Einstein Field Equations

Here in Germany I knew I would be probably yearning for some English, especially in my schooling.  As such, I signed up for a Nuclear Astrophysics class as some of you dear readers already know.  Also, this is a graduate level class.  I knew, or at least had heard, of the Einstein field equations and how they were supposed to equal 42 or some such thing...alright that last part is a lie.  I had heard of them before though.  So it turns out that this class seems to me to be more Cosmology than Nuclear Astrophys, especially since one of the first things mentioned in lecture was how we would develop the tools to solve the field equations in the first few weeks.  Here we are almost 2 months in and we recently got there.

I was amazed.  Why?  Because I was able to follow the steps.  These are 10-coupled equations.  You start with defining the metric which I think describes how the space-time you have should work.  On second thought I'm pretty sure that's wrong, but please roll with it for the purposes of this blog.  Anyway, you have to have this metric so that you can find the Christoffel symbols.  With the Christoffel symbols and the metric, you calculate the Riemann-Christoffel tensor and from that tensor, you use the metric to contract it to the second-rank Ricci tensor.  From the Ricci tensor, contracting with the metric again gets you the Ricci scalar.  And with all these pieces you solve the equations.  I was wowed.  I'm still not sure exactly what these equations tell us, but I'm pretty sure they describe the universe.  Holy cow.  

On a related note, I discovered today that I am definitely a theorist, not an experimentalist.  Sure, I like to think I have a little engineering in my blood, but that's just from watching too much MacGyver as a kid.  I definitely prefer math and the cosmos to experiments with circuits or particle accelerators and what not.  I'm happy sitting at a computer analyzing light from start thousands of light-years away or manually calculating Fourier transforms.  Is that wrong?  

No.  Cheers!

Three Months In

It has been over three months since I moved to Germany to study physics for a year.  You may ask, "Hey Brian, how's it going?"  To which I would naturally respond with "great!" or "it's different, but alright."  But of course, on the inside there is something else that is going on that isn't quite on the level of 'great.'  Inside I'm a spinning turbine of unknown energies and power.  

What does that even mean!?

Got me, this is more of a free-verse-poem-prose-write thing than a normal post.  -rant, I forgot -rant as well.  So what's got me all riled and contorted into some weird brain fart thing?  Well...

I once knew a man in Reno,

who was very tired of Dino

and went from bored to crazy

with a great big oops-a-daisy

cause he didn't know what he said!

So I lied about the free and -verse and -poem part.  Anyway, it's the fact that my classes are in German.  Yes, I hear you laughing from here when you say, "but Brian, you knew what you were signing up for, didn't you?"  Of course I did!  That's not the point.  The point is in the crappy verse I just wrote.  Imagine spending two hours on a hard wooden seat while somebody who you know is intelligent and has something important to tell you jabbers on in a language of which you can follow about 50 percent at best.  This is what happens every class period.

I take notes and notes from boards or powerpoints have always made sense nearly immediately, be it straight math or straight physics.  The real beauty of my notes is from notes I make to the notes themselves, and that comes from the extra things the professor says while he isn't writing on the board.  My notes are crap! because of how little extra stuff I'm able to write down.  I'm borderline twiddling my thumbs sometimes when there is no writing happening on the board.  Thank goodness these professors don't have any odd mannerisms or I'd be caught staring to the point of mesmerization.  

I'm not saying the my German hasn't improved because it has indeed.  It's just that it's not at the point where I can learn as well as I know I can.  And I hope that made sense cause this is a rant and there is no time to correct typos or grammar.  So there.  

Cheers. 

p.s. Additionally and aside from missing Mac&Cheese, IPA, Kiss Cafe, small and intimate coffee shops, regular interaction with animals, my friends and my family, I have no complaints about living in Germany at all.  It's beautiful and the food is great.

Prague: Part 2

Where did I leave off?  Ah yes!  We stayed at the all night café until about 0430 and then migrated to a McDonalds to grab a bite and await the coming of the Starbucks opening time of 0700 (can you believe that!?).  Greeting them with a hearty "Mornin',"since morning it was and we were the first, I grabbed my first peppermint mocha of the season and we walked towards Charles Bridge to cross over to the old city and visit the castle.  The plan had been to watch the sunrise on the bridge as it lit up the buildings on the other side of the river, but gray skies meant that we just watched the gray get a little lighter.  Oh well, next time.  The statues dotting the bridge were amazing.  They were so diverse and detailed that it took us probably 30 minutes to cross this bridge, and half of it was under renovation so half the statues were inaccessible.  Getting over to the other side, we begin by walking around a park area bordering the river.  Turns out there is an art museum there and a strange restaurant with a large row of bright yellow penguins.  I have no idea what use they have.  None.  

