| hoodelyhoo |
[Sep. 28th, 2009|03:48 pm] |
I feel as though I'm far more cognizant of my mortality than most people my age, which leads to an irrational fear of dying before I get to raise my children. Somehow I feel as though raising children is the most a person can do to achieve a meaningful way of living on and affecting the world when you die. Of course I also worry that such mortality anxiety won't go away after raising children, but I really feel as though that's about all I can do.
Well that and keep on doing everything else I love doing till the day I die. And that's just gonna have to be enough. Problem is there's too damn many things I want to do. Cosmology, pedagogy, music, and artificial intelligence are the four biggies. Need to get a goddamn think tank of people who think the same way and set up shop in the northwest. Now that'd be something worth doin.
Had a correspondence with Casey a while back where he brought up something I said to him back before the dinosaurs, "Live each day like it's your first and leave a blazing trail of mirth in your path." Well that's got more wisdom in it than the last-day living I've had goin on at any rate.
Anywho, I haven't kept in touch with too many people who I damn well ought to be keeping in touch with, so that's what's been on my mind. |
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| Here's lookin at you, Steve and Victor |
[Sep. 21st, 2009|12:29 am] |
So I'm trying to make a Minkowski-like space-time diagram with a proper time axis. This obviously presents some conceptual challenges when dealing with multiple frames of reference, and a hard to shake Minkowski diagram intuition.
By a proper time axis, I mean that as a particle passes by a given point in space, you ask the particle what time its watch says it is, and there's your space-time coordinate. Right off the bat it sets any null geodesics to flat, horizontal lines (which is actually kind of a nice consequence. You'd like something called a null vector to be 0 categorically in some sense). It also obviates time-dilational paradoxes like the twin paradox (when they reunite, the traveling twin's proper time will be smaller than the other twin's proper time, end of story).
When thinking about the twin paradox, however, the very strength of this kind of diagram reveals its more unintuitive side, that of simultaneity. Points on this diagram do not represent events in space-time, simply because the time is subjective to the path. I'd really like to make a diagram which is isomorphic to Minkowski's, but I'm not sure just yet if that's possible. I don't care how many other axis need to be shoved in there to keep enough information, but there must be, of course, the one axis which is the proper time axis.
With a Minkowski diagram, the coordinates are space-time from one inertial reference frame, and all other inertial reference frames are embedded within their own skewed axes. In this new kind of diagram, the proper time is a universal axis, so to communicate relative issues like simultaneity there will need to be a way to relate the different paths to one another.
One way to do all this would be to make a 3D Minkowski diagram, space, time, and proper time. If the 2D version of the diagram is truly not isomorphic then there would seem to be little recourse (other than just showing both 2D diagrams next to each other). The 3D approach will clearly never catch on though, so the trick is to either prove it is isomorphic, or to find enough properties where it reveals interesting properties of scenarios to be worth having.
It's flagrant downside is that it simply won't contain more information than Minkowski's, although it will make some properties explicit whereas they may be more hidden within Minkowski's. It's purpose is pedagogical, so it had better be worth the additional effort. It's hard to tell if it would be worth it for an audience just learning the subject. On the one hand it'll help visualize relative proper time, on the other hand it could be confusing for someone struggling to make the traditional diagram intuitive. |
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| how bout a boltzmann KICK IN THA NUTZ |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|02:49 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Boom Boom Pow | ] |
alright, that was too long and not engaging enough. How about this one. So here's the idea with the multiverse. The eternal/infinite inflation model is basically the following. Ignore the universe, and suppose all there is is an infinitely large vacuum. Turns out even empty space can have intrinsic field structure with energy density. E = mc^2, so this energy can theoretically be moved from the latent field energy into mass ==> go go infinitely many big bangs.
Now, inflation comes in by saying that this infinite vacuum is growing (it's infinite already. But it's like a loaf of bread that's rising in the oven. Suppose you have an infinitely large loaf. As it rises it still grows, but every nook and cranny inside of it expands. It's like if you took the number line and started shoving more numbers between every integer in equal proportion so it all expands equally). Anyway, this inflation will affect the energy density of the vacuum, which will in turn affect the sorts of mass that is spontaneously created. It will affect things in terms of the values of fundamental constants and such.
