So to make a long story short yet concise yet full-of-all-that-you-would-need-to-know, I am preparing my skill set to partake in analyzing data for a post doc at the UW. What? Well to undergrads like myself they call that research. Cool, huh? I have to say I'm very nervous yet excited. I know that research is an important part of being an undergrad and grad in the sciences so I've been wondering how I was going to get started. Imagine my shock when all I had to do was talk to our (the Astronomy Dept.) friendly program advisor who then took me over to the faculty member with the work to be done! Whew!
What skill set am I preparing you ask? Well, I'm a Windows guy. I like PC's. To use the current cliche, I'm a PC. What I don't know very well are any things that use command lines and stuff that's behind the scenes without a friendly desktop and mouse to help me around. The data I'll be needing are accessible by Linux or programs similar to Linux (which is similar to Unix [you got me on what that is]). This faculty member, whose name is Lynne, got me a link to a crash course in Linux and I'm studying it like a fiend, trying to get good at it so I can start this project.
And the project is, you ask? Well Lynne was taking optical (visible light) data of a patch of asteroids in the Asteroid Belt and at nearly the same time, the Spitzer Space Telescope was taking an infrared (measures the heat of an object) picture of the same batch of asteroids. Now if you have either optical or infrared data on an object like an asteroid, it's difficult (not sure if its impossible) to determine its size. But, by combining both, you can determine the albedo, a measure of the reflectivity of the object and from that you can determine size. What you do with the info after that is ... up to someone else at this point I think.
There is my news for the week. That and I've been sick with a cold. I also just finished my math physics homework which was more tedious than anything I've done in about 4 months, which was when I had to move.
October 31, 2008
October 15, 2008
3.3 Microseconds
It's a full moon. I've started listening to Christmas music. I'm freeing up space on my computer. And this is my 60th blog (but technically my 59th posted blog). It seems only fitting I discuss an interesting matter that has been muddling around in