This Dilbert cartoon really hits home, because I am both a physicist and an attorney!

So anybody want to incorporate in another universe? Want to buy some real estate in another dimension? Want to find a loophole using a worm-hole, I can help you with that! Trust me, I wrote a book about it.

I would have expected a cartoon like this from XKCD, not from Dilbert!

The Vocabulary column in NY Times had an interesting question:

This weekend, co-vocabularists are invited to submit novel nouns of assemblage for modern phenomena. A bucket of Wiis? A swamp of blogs? A murder of crowds?

So what would you call a crowd of physicists? Here are my suggestions:

A quantum of physicists

A current of physicists

A plasma of physicists

A horizon of physicists

A resistance of Physicists

An einstien of physicists / A bohr of physicists / A hawking of physicists

An inertia of physicists

A sigma of physicists

Of course, a crowd of string theorists will be called:

A string of Physicists

A knot of Physicists

A manifold of Physicists

A dimension of physicists

I am sure you can come up with something better. Leave a note in the comment.

Path Integral Formulation of your life. I know that if I were to draw my life, it will have so many kinks, and loops and several places where there are discontinuities. And oh, yah, I also have a couple of year where I have no idea what I was doing, and a few twists and turns making it unintegrable!

Sunny is applying irresistible force to an immovable object.
Sunny is Blue shifted
Sunny believes in emergent gravity
Sunny believes that ice cream is responsible for emergent gravity
Sunny is exploring Short Range Correlations
Sunny is going through a phase transition
Sunny is tunneling through a high potential barrier
Sunny is guilty of pseudo random number sampling
Sunny was responsible for the supernova event that happened 630M years after the big bang.
Sunny is looking for the breaks to stop cosmic acceleration.
Sunny likes his coffee super heated and his milkshake super cooled
Sunny has neutrino vision, no wonder he can’t sleep at night.
Sunny is self diffused.
Sunny calculates everything from first principles.

The old ones are here.

Click on the above to see a lot more interesting details.

Not sure about you, but I think I would think better and more clearly, if I were surrounded by 50,000 volts, displayed as beautiful dancing arcs, streaming out of my hat and my shirt and my sneaker; sort of a visual representation of the various thought processes running in my head.

Who needs Twitter when you can have TeslaArctr visually showing off and thought-casting in real time; thought-casting with arcs or arc-casting your thoughts.

My hats off to Peter Terren, who is bringing the Tesla coil to a new level of science, art and fun. He is an inspiration to all thoughtful-tinkerers in the world.

Peter Terren has created a shocking new image of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ - by shooting 500,000 volts of electricity down his body as he sat in the pose.

Using a home-built Tesla coil pieced together from junk and bits from hardware stores, Peter Terren risked his life to make the electrifying image.

He was also only protected from painful death by electrocution by a layer of cheap builders’ foil.

Terren, from Bunbury, Western Australia,said: ‘I wanted to convey the concept of the modern electrical age with the barrage of electrical interference in our lives. So much is happening and demanding our attention that it is difficult to “think”.

‘I decided upon a real life posture like the thinker with a lot of electrical activity around me with sparks onto my body.’

Source Tesla Down Under

[UPDATE] Note from Peter Terren:

Ahem.. (clears throat ready to talk-like-a-physicist).
It is remarkable how the magnitude of voltage has reduced by one - 50,000 volts in this article, 500,000 in the Daily Mail article versus the 200,000 mentioned on my site.
In fact we are all wrong. The peak voltage generated from a Tesl coil can be predicted by the ratio of inductances in a linked resonant system multiplied by the primary coil peak voltage. This is provided there is no load. Once the sparks start breaking out and a load develops in a chaotic manner, then there is no fixed value in what is a highly chaotic waveform which is modulated by the mains 50Hz, spark gap of 1400 BPS and system resonance of around 100kHz. The peak voltage may be considerably lower and depends in all likelihood on cosmic ray ionisation locally as a significant influence on spark directions and initiation.
But lets not bring celectial muons into the equation, lets just call it 200kV.

(Oh and by the way, that’s me)

My favorite irrational number, with my favorite drink!

