Thursday, June 28, 2007

a week of work

29 June - 12:45pm

Our first week of work is just about done. I'm writing this as I'm waiting for a Mathematica process to run (yup, my equations are so crazy that it actually takes MMA time to process them....I've already broken it a few times...mmm....theoretical astrophysics).

The beginning of the week was a bit rough because we had to give a presentation on Tuesday on our current research. Now, while I worked pretty hard on my research before I came here, I didn't get anything to a stopping point, which was too bad. But it also meant that I had absolutely nothing that was presentable on it. I mean, all I've been doing this past semester was trying to figure out what was going on and then program. So, really, my presentation would just have been about debugging issues that I came across. Weee...lots of fun. Instead, I grabbed an older presentation that I did from fall semester on an alternative theory to dark matter, which is called Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or MOND. Essentially what is says is that Newton was right when it comes to physics on the Earth and the planets and stuff. But when it comes to more subtle accelerations, it just doesn't work. So, the people who came up with MOND took F = m*a and made it F = m*a*u, where "u" is a piece-wise function that factors into the equation at some points and goes to 1 at other times. I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with this theory, but I do think it's good to question the basics of physics - and isn't 70% of matter being dark a bit much to swallow? On the other hand, MOND doesn't fit into any other theory - not general relativity, not cosmology, nothing. In fact, it only really does what it was designed to do - which was model the rotational curves of galaxies. This was what I presented on, instead of my "current" research. Now, part of me was sort of hoping that no one at the IIA would know what I was talking about and, hence, couldn't ask me questions. However, this was not so much the case, I realized, when a faculty member found me before the talks and handed me 2 papers that he had written on MOND - which cited another dozen or so of his papers on the subject. To say the least, I was probably answering questions for about 10 minutes after my presentation. But I think I handled them rather well - thank god I prepared ahead of time.

On Wednesday, my advisor - who is a most excellent advisor - gave me a list of tasks to work on. Each one moves progressively through my understanding and my project. It was really rather great of him, since it's nice to know that he's thinking about what I'm to learn and how I'm supposed to achieve my goal. On top of that, I actually have a sense of direction and work to do! Such a change from this past semester, it's rather exhilarating. Makes me want to get through as much as I can to show him that I can do a whole project in 5 weeks.

That said, we are taking a nice weekend trip - starting tonight. We were invited by some people that we met at the bar last Friday to go to a little town called Hampi. Nick, Sonnett, and I (Russell has opted out) will be taking an overnight train there, staying Saturday night in town, then coming back Sunday night to arrive Monday morning early. I've heard that this town is rather beautiful and is known for it's temples and gorgeous sites. It's also famous for it's Monkey Temple. Oh yeah, Monkey Temple. I'm so down. Plus, I'm hoping it will be relaxing. And yes, I will take tons of pictures - but probably only digital. We will be hauling our stuff around with us and I don't want it to be heavy. I will packing soooo light, it will be ridiculous.

Oh, so I've posted a few more pictures onto the existing album - here's the link again (which is now actually a link):

http://asu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021262&l=f0d60&id=4301793

Love to all....

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