So basically, since this vacuum is infinite, if there's any chance at all that a certain segment of vacuum will be capable of spontaneously transferring some of its energy density into matter with the fundamental constants and such that we see in our universe, then it'll happen. In fact it'll happen an infinite number of times (as a consequence of dealing with an infinitely large vacuum).
As a side note for consistency, the spontaneous transfer of energy from the inflating vacuum into a bubble universe has the effect of plucking the engine which was making the vacuum space inflate, or expand like the loaf of bread. So the resulting bubble universe will still expand a bit, but not nearly to the same extent as the initial vacuum which created it. So we're not super likely to be running into any other bubble universes.
So this multiverse theory is appealing because it's consistent with inflation models, consistent with our knowledge of how our universe is currently expanding in a weird way. And it also fills in a gap of "where did we come from" or "what happened before, or what caused the big bang" type questions. And this "fertile vacuum" is eternal. So you can always say God lives in 2 temporal dimensions and created this if you wanna be like that (though at this level I'm thinking increasingly fewer people care about that sort of explanation).
Alright, great, BUT HERE'S THE RUB. In this multiverse set up, there will be infinitely many more boltzmann brain's (Boltzmann solar systems, Boltzmann universes even), than there will be bubble universes just like ours. Turns out Boltzmann brains are more durable than I had originally understood.
The idea is that this vacuum will create growing universes with fantastic amounts of heat energy running around (just like our early universe), and by sheer virtue of incredible numbers, statistically, some of this random super-hot plasma matter will form a brain just like mine in every way (except instead of being protected by a skull, it'll be coddled in superhot plasma which sill melt it in a trillionth of a second). That's a brain, but Boltzmann solar systems and universes can be created too with enough material. That is, a whole solar system or universe exactly like ours will be spontaneously created (infinitely many times) . Only instead of being surrounded by vacuum as we assume ours is, it'll be surrounded by superhot plasma which is moving at tremendous velocities to annihilate it back to standard chaotic thermal plasma status quo.
And how do we know that we're not in one of these universes? of course we have not the slightest bit of evidence to suggest that we are not. So here's the situation. We try to describe out current universal situation, and figure out a theory which will create our universe in a pleasing, sensible way. It even answers why are things the way they are for us. Only it then catches us with our backs turned and predicts that in all likelihood, our experiences are not being created by the bubble universe that we wanted (that we made the damned theory trying to describe its origin in the first place). But rather that we're probably in some ridiculous statistical abomination, on the verge of annihilation eventually.
So what to make of it? We surely can't say that its predictions are wrong can we? It's statistically overwhelming that we're not in a bubble universe by this multiverse model that was made to describe how our bubble universe could be constructed. So do we throw the theory out? On what basis? We don't LIKE its conclusions? We certainly COULD still be in a bubble universe just like we want to be in. The theory allows that. Infinitely many times even.
Hell I don't know what to think of it. |
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| What I've been thinking about recently |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|06:13 pm] |
The cosmology group that I'm trying to get in with at Tufts has a few of people who work with eternal/infinite inflating multiverse theory, a couple of which deal with the anthropic principle, which I offer an example of as Bostrom states it apparently. It's not something I've put a GREAT amount of thought into. Also, it's in reference to a paper one of the fellas in the group wrote a few years back, in case my blatherings don't make sense on their own :/ http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0303070
Anywho, it's long and rambly, but I'm still working out what I think about some of this hootinany, so if you have any thoughts they'd be much appreciated.
( Paranthropic Anthropic ) |
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| Sermon in the Valley |
[May. 18th, 2009|04:06 pm] |
The Play Write wishes to inform You that he doesn't really know where he's going with this one. Yet, here it is. It's started. And unfortunately for the Play Write, inaction is simply not possible. For here We are, and even if the next hour and a half had only the soundtrack of the occasional cough courtesy of the swine flu from the audience, well that would be the play, like it or not. And there's a footnote here, reads, "This is a sentiment which broadly ought to resonate with every human, thereby making this play already feel personally meaningful to everyone. It's as though I've managed to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of every recipient of this opening monologue. Fucking brilliant." So where to begin. Or continue, rather. The "beginning" has already occurred. I could restart it, but that would just be an even worse second scene, 0 for 2. blah blah blah.