A lolcat is an image combining a photograph, most frequently of a cat, with a humorous and idiosyncratic caption in (often) broken English—a dialect which is known as “lolspeak”.

Physics isn’t immune to LOLcats either.

antigravity Lolcats

Source

Around the World in 80 Telescopes: I am eagerly awaiting the start of the webcast of around the world in 80 telescope. It starts on 4/3/09 at 9.00 UT; so about an hour from now for me.

Go here to watch it.

The 24-hour long webcast is organized by the European Southern Observatory for the International Year of Astronomy cornerstone project 100 Hours of Astronomy.

The webcast event follows night and day around the globe to visit some of the most advanced observatories on Earth and in space, exploring the universe in visible light and beyond.

The Gemini North Telescope (Hawaii, USA) and the large observatories at the summit of volcanic Mauna Kea are scheduled for the first stops in the program beginning April 3 at 1 Am PST.

Others on the schedule include the Swift Satellite and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Himalayan Chandra Telescope (Hanle, India), and the 10-meter South Pole Telescope and IceCube Neutrino Telescope (South Pole, Antarctica).

I wanted to post this tattoo in the Pi edition to show that the magical number Pi appears at the strangest of places. One would not have expected the summation of inverse squares of integers to add up to some combination related to Pi, but here it is.

This little baby is also due to Euler. In 1644 Mengoli asked if anyone could find a closed-form value (and prove it rigorously) for the infinite sum of the reciprocals of the squares. So, what is 1+1/4+1/9+1/16……. and so forth off to infinity. Contrary to intuition this series does not diverge to infinity. Although we are adding infinitely-many positive amounts together we still get a finite number. This is because the positive amounts that we are adding are getting smaller sufficiently fast. It was known that this sum was approximately 1.644. However, when Mengoli asked for a closed-form value he was looking for an EXACT expression, not a decimal approximation. In 1735 Euler found the closed-form solution. If you continue to Tattoo Number 4 part 2 you will see the sum.

Source Doctordani

More about Basel Function here.

Talking about the strangest places Pi appears, I wasn’t thinking of Pi being on PeppermintStripe’s lips. I bet she can recite 100 digits of Pi, easy! This is really cool.

Source: PeppermintStrips’s Deviant Art.

Bozone: noun, The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.

Egoravity: noun, the physical force identified in Newton’s (unpublished) fourth law of physics– that everything revolves around me.

From Addictionary.

‘Live from Mars’ layer to view the latest images from NASA’s THEMIS camera on board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, sometimes just hours after NASA receives them. You can also see live satellite orbital tracks, or check out where the HiRISE camera plans to image next.

Another interesting feature added to Google Earth is the ‘Guided Tours’ feature. If you’re not sure where to go on Mars, Google lets Bill Nye and Public Radio’s Ira Flatow, host of Science Friday show you around. You can go to the Mars Gallery layer, and double-click either of their tours for a narrated trip around the Martian surface. Google claims that this is a great way to introduce oneself to some of the most interesting spots on the planet - just sit back, and enjoy the ride. If something catches your eye, you can pause these tours at any time and explore on your own, then hit play to resume your journey.

Apart from these features, there’s a browseable layer of Google’s favorite satellite images, visible and infrared global views, geo-located excerpts from A Traveler’s Guide to Mars, and others. Google has also included 3D models of NASA rovers. Also, you can use the search box to locate famous sites like the ‘face on Mars’, just like surfing Earth.

Some of the hi-res images are absolutely stunning.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a resolution introduced two days earlier that designates March 14, 2009 (3/14, get it?) as National Pi Day. It urges schools to take the opportunity to teach their students about Pi and “engage them about the study of mathematics.”

Zuck called them “lighthearted reminders about the importance of math and science education,” adding “this year we decided to put together an effort to see if we could use this as a mechanism to increase awareness for math and science education.”

All the arguments in favor of Pi Day also apply equally to Physics Day.