Heading farther away from the river, we walked south of the castle and wandered an orchard there, which along with the fruit trees also resembled a large field that was tilted at a huge angle.  It was quite the hike but afforded an amazing view.  The castle was filling the view but it was still several streets away.  I glanced at my map and realized that a little idea I had been toying with was going to bear fruit.  Several embassies were in the immediate area on the way from the orchards to the castle proper including the US one.  All I know about them is from movies or what not and I think I heard from a non-movie source that you can go visit and just say hi if you wanted.  Thinking this was not too dumb an idea and finding it amusing to stand on US soil again, we wandered over.  We walked up and saw our flag flying high.  A couple guards outside I could tell were looking our way and we simply walked up to one and asked if we could just go inside.  They said that all we could really do was visit this anteroom but not actually go in.  Inside behind some glass was a young marine and we yakked with him for a bit, basically telling him we just wanted to say hi.  It was fun.  

At the castle we picked up some sort of deep fried mass of cheese placed between two soft warm buns.  It was a most welcome treat especially for the trek up to the top of the hill that the castle sits upon.  At the top, a beautiful view and at least two tour groups awaited us.  Oh well.  Getting to see the entire area from way up high is always a hoot.  I enjoy getting the bird's eye view.  Rae and I are frugal travelers and we will only occasionally pay to go into somewhere, which is why we did not go into the inner area of the castle.  Perhaps next time.  After walking down from the castle hill, we roamed the surrounding area some more, finding little nooks and crannies and random streets.  In truth, we were trying to find our way over to the river just to walk along that park again and then cross the bridge.  Nothing much more happened for some time besides walking along and taking in the city until we started to get hungry.  We also started thinking about moving along back to the airport.

We both decided on an early dinner/late lunch and so commenced a search for the cheapest place with local food we wanted to try.  We must have wandered for an hour at least just looking at every restaurant's menu we passed for prices or deals.  Lo and behold!  We stumble on one of those nooks I previously mentioned.  A restaurant sequestered down an alley with a 'tourist' special that included starter, entrée, and dessert.  But that wasn't the most interesting part.  It was that its a jazz restaurant and jazz music was playing from speakers in the courtyard.  Whoa.  It may have been early but we were hungry and this place just seemed to unique to pass up.  In we went and old instruments, posters of the great jazz musicians, and wonderful aromas greeted us.  We were the only people there in the area they sat us and our meal was prompt and well timed (salad done, there's the main course).  Overall a really good experience.  

I cannot continue to ramble on, this is too late in coming to you already.  Suffice it to say, once done with dinner, we moseyed the city one last time and then returned to our subway, bus and plane combo.  No large hassles greeted us that need be told here.  Perhaps I'll get a chance to rant about a slight experience we had on the return train to Giessen one day.  Regardless, my apologies for dragging out my first foreign foreign country experience.

Rae and I at the top of the castle hill.

Those penguins. I don't know what purpose they serve at all.

Just makes you think, doesn't it?

Prague: Part 1

Yes, part one.  I don't want to bore people and I think an extremely long blog post would lose people's interest at interesting times.  Therefore there will be 2 posts about my visit to the Czech Republic and more pictures will be with the second post. 

Rachel and I found our journey beginning with a late lunch of döner immediately followed by a walk to the Bahnhof and a free trip down to Frankfurt by train.  Once there, we sought and found the bus that would take us on the 1 hour and 45 minute trip to the airport in Hahn.  Little did we realize that this bus would cost us 12€ each!  Gar.  The trip on the bus was less than interesting but it got us to the airport.  There we encountered our first real excitement: security at a non-US airport.  I admit to being very curious as to how it would be and I was not disappointed.  Shoes could stay on but you had to take off all your tops down to the t-shirt and to be safe (I learned afterwards) everything out of your pockets.  I had a chapstick and my belt on still when I came through the detector.  The man who waved me through had me put my arms up and I got the wand...which promptly goes off for my belt and once that was off, my chapstick.  The man removed the cap carefully while asking what it was and then proceeded to run my belt and chapstick through the scanner.  Rachel was similarly scrutinized by a female.  But wait!  I had a flashlight in my bag which they did some sort of swab test on with a paper in a plastic bag!  During this, I calmly stood there and tried not to have a smirk on my face from my bemusement.  Anyway, we got through.  

The flight was on Ryanair and I hear tell they are based out of Ireland, which means that all of my inflight instructions were in English first with German second.  The flight was supposed to be an hour but we had a 130 km/h tail wind which got us to Prague in 30 minutes.  Shortest flight I've ever been on.  From Prague airport, we bussed to a subway station and took the S-Bahn to the center of town!  The time is 10:30p.  We step up and out of the subway to buildings that look old, weathered and chock full of history.  Spires dot every other structure and a tenth of them are lit up by large soft colored floodlights.  We pick a direction and mosey that way.  A huge promenade greets us.  It is dotted with Glühwein stands that also sell sausages of all kinds.  This mall way slopes gently up and at the top is a huge old structure that is now a museum but at one time I could have seen it as a capitol building.  But it could have always been a museum, I don't know.  