I can tell you personally, as a paid actor, that I don't like this monologue very much. And standing in front of all of you, rather than just talking one on one as equals, over tea or coffee. It feels really ingenuine. I'm a heartfelt person by nature. (This is the Play Write, now, talking through me. He doesn't know two shits about the actor). I'd like to know your stories, each and every one of them. I think the more I know about people the more I know about humanity. And I am first and foremost a human, a Humanist, Bokononist even. Don't even worry about the puppet actor talking now. They're just performing. I'm the one trying to whisper. So I invite you all to write your stories up and send them to me. I gave you my e-mail in the handout. And please do send them, I'd appreciate and cherish them very much, as I do you.
Now then, please turn to page 2 in your handout, and please stand as you are able for the singing of our doxology. *piano plays through doxology once before singing*
"From all that dwells below the skies,
Let faith and hope with love arise,
Let beauty truth and good be sung,
Through every land by every tongue."
You may be seated.
Lights down. scene two. An enormous modern stained glass display of the sun is placed in the center of the stage. it takes up the significant majority of the stage. Start playing music, I'm not sure what sort. Something modernist. A chamber symphonic orchestra, or recording of one. Something which is not alienating, but rather transcending. The stage erupts in yellow fiery light as the stained glass sun is lit up from many angles. The sun is layered, with at least one of the back layers on a silent axel in the center so that it may freely rotate slowly. The idea is to maximize awe, with a dose of hypnotic imagery. The scene lasts 4 minutes with a full minute of darkness and silence after.
The rest of the play revolves around a small chunk of life of a male character with a fully developed story that I just haven't thought of. Regardless there must be motifs of awe with three basic sources: Religious, Scientific (in the cosmological perspective), and Humanistic (no matter how unthinkably huge the universe may be, the single most important thing in it is Human love and compassion). Heavy on musical and visually artistic themes. |
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| wruh wroh |
[Jul. 18th, 2008|01:50 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | still digging on "infinity", by Merrick turns out. | ] |
I very nearly posted a nice little self-deprecating monologue for y'alls before snapping out of it, so be thankful. But it's recently hit me that I've had my head in my proverbial academic ass for a while now, and now that I have a week or two to breathe before grad school hits me, I find myself reflecting on how I haven't hardly done anything good for anybody for the past four years (individual relationships aside), so I was hoping I could pick the collective social justicularly conscious minds of the elites of society (i.e. anyone who reads this) for ideas on things I could do that would help people, things I can do while having a job and for only three weeks as I'll be starting up grad school pretty soon...
In other news, I made up my first modern d20 character, an ex-computer scientist driven to a rugged life on the fringe of society by the disturbing philosophical Godelian implications of a program he wrote while on acid. http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=68167 |
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| Gedunken Shmedunken |
[Jul. 11th, 2008|03:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  melancholy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Infinity" not sure who it's by | ] |
Here's a question. Suppose I have an electron sitting comfortably in some finite potential well (think a ball in a soup bowl where the ball is moving around in the bowl but not moving fast enough to pop out of the bowl). Suppose further that the wavefunction of the electron extends outside of the bowl (think of the ball as a wave whose ends flop a little ways outside the bowl. Even though its ends extend outside the bowl, the "ball" is considered to be bounded by the bowl). So there exists a probability of measuring the electron to be outside the bowl.
That's fine, it's called quantum tunneling. It's OK for an electron to be measured to be in a place where it doesn't have enough energy to belong, it just can't stay outside the potential well forever, it has to come back, sooner rather than later.
Here's my twist. Quantum tunneling has been shown to allow a particle to effectivley achieve speeds faster than light. Suppose, then, that our electron has done this, it has effectively teleported momentarily outside its potential well. Now, E&M forces are not communicated instantly, the information travels at the speed of light. But our electron is momentarily faster than the speed of light. This suggests that the electron outside of the bowl will feel a repulsive force from itself (itself in this case meaning "the electron as it was very recently inside the bowl").
Suppose the electron initially had almost enough energy to escape the potential well, but now the electron is given a boost of energy, and so can safely travel outside the potential well and never return, as it now has more energy than before.
