Blog News, ramble, reflection

Oh man. You may have noticed that things are a bit different around here. First and foremost, I’ve got my own top level domain now thanks to my buddy Chris over at lostinthefilm. So you’re now looking at the new home for my - well, my everything! It’s robcoyne.com, and it’s here to stay, or so I hope. I’ve wanted a personal website for awhile, ever since my first one went the way of the dodo (oh I’ll miss you bobweb). Now I finally have one, and over the next couple of weeks I intend to turn it into a legitimate site with legitimate stuff. Aside from a personal blog, I’ll be putting up all sorts of stuff. My school things including my CV, my hobby stuff (including photos and writing), and even the secret project that I’ve been working on for a few months now.

More later.

Rob Blog News Blog News

So I had a nice talk with my new co-advisor today about the status of my thesis. The first thing he asked me as I walked into his small concrete office, decorated sparsely with physics texts and discarded playstation 3 boxes, is whether or not I had been told that the department had awarded me a full Research Assistantship for next semester. Surprised by the revelation I excitedly informed him that it was the first I had heard of it, but that in no way diminished the elation I felt at not having to teach any classes next semester. He chuckled softly and nodded, saying how he was glad they were able to sort out the money so I could focus on finishing my thesis next spring, rather than teaching four classes in addition to my coursework like I’m doing this time around.

There was more to it than that though, I could tell that deep down there was a hidden message lost among my exuberance and his contentment. He was telling me that he was concerned about whether or not I’d have enough time to finish my thesis.

I can’t say I blame him, I’m a little worried myself. My thesis has changed so many times that I never got rolling on any of them, and now I’m faced with completing a brand new project, writing a 40+ page paper on it, and coming up with a compelling presentation all over the course of a single semester. My concern however isn’t that I’d be able to do it. In fact, I have no doubt that I’ll be able to finish my thesis. I’m worried that when I’m done with it, that it won’t be impressive enough to carry me through my future education.

As it stands right now, it looks like the skeleton of the project is going to be about code optimization for the playstation 3’s. It will start by showing how standard data analysis packages can be easily compiled and run, with little to no additional setup, displaying any impressive or important benchmarks along the way. After that, we’ll choose a select few libraries that have been optimized for the Cell architecture (the Fast Fourier Transform - FFT - for example) and do some benchmarks for that, illustrating the benefits of using the Cell. We’ll do some different approaches on the PS3’s (running optimized versus non-optimized code), as well as some cross-platform tests (runs on a Core 2, server rack, etc). All of these things together will certainly give an impressive view of what the PS3’s are capable of, but there’s one problem: there’s no physics in it!

So I need to come up with some nifty way of making this project about some kind of exciting physics as well as exciting electronics. I only hope that I have enough time to do that. Thoughts are more than welcome.

Before I let you go however, the wonderful people over at Animals Have Problems Too put out a fantastic motivational comic that comes to mind here. It’s hanging on the side of my cubicle, as a constant reminder of what needs to be done. And since it’s fitting, I will share it with you now:

It’s not my drawing, not my advice, but certainly words I can live by. Good night.

Rob school advisor, computer science, Physics, playstation 3, thesis

As I walked through the mall, waiting any way but patiently for my haircut I came across a rather disturbing sight. There, right in the center, nestled snugly in between JC Penny and Pac Sun sat a gigantic north pole mockup, complete with wreathes, Christmas trees, and a big green chair. The only thing that was missing was good old St. Nick. Of course that’s because even Santa Claus realizes that it’s too early for Christmas.