Rachel and I proceeded to zig-zag our way from there to the river and in 2 hours we had seen very nearly all of the new (new being 400ish years old) city.  Around 12:30 we decided to head back to a small alleyway we had walked through that had several 24 hour bar/cafés that looked just right for college kids like us.  We picked one that looked nice, sat down and stayed there for the next 4 hours.  It was amazing.  We had failed to really learn any phrases in Czech but I managed to order 2 coffees (hold up two fingers, say coffee with a 'please' in my voice).  The bartender was very nice in that he didn't talk to us but kept on eye on his customers and was ready to help anytime.  I liked that.  The coffee was incredible.  It bordered on Turkish coffee because it was very thick and rich.  I ordered a second round.  About an hour into our stay, a soft pop followed by the lights going out interrupted my reading of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The barkeep comes out and starts jibber jabbering with some of the ladies at another table.  They sound like they're all joking around about the lights and the atmosphere of the place is one of amusement only.  The barkeep grabs a flashlight and is looking around and makes his way downstairs, all the while cracking jokes (we think) in Czech which just sounds awesome (think of Zelenka from Stargate: Atlantis).  Well, the lights come back on after about 5 minutes and life at 2 in the morning in Prague goes on.  

to be continued...

One of the statues near the top of the promenade.

One of the many kiosks dotting the area. Yum! 

Marburg an der Lahn

On Friday, Rachel and I went up to Marburg, which is north of Gießen, for a date day/night.  It is only a 14 or 30 minute train ride (depending on if you get the fast train).  We had gone before already but the trip had not been for long and there had been other people.  Last time, we left the train station and took a turn that consisted of step stairs leading towards a cemetery and small chapel.  We saw that the path continued and so we continued climbing until we reached the summit of one of the hills of Marburg.  Looking across the valley from way up high and surrounded by trees was very cool.  Quite peaceful as well since there were no other people around.  

On this trip though, Rachel and I started making our way to the castle immediately.  We passed St. Elizabeth's Church, which will be performing Verdi's Requiem soon (I'm thinking of attending).  Marburg has retained its older architecture and road style and as such is very new for me.  Roads twist up and down, stairs connect different street levels, building seems skewed based on the angle of the road and multiple generations of cobblestones pepper the ground.  Beyond Elizabeth's church is a quiet group of streets with small shops and cafes.  For a Friday, the streets here seemed oddly quiet, but I'm sure the dreary weather was a contributing factor.  We stopped in one of these cafes and had chai lattes (amazing!) and a snack.  After that, we worked our way step by step up to the castle.  There are some pictures I hope I'll get to post once Rae gets them up because otherwise I can't say much.  It's large, old, has grounds that you can wander (which we did), and is dominating this hill with a view to kill for.  I promise pictures will be forthcoming. 

After the castle, we made our way down the hill and went to a central plaza area for that shopping area I mentioned.  There we sat and had some beer in a local establishment.  There weren't a lot of people in there and it was nice to escape from the sprinkling rain for a time.  A second round was inevitable and we talked for over hour.  We then decided we were hungry and the most important part of date day/night was upon me - dinner.  

We had passed a place earlier in our wandering named Barfuß, which means barefoot.  Inside was a small, well lit and quiet restaurant.  We were seated and Rachel immediately wanted Auflauf, which it seems (additional research pending) is a local dish and resembles a casserole.  Needless to say I was nervous but we ordered and split the Spinach and Lachs Auflauf.  Oh. My. Goodness.  I hope that says it all.  Having smoked salmon with potatoes, cheese, and spinach all cooked together was the most amazing thing ever.  Of course, I didn't think it would fill me up so we also ordered two more entrees for us.  One wiener schnitzel and filet mignon with accompanying fried potatoes and green noodles in a mushroom cream sauce (respectively) and we are pretty much dead.  We don't know the policy, or if there is one, for doggie bags so we ate as much as we could.  It was amazing though and I'm getting my own Auflauf next time.

We waddled our way back to the train station and caught the train home.  All in all a pretty successful date and visit to another city.  I hope to have those pictures up soon of the castle.  Bis später! 

Let the classes begin!