The problem with this, of course, is that we've just added energy from nowhere into our system. If the electron didn't start out with enough energy to permanently escape the potential well, and noone outside the system gave the electron any more energy, the electron will never ever be able to permanently escape the well. period. That's conservation of energy, arguably the most fundamentally important law in all of physics. So...what's wrong with my argument other than the fact that it's rather important to the scientific community that it be wrong? |
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| DnPhD |
[Nov. 15th, 2007|12:51 pm] |
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You know the scene in the Prestige when they're meeting with Nikoli Tesla and he takes them to a field at night time with all the lightbulbs stuck in the ground and yet shining, but taking them out of the ground turns them off? I didn't like that part of the movie because I thought that was not possible, and for some reason I appreciated some sense of realism that movie had (clone teleporting not withstanding). Turns out it's not only possible but Nikoli Tesla did it. Eat that shit, my distinction between physics and wizardry. |
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| Quick Things |
[Oct. 1st, 2007|03:34 pm] |
I am writing a thesis now. I wanted it to be about teleportation, as per long standing obligations, but that didn't pan out. It's about dipoles, their potential functions, and the existence of bound states for various dimensions. It's only interesting if you have any idea what it is, but even then it's not stellar. Of course I'd be happy to get in to it with anyone who's interested, but probably not here.
I have my own office 30 ft. below the ground. It's about a 25 x 20 ft. space, and I should be sharing it with two others but they never work here.
There's not much for decorations, except for a small pyramid of coffee cups, though there is a fully functional 5-foot tall tesla coil in the corner.
I also have a blackboard, and it is full of theoretical models for lightsabers.
That's a pretty good glimpse of my life right now. That and my nights which have been primarily taken over by a disease called World of Warcraft -- if you're on Stormscale Horde, give a shout to Malconstant (read cross between Malachi Constant and always evil).
I miss having interesting things to think about. After GREs and Grad school apps, I think I might write up a decent little manuscript about special relativity, an introductory text that focuses on developing and understanding the theory conceptually by working through its logically insane results, eventually including a little compendium of special relativistic paradoxes to chew on. Would anyone be interested in this?
Here's one for those who know a little SR:
A screw (with no head, just a uniform bar with threads) and a nut are zooming towards each other at some fantastic speed. They are also both spinning really quickly such that when they reach each other they can pass effortlessly through each other. In the screw's frame of reference, however, the screw is longer, so its threads are more spread out, whereas the nut is shorter so its threads are scrunched in together, thus making it impossible for the nut to fit onto the screw. But if it worked in one frame it's got to work in all others. SO WHAT'S THE DEAL!?!? |
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| I'm not sure... |
[Apr. 10th, 2007|06:18 pm] |
...but I may have broken physics.
So take the ( EPR paradox ) . Now, let the two detectors travel away from each other at some velocity, so each one believes in their frame of reference that they measured their electron before the other measured theirs. Before either electron is measured, neither electron has a well defined spin, but once either one is measured, they both have spin, and they are oppositely correlated. So if each detector believes that they measured first, then what's to stop them from measuring spins that have no correlation? Or rather, suppose they still correlate like they should, what the hell is going on?
To put it another way. Lets hold the detectors still and run the experiment as usual. You'll still have a frame of reference that holds that one of the electrons was observed before the other one was. Therefore in that frame of reference, either it's the case that one of two entangled electrons has a well-defined spin while the other one doesn't, or they both in fact have well-defined spins, but one of them gained theirs before it was measured. If it's the former case, then there shouldn't be anything to stop that observer from then measuring the second electron and getting a 50-50 chance of disrupting a fundamental conservation law. If it's the latter case, then you can come up with yet another frame of reference that looks at the original electron even earlier in its trajectory at the same time as the second electron has already been shown to have a well-defined spin, and once again you have the situation with one electron having a well-defined spin while the other one doesn't, at the same time in someone's frame of reference.
Follow that ladder down far enough and you get to the point where the pion first decayed into the two electrons, and their spins are both immediately determined, way before either of them are ever measured. That seems to say that there has been a hidden variable that was not considered, because they were determined right from their conception, which gives plenty of time for that information to travel to the detectors before the electrons get there. The hidden variable becomes the future measurement. The act of the measurement forced the electrons to be determined since well before the measurement, so the act of the measurement is the hidden variable which would inform the measurement of what is should be -- I wonder if that falls under Bell's Theorem or not.