I swear, it seems like every year that goes by places start putting out their Christmas gigs a few days earlier. Pretty soon we’ll be celebrating the fourth of July with reindeer and mistletoe, and Valentine’s Day will just be an excuse to get jacked up on Egg Nog (moreso than it may already be, that is). You can’t escape it. Just yesterday, my roomate and I were enjoying a hearty noon-thirty breakfast at the International House of Awesomecakes when lo and behold on comes Christmas music crackling over the speakers. It was Veteran’s Day for crying out loud! Shouldn’t they have been playing Sinatra or something? I bet all those veterans appreciate the fact that their holiday has been glossed over for a fat man in a red jumpsuit. Thanksgiving hasn’t even swung aroung and I’m already seeing commercials set to Jingle Bells. This is madness! (Or is it Sparta? Either way, it’s still November people!)

In other news, I’ve realized that I’m a terrible physicist. Not because I’m necessarily bad at what I do (though to be fair, the Fluids homework is kicking my ass) but rather it’s because I started this blog as a conduit through which I could channel my inner science geek, and instead it’s turned into an upscale livejournal where I whine about nothing important and hatch crackpot ideas with minimal scientific backing at best. In the days to come, I’m going to seek to remedy that. Not by changing what I’m writing - please, I love arbitrarily expressing myself - but rather by adding in a couple of regular topics. Hopefully that will include commentary about new news in physics (written in the same lovable style as everything else), and a continuing section on how we can fix physics education.

But more on that later, for now I have evil to plot and papers to grade.

Rob Blog News, Rant Blog News, Rant

A thought occurred to me as I walked to class this afternoon, ready and willing to teach the kiddlies all about the magic of conservation of energy and work. It started slowly, but then it’s pace quickened dramatically as a sudden realization washed over me with the Earth-shaking power of a thousand blistering asteroids plummeting furiously into a Olympic size pool filled to the brim with Orange Jell-o…

I only have one day of classes this week. Or at least, classes that I don’t have to teach.

It’s pretty liberating in some ways, knowing that the only day I’ll have to put up with lectures is Thursday, and that’s only for a whopping total of two and a half hours. In other ways, I have to sit back and accept that I have a mountain of homework (some of which that is overdue) that is staring me in the face and absolutely has to be turned in by Wednesday evening at 5:00pm when the Physics department closes up shop for the night. Over a hundred pages of my Fluids Mechanics textbook to read, four back-breaking problems to do in regards to the reading (if you think 4 problems isn’t bad, you’re welcome to do them for me), and at least four pages to write about the process. I guess writing it down it doesn’t seem that bad, but I know the problems are going to take the better part of tomorrow and Wednesday.

Still, it’s kinda nice to know that I can do almost all of my work in my PJ’s.

Rob General class, reflection

I kept waking up the missus, so I retired to the living room where I could write this post without worrying about risking her wrath. You see, my wonderful girlfriend is a bit of a bipolar sleeper, and it’s sometimes difficult to get a read on what kind of night she’s going to have. Most of the time, a rhinoceros could crash through the wall and wrestle violently with a grizzly bear that tore its way up through the pipes and she’d sleep right through it. Other times - like this night in particular - even the most subtle change in the brightness of my monitor will send her shooting up in bed faster than you can say “I swear I wasn’t looking at porn!”

It’s that kind of strange inconsistency that seems to be governing my life right now. Between the roller coaster ride that is the grad school application process, and my total lack of time to do anything constructive anymore, things are pretty unpredictable. That’s alright though, if I learned anything from my quantum mechanics class, it’s that just because we don’t know all the details about a system, doesn’t mean it won’t all work out in the end anyway. I just hope nobody comes along and collapses my grad school wave function into a series of rejection letters. That would suck.

The first person I catch looking over my shoulder at my applications gets my fist tunneled through their face.

In other news, I’m thinking about taking this blog public at some point in the near future. (That felt so strange to type, knowing that next to nobody is able to read this right now). As per usual with these types of things, Josh (the non-physics one) has inspired (read: goaded) me into taking down the electrified fence protecting this blog, allowing me to once again let my thoughts flow freely through the intertubes. I’m going to miss the attack-iguanas though. They’re so cute!