Guten Morgen everyone!  I trust you had a lovely evening back on the western hemisphere.  Here, it's 9-ish and my first class starts in an hour.  The university here in Gießen employs two primary types of physics classes-theoretical and experimental.  Both are lecture classes but I assume just a different take on the physics.  I signed up for the 3rd semester experimental physics class, which focuses on atomic, nuclear and particle physics.  I've taken some of this before, but I didn't think I would do to well in the 5th semester EP class which was titled core and particle physics (but a different word for particle, go figure).  I am also going to take the electromagnetism course this semester with plans to take the quantum mechanics class next semester.  I haven't actually gotten into the EM class but that kind of thing happens all the time at UW too.  In the meantime, if our calculations are correct, we will be needing a third class and I am hesitantly thinking of trying for a masters level nuclear astrophysics course, which covers the beginnings of the universe through the formation and death of stars.  Relativity, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics are key players.  I'm scared but it's the only astronomy related class.  So in the meantime, I'm going to read a quantum mechanics textbook I brought along.  I'll learn it myself dangit!

Additionally, I sure hope to find the motivation to learn a programming language on my own this semester.  What I really need is a project (like homework) to focus on, otherwise I'm just learning the language and never using it in practice.  When I took a computer science class, they had us doing projects every week and gradually increasing our abilities.  So, it sounds like I need another text book with homework problems in the back. ;)  I'll just keep you posted I guess.  

I have to admit, I'm nervous about taking classes in German.  Yesterday we went to the department's meet-and-greet which turned out to be more like "let's go over the schedules and what's coming up just so you all know."  Naturally it was in German and I understood less than none.  This is probably going to be very bad.  I can only hope the homeworks are straightforward and not word problems. 

The Real Oktoberfest...

...was absolute chaos. Our journey began in Gießen around 5:40a when Jeff, Rachel and myself walked to the Bahnhof (train station) in order to catch a 6:20a train to Frankfurt am Main. Once there, we changed trains to go to Würzburg. Once there, we again exchanged trains for one that was going to Nürnberg. And finally, there we decided the next thing to do was to change trains for one going to München. At last, we made it to the Bahnhof in München after about 7 or 8 hours of traveling. The reason it took so long was because we wanted cheap tickets and on the weekend, a "happy weekend" ticket is good for up to 5 people and costs only 37 euros. The catch, is that you can only take the regional, i.e. slow, trains. Regardless, we got there. And now let the madness begin.

Being an introvert, I have a hard enough time with groups of people exceeding 10 persons, even if they are my friends. So when I heard that weekends at Oktoberfest draw in millions (please note the plural) of people, I naturally grew nervous. But not to worry! The recent announcement by terrorists about possibly attacking Oktoberfest the weekend I was going helped to shy away many of the masses. Only 2.4 million people showed up. HA! (sorry for the histerics.) We weasled our way through the fair grounds, deftly avoiding medical personnel as they rushed to some poor soul lying on the ground and narrowly missing the hordes who didn't know which way was left or right. After seeing the main sites and popular, old tents (which as an aside are not 'tents' but are in fact solidly built wood structures), we took a chance on getting close to a table in an outdoor beer garden adjacent to a particular tent. 40 minutes later, after standing and watching more people than I thought existed pass by me, the beers had not arrived. We cut our losses and moved to other feeding grounds. By now all 3 of us were just wanting to have a beer in our hands. We didn't care if we were actually sitting at a table. Plenty of other people were wandering the fair grounds with their beers, why can't we?

Victory came when we arrived a second beer garden, this time we squirmed through the masses to a table on the outskirts of another outdoor beer garden. Jeff leans over and in German, which I will translate to English, gets this far -- "Hello, my German is not so good, but could you..." -- before they were sliding over and inviting us to sit down. Jeff's intention was only to ask if they would order us beers but an invitation to sit was not something we could refuse. For the next 3 or 4 hours, we sat with the individuals from northern Germany, specifically the Köln area.

We practiced our German and they practiced their English as litre after litre passed us by. People came and went at the surrounding tables. I believe a con artist was also in the area. Sounded British when he spoke English and had some underlying dislike of Americans which only alcohol would bring out. I was scared yet terribly amused at the same time.

Anyway, after wandering a bit more when I was confident in my legs again, Rachel went off and rode the Ferris Wheel and ate some Ox. Yes, ox. It was getting late and the tents and fair were closing down. We made our way back to the Bahnhof with the knowledge we had come and seen the real McCoy. The next 5 hours would involve waiting in the Bahnhof for the 5:04a train that would mirror our trip here. The Bahnhof was filled with people doing the same thing we were doing, that is waiting. Jeff and Rae were pretty tired and I seemed to be on my second wind so we all sat down and I watched over their bodies. I'm laughing just remembering back to the scene. I should also mention that we got Burger King at about 12:30 or 1:00a along with more people that were dead on their feet. The next four hours passed slowly and steadily and we eventually got on the train and headed for home. We arrived in Gießen around 11:30 and were back in our dorm rooms by noon. All in all an exciting 30 hour day.

I just want to say that I will never go again unless I have a reservation at a table that has at least a meter clearance on every side. I have gone and seen. I'm afraid it kicked my ass. But at least I've been. Prost!