But that's all along one interpretation of what happens. The other interpretation, as I said above, is that even though there exists this frame of reference where one of the electrons has been measured but the other one hasn't, all that means is that one of the electrons has been determined but the other one is still not well defined. But that means that if this observer were to measure the second electron, they would have a 50-50 shot at breaking a fundemental conservation law. So it really seems to force the situation into the one where the measurement pre-determines the spins.
So if we're committed to the philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics that it is not the case that a particle is well-defined before we measure it, well, then I think we may be in trouble. |
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| Simmummer Plans |
[Mar. 23rd, 2007|07:46 pm] |
Looks like I'm going to spend summer in Portland working on robotic sugery algorithms and writing pattern recognition software to teach $1,500,000 robots how to be surgeons. Which is basically just giving robots detailed information on how to kill us faster. But they're paying me, so you know, whatever.
Anyway, that means that my time in Geneva will be short, but I do get to choose when the 10 weeks are that I'll be occupied, so what I need is information on when people are going to be around so that I can choose my time wisely, 'cause it would really suck to come home for two weeks only and just sit around twiddling my thumbs.
So yeah, I needs that. But Dave needs something cool to draw, and although I'm all about having it be some sort of artistic representation of quantum mechanics, something Escherish, it seems that he's just not cool enough to do that. Yeah, I guess Dave's just a big old loser idiot, huh. So you could also offer up ideas for cool things for him to draw, or you can just join me in heckling him without any real provokation.
Excellent. |
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| Tenacious D Concert Last Night |
[Feb. 20th, 2007|03:41 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  Rockin | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Live "Tribute" (in my brain!) | ] |
So that was amazing. Probably the best concert I've ever been to (and I've seen Weird Al live).
Also, for those who haven't heard, my "The lock and key paradox and the limits of rigidity in special relativity" paper is getting published in the American Journal of Physics.
In addition, I believe I have unlocked the secret to flying. A tantalizing hint: it has something to do with becoming a god and restructuring the very fabric of our universe -- also, you have to not hit the ground when you fall (for ths part, I recommend digging a hole straight to China (interestingly, this principle applies wherever you are, even if you're in Japan, or the moon), or abandoning ship in outer space). And you have to believe me because it's science! |
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| we are the D we are the D we are the D we are the D we are the D we are the D we are the D we are th |
[Nov. 21st, 2006|03:30 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown) | ] |
I'll make a better entry in a little bit, but I just wanted to see who else has been listening to nothing other than the new Tenacious D cd, the soundtrack to the Pick of Destiny, since it came out last week. There were some bad feelings from the classico music video --harsh words were spoken in heat, some that I regret, but between Kickapoo, Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown), and to a lesser extent The Master Exploder and Destiny, I have seen the light, and really cannot wait until the movie comes out, which is fortunate because it comes out tomorrow.
I gotta go, but I garuntee a cool update in two weeks. GARUNTEE. .. TWO .
Oh yeah, also I turned 21. how's about that. |
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| A little bit of number theory |
[Oct. 19th, 2006|02:30 am] |
So I just read the unrigorous proof of Godel's Incompleteness theorem.
( Here's the gist. )
That proof took me about two hours to wrap my mind around.
Here's another crazy thing. No proof, but supposedly it's true. Suppose you do the thing where you convert the TNT into numbers (by the way, any numbers will do, you'll just have to change the functions accordingly) (also by the way, that doesn't make any sense unless you read part of the lj-cut), then for any formal system that's at least as expressive as number theory, there exists a polynomic equation (like the quadratic equation, only more generalized) such that its solution is impossible to find, yet a property of the solution is that it is an enormous number that is a step-by-step derivation (like the one we did above) of why that polynomial equation is impossible to solve. How's about dem apples.
Also, I hope to have up by sometime today a game I made with java for class. It's the simple arcade "breakout" game, though I threw on a couple bells and whistles including an accurate, if simplified, physics engine for gravity that you can toggle on and off. When it's up it'll be at www.reed.edu/~piercee
(really clever name, I know)
Everybody wish Lizzy good luck today, she's taking the GRE! |
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| A Realization |
[Sep. 23rd, 2006|09:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | I have a brain on my brain! | ] |
| [ | music |
| | the badass motif from "Master of the Flying Guillotine" | ] |
I don't want to read Shoenberg. I want to play video games.
But how about I give this update the slightest hint of substance and ask for people's gmail account name things so we can get all ins with the chatting. I'm pierce.evan@gmail.com it's really clever, I know.