The text of the resolution is here;

Whereas the Greek letter (Pi) is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter;

Whereas the ratio Pi is an irrational number, which will continue infinitely without repeating, and has been calculated to over one trillion digits;

Whereas Pi is a recurring constant that has been studied throughout history and is central in mathematics as well as science and engineering;

Whereas mathematics and science are a critical part of our children’s education, and children who perform better in math and science have higher graduation and college attendance rates;

Whereas aptitude in mathematics, science, and engineering is essential for a knowledge-based society;

Whereas, according to the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) survey done by the National Center for Education Statistics, American children in the 4th and 8th grade were outperformed by students in other countries including Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, England, South Korea, Latvia, and Japan;

Whereas since 1995 the United States has shown only minimal improvement in math and science test scores;

Whereas by the 8th grade, American males outperform females on the science portion of the TIMSS survey, especially in Biology, Physics, and Earth Science, and the lowest American scores in math and science are found in minority and impoverished school districts;

Whereas America needs to reinforce mathematics and science education for all students in order to better prepare our children for the future and in order to compete in a 21st Century economy;

Whereas the National Science Foundation has been driving innovation in math and science education at all levels from elementary through graduate education since its creation 59 years ago;

Whereas mathematics and science can be a fun and interesting part of a child’s education, and learning about Pi can be an engaging way to teach children about geometry and attract them to study science and mathematics; and

Whereas Pi can be approximated as 3.14, and thus March 14, 2009, is an appropriate day for `National Pi Day’: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) supports the designation of a `Pi Day’ and its celebration around the world;

(2) recognizes the continuing importance of National Science Foundation’s math and science education programs; and

(3) encourages schools and educators to observe the day with appropriate activities that teach students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics.

Attest:

Clerk.

Track the legislation here.

Source CNet

Vai Flickr

Happy birthday professor Einstein!

How do I talk like a Physicist, a primer

Here are some terms that Physicists use:

Order of Magnitude: Use terms like “orders of magnitude” to describe significant differences of scale.

Negligible: When something is small, say it is “negligible” non-zero, but negligible.

Infinitesimal: If it is really really small, say it is infinitesimal.

Non-trivial: For a physicist, nothing is ever hard or difficult - it is always “non-trivial”

First-order approximation : That is only a first-order approximation to a good cup of coffee… “The living room is clean. Well…at least to a first order approximation.”

Canonical: Use “canonical” when you mean “usual” or “standard.” As in, “the canonical example of talking like a physicist is to use the word ‘canonical.’”

Orthogonal: Use “orthogonal” to refer to things that are mutually-exclusive or can’t coincide. “We keep playing phone tag — I think our schedules must be orthogonal”

Empirical Data: Any actual personal experience becomes “empirical data.” i.e. a burn on your hand is empirical data that the stove is hot.

Ground State: You’re not being lazy, you are in your ground state.

Extrapolation: A semi-educated guess is an extrapolation

Ideal Case: You aren’t ignoring details, you are taking the ideal case

Vanishingly small: A tiny amount is “vanishingly small” or “negligible.” Really small is “infinitesimal”

Potential Well: Stuck in a meeting is “trapped in a potential well,” though you hope you can “tunnel out.”

Blackhole: If there is no escape, you are trapped by a black hole, from which there is no escape.

Photons: It’s not light, they are photons. Turning on the lamp becomes emitting photons.

Exercise to Reader: The rest is history becomes “the rest is left as an exercise to the reader…”

Not even wrong. Someone is making an argument using assumptions that are known to be wrong, or are making an argument that can’t be falsified. Courtesy Wolfgang Pauli. “Wait, he’s assuming Ron Paul can still win the Republican nomination? That’s not even wrong.”

For very small values of. This one, I’m afraid, I can best explain by example. “So there are four of us going to dinner.” “Three.” “Okay, so there are four of us for very small values of four.”

Super position: If something seems to act like something else, I say that it’s in a “superposition of the two states”.
Other good words to add to your vocabulary:

Discontinuity
Renormalize
Positive and negative work
God Particle
Dark Energy
Space-time continuum

Other rules:
When you are asked a question, think of improbable ways a statement could be true and then at the end make sure to give correct answer.
When a mere mortal is asked a question “Can a pig fly?” typically the answerer is “No.”
However a physicist will respond as follows:
“They could if there was no gravity, or in interstellar space, or if they had wings, or if they were dropped off a cliff (though it would be a short flight). Generally the answer is NO.”
Here is another example of the same rule:
Q: two trains are a approaching each other at 40 mph and are 8 miles apart, when will they cross each other? An untrained person would say “in about 6 minutes”.
A physicist would respond as:
If the trains are on the same track, they will not cross each other but run in to each other; when you say approaching each other, are the trains engines facing each other? they could go around the world and then cross each other, but for that I need to know the location of the trains. Also, I need to know the lengths of each of the trains to accurately calculate this, but in a trivially simple situation, the trains will cross each other in 6 minutes.
Again, make sure that the correct answer is always present at the end.