My biggest concern about the whole deprivitizing process is the unspoken expectation that I actually produce content. I should probably take another page out of Josh’s book and provide some regular features. I know he’s doing Monday reviews, and the Friday-Five, and so on, and I can’t help but concede that as a pretty good idea. I don’t think I’ll run anything quite so regimented, but a number of dedicated fall back subjects that I can reliably post about from week to week (and enjoy doing so) would be a great help for turning this into what I ultimately wanted it to be in the first place: a repository for my thoughts on the world.

Speaking of thoughts, I’ve been thinking a lot about Bill Nye recently. I think of all the figures on television when I was growing up, and all the fantastic shows that shaped me as a child, the one man with whom I connected the most was Bill Nye. To this day I still remember the theme song, and I was always impressed with his rigor and easy to understand explanations, especially when compared to that hack Beakman. In fact, as Kristen and I were watching an episode of Time Warp on the Discovery Channel and I couldn’t stop thinking about crazy old Billy Nye and all the fantastic times we had together. Holding that thought for a moment, I have to take a brief aside to say the following on the subject of Time Warp:

What a horrendously addictive, but wholly substance-less show! Seriously. They do awesome stuff, and catch it on high-speed cameras. What more could you want? I’ll tell you: show hosts that know what the fuck is going on. Ugh! I couldn’t stop myself from correcting all the little mistakes they kept making when they tried to talk about Physics. Freshmen-level Physics at that! Honestly, I couldn’t tell if it was really because they didn’t know what the script they were reading meant, or if they were just trying to dumb it down for the average Joe, but either way, if I’m watching a show that tries to imply that it contains some degree of rigor… I’d like my hosts to get it right. Augh! Frustrating as hell. Still awesome though. Very awesome.

Anyway, aside over. Back to Bill Nye.

As I was saying, Kristen and I were watching Time Warp and my thoughts drifted back to Bill Nye, which reminded me of a conversation I had last semester with Subir - a colleage of mine who’s now working towards his PhD at Columbia. We were sitting in the Computational Physics lab here at Uni, and Subir turned to me and said “you know Rob, you have the gift. I think you could be a great spokesman for Physics.” At the time he invoked the name Brian Greene - the well known String Theorist who has released a couple of hugely popularized novels - but as the conversation continued on, Bill Nye - among others - were thrown out there as well.

At this point, I think it’s important to point out that Bill Nye and popular physicists are on two entirely different levels. Both contribute to science in their own unique ways, but scientists like Brian Green, Stephen Hawking, and the myriad of others recognizable by the laypersons of the world have the magic knack of making high level Physics simple, interesting, and easy to understand. Bill Nye, the Mythbusters, even Mr. Wizard bring something else to the table: they bring charisma (sometimes) and (more importantly) enthusiasm (which is great for getting those children excited in the physik).

On one hand, you have the ultracomplicated made simple and interesting, and on the other hand you have the dull and boring made exciting and engaging, and as Kristen and I sat and watched two grown men dance on Oobleck in super-slow motion, I turned to her and said…

“I want to be Bill Nye.”

That’s not the end of the story though. I don’t just want to be Bill Nye, I want to be Brian Greene too. I want to do both, and that’s where this long, winding, senseless path finally culminates: I think my regular content is going to be putting physics - real physics - out on the table, and make it engaging and interesting, regardless of its level.

And that’s all I’ve got for now. This long assed post (which was started over an hour ago, and should have been a lot shorter if I was going to stick true to the title) got way out of hand, and I really need to hit the sack. But now you (and by you I mean the two people who have access to this right now) have a small preview of what I’m going to try to do with this. Who knows, maybe if I get a savvy lab coat I can even put my camcorder to good use.

And with that folks, my EEE and I say good night.

P.S. I just had to finish proofreading this right when an episode of South Park came on the TV.. Now I won’t get to bed until three. Dammit! Curse you television for distracting me so!

Rob Blog News, General, Physics, Self-Reflection josh, kristen, Physics, ramble, reflection, television