Oh, how about I make this update possibly interesting by asking what people wish they would do for halloween if they had more time or will. So that's it, gimmie your gmail name (or if you don't have one and want one, I can probably help you out), and give me some ideas for something crazy to do for halloween. I've got a house now, though I don't know the neighborhood all that well, I'm crossing my fingers for getting trick or treaters.
Oh yeah, I have a house now, it's really awesome. I won't live in a place this nice for many years after this I expect. I'll make an album of the pictures I've taken of them sometime and post them.
I also got a green laser pointer, which is absolutely a geeky thing to have, but at night time you can literally see the laser beam extend from the pointer as a beam into the atmosphere, like an incredibly long and skinny light saber. It's great for pointing at stars, though I don't know anything about them, which is a shame because I'm in astronomy right now.
Oh man! I'm also taking a sailing P.E. class. How cool is that! It's an hour and a half from the ocean so we don't go there, and the boats are these little 15 ft x 6 ft dinky things with a main sail and a jib, but who cares? I get just a little taste of James' life which I have been living vicariously through for a couple of years now.
Yeah, I guess that's good for now. |
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| Life of Pi |
[Jul. 18th, 2006|10:45 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  oh timboogaly | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Well Tempered Clavier | ] |
The more I think about it, the less novel it seems; In fact I'm pretty sure that insight is exactly what the author intended. So uhhh, never mind the last post. I mean, if you've got something to say about it, then by all means go ahead, but yeah, I just liked the ending I guess; good book.
And here's a number theory problem that was given to me by Steve that I've been chewing on recently. It goes like this: given any positive integer, if the number is even, divide it by two, and if the number is odd, multiply it by three and add 1. Then take your new number and run it through the same hoops (i.e. suppose you decided to start with "3". Well, 3 is odd, so you multiply it by 3 and add 1, to get 10. Now you have 10. Well, 10 is even, so you divide it by 2 to get 5. 5 being odd you multiply it by 3 and add 1 to get 16, then 8, then 4, then 2, then 1. One quickly goes back to 1 again, try it if you don't believe me.). So the question is, does any positive integer eventually work its way down to 1?
Ideally there's a proof of some kind. Here's an example of a nice simple proof that there are in fact infinitely many prime numbers (it's a variant of Euclid's proof, I'm stealing it from "Godel Escher Bach"): Pick a number--N (must be a positive integer, a "counting number"). Multiply all the positive integers starting with 1 and ending with N; in other words, take the factorial of N, written "N!" What you get is divisible by every number up to N. When you add 1 to N!, the result can't be divisible by 2 (the remainder is 1 if you try), can't be divisible by 3 (the remainder is 1 again), can't be divisible by 4 (same remainder)... all up to N, which is also can't be divisible by (clearly, and the remainder there is also 1). In other words, "N!+1", if it is divisible at all (which it may well be), only is divisible by numbers greater than N. So either N!+1 itself is prime, or it's divisible by prime numbers that are both greater than N. in either case, there must exist a prime number greater than N. And since N was a completely arbitrary number, this property must hold for all numbers, and thus there must exist an infinite number of prime numbers. Think about it for a minute if it doens't make sense.
But anyway, that's a nice example of a simple, straightforward, convincing, crowd pleaser of a proof. Now for this monster, the proof will almost certainly be a bit trickier (for instance, I've been able to prove that 11/12 of all numbers must fit this property, that's a good half of a page full of individual mini-proofs right there, and I have no idea about that extra 12th), but it's fun to think about (if you're a nerd like me). Going about it "inductively", I've written a program that tests each number individually, working its way futily on towards infinity. It's just about at 2,000,000,000 as we speak, 1,712,170,332 to be more precise, calculating a jaw-dropping 10,000 new numbers every second or so. And these are in the hundred million range, for a comparison, try proving the number 27 by hand. |
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| hotdamn |
[Jun. 9th, 2006|12:14 am] |
So I was hoping to work with a professor in her research in optics over the summer. This fell through when she decided that Reed wasn't the place for her, and I was bid back home by my parents to find a summer job, keep me out of trouble. So for the past week I delivered pizzas and made $500 doing it, and I was just informed that there is "definite interest" on the part of some people in the accelerator division of Fermilab for me to intern there for free. So I'm going to see how that goes, but the informer made it sound as though it was in the bag so long as I do half of a bureaucratic jump, so I'm pretty exited. That is, it's not secured yet, but if it gets secured, then that will be one check mark off of my non-existant list of wildest dreams. And of course experience working there for free would make connections and drastically increase my chances of getting in on the real, paid internship program next year, and having that kind of experience on your resume can make an astronomical difference in future endeavors, oh how the mind wanders.