Thanks to Sean, JerseyBoy, Swans on tea, dr. Dev. Stephan at Live granades, James Cronen and many others who have commented on various blogs on this issue.

Please check out the FAQ for additional information.

Talk Like a Physicist : March 14th, 2009

The glass is neither half full nor half empty, it is a superposition of a states that is half full and half empty. If you randomly measured the liquid in the glass, half the time you will find that the glass is half full and other half of the time you will find that the glass is half empty - and that is the MOST accurate what to describe the above scenario.

Also, in case you are wondering what happened to the half of the liquid in this glass - yup, you guessed it, the Schrodinger’s cat licked it.

Talk Like a Physicist Day : March 14, 2009

A nation of Einsteins

Check out the FAQ on how to talk like a physicist

]]> http://talklikeaphysicist.com/2009/talk-like-a-physicist-day-a-nation-of-einsteins/feed/ http://talklikeaphysicist.com/2009/more-physics-related-facebook-status-messages-part-iii/ http://talklikeaphysicist.com/2009/more-physics-related-facebook-status-messages-part-iii/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000 Sunny Kalara http://talklikeaphysicist.com/2009/more-physics-related-facebook-status-messages-part-iii/

#Sunny is wearing neutrino repellent armor.
#Sunny : my Schrödinger cat is entangled; might need to call a quantum mechanic.
#Sunny : recession is so bad - I checked the value of pi yesterday and it has gone down to e.
#Sunny is using his pet butterfly to control chaos.
#Sunny is probing ink molecules with nonresonant light.
#Sunny is playing with photon entanglement.
#Sunny is in Metastable Equilibrium and likes it.
#Sunny is an isomer: similar composition but of dissimilar properties.
#Sunny is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere. He is a rebel.

Previous ones are reproduced here:

* Sunny is so cool, he is measured in Kelvins.
* Sunny can see past the event horizon.
* Sunny is defying the uncertainty principle.
* Sunny is made up entirely of dark matter.
* Sunny is blue shifted.
* Sunny is circumpolar.
* Sunny is gravitational lensing
* Sunny is a part of Proton Proton chain responsible for the fusion on the Sun.
* Sunny is a supernova remnant
* Sunny is emanating Hawking radiation
* Sunny is made entirely out of strange quarks - that explains a lot!
* Sunny is cursed with non-zero vacuum energy
* Sunny is a boson.
* Sunny is in a phase lock with a wine glass.
* Sunny’s time arrow points in random direction - I’ll see you yesterday, may be.
* Sunny lives in a quantum constrained system
* Sunny is your long lost supersymmetric partner.
* Sunny is using gravitational lens to warm up earth.
* Sunny is a part of a binary blackhole system.
* Sunny thrives on curved space time.
* Sunny is a pseudo random number generator.
* Sunny is not the problem, he is not the solution - he is the math between the problem and the solution.
* Sunny might not be omnipotent, but under the right circumstances he is nilpotent.
* Sunny doesn’t follow gravity; gravity follows him.

Here are the status messages from the first list of physicist’s facebook status messages:

* Sunny feels the chill from the the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) being cooled to 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F) - colder than deep space. Where did I put my space heater?
* Sunny feels like he’s diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
* Sunny exists purely as a probability density function; he can be at more than one places at the same time.
* Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.
* Sunny is still searching for Higgs.
* I abhor M theory with every fiber of my being.
* almost finished with the paper, I just has to dot my “i” and cross my “h”.
* Sunny has learned not to store plutonium in a tupperwear container.
* is pondering, if Schroedinger’s Cat walks into a forest, and no one is around to observe it, is he really in the forest?
* Wanted, dead AND alive, Schrödinger’s Cat.