anyway, that's about it. Except that I've made a new model for a light saber. It's a trick of waves, but if you can have an enormous number of light sources shooting light in all directions placed very close to each other on a disk, then the waves all interfere into nothing except for an infinite beam that the disk resides in. So if you have is to that half of the light sources are at one frequency and half of them are at another, you can have them add up to make a powerful concentration right away and then completely cancel each other out, say 3-feet down the line, and if you can make the light diffuse quickly enough then it won't bulge again, so you're just left with a single 3-foot bulge of concentrated light. Of couse it wouldn't work like the movies, and if your opponent had so much as a mirror you would be in pretty bad shape, but for showy purposes it could work very well.
Also, I'm reading "Godel Escher Bach" which is a phenomenal book that I reccomend to everyone. more on that one later. |
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| Gratuitous Renn Fayre + Finals Post |
[May. 10th, 2006|05:43 pm] |
so this is what I did two weekends ago:
http://www.mlhp.net/alum/rf06/RF06.html
http://www.reed.edu/~torborgs/sophomoreyear/rennfayre.html
http://flickr.com/photos/susaneb/12033986/in/set-294143/
http://www.sharpsharpsharp.com/dantoffey/Day1/index.html
http://www.sharpsharpsharp.com/dantoffey/Day2/index.html
http://www.sharpsharpsharp.com/dantoffey/Day3/index.html
http://homepage.mac.com/dianaoliva/PhotoAlbum4.html
http://reed.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2002068&l=1c01e&id=9700197
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2002109&l=2cc26&id=9700241
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2002127&l=271a5&id=9700241
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurelfactorial/sets/72057594076312912/
I can't find any of me, as it were. The theme was NeverLand. some guys constructed a 40-ft tall replica of the Hook crocodile in the wooden case with the clock in its mouth. Some physics people got a car, ripped off the hood, set up a sail on top with Schrodinger's Equation written on it and made it a pirate ship. Some guy had an enormous (~6 foot tall) penis costume on and was wearing a Cardinal's hat on top. I got to play one of those marching band drum things with the 4-5 drums lined up that you haul around and walk with the seniors, keeping up a tribal dance beat with the others as they made a ceremonial if not drunken march through campus.
So anyway, the point is that unless you are being tied down by a plethora of large men (a PLETHORA), I'm gonna want to see you there either next year or, even better, my serior year.
I feel as though science is only making my sense of reality more of less on par with that of a meth user. I've covered quantum mechanics this year, and believe me that's enough, but in Electrodynamics there's a problem where you have to either say that there's no reason a particle that's just sitting around won't just spontaneously radiate and fly away OR you must accept that it will experience a force prior to the force being imposed. So either radical unlikelyness or acausality. It's trickier than that, but that way sounds sexier. And that's why we do physics. for the sex.
But after I recover from my gang bang that was finals week, I'll see about being more coherent.
Quick poll: anyone want me to work myself into a rant on quantum mechanics? Philosophy? Poop Jokes? (as if I have to ask) |
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| Photobucket |
[Mar. 19th, 2006|01:35 pm] |
Ladies and gentleman, I give you Snow Elephant.
You may not be able to tell from the picture, but that is roughly a 5-foot tall elephant made out of snow. Made with the assistance of James "the cute one" Dooley (the man behind that little arsenal of snowball hell), Shorty Dooley (I honestly can't remember her "real" name), Lizzy "the tough one" Garland (the mastermind behind a snow penguin that I'll probably put up in another 5 months or so), and Gillian "the smelly one" Jackson (who, if I recall correctly, basically just sat around being smelly, what a jerk). I can't remember if Sarah helped, but if she did, well, there's her name too. And, of course, Ellie "The Elephant" (the model for the monument whose strongly antisemetic ways serve as an inspiration to us all). Thanks to y'alls. That was a kickass day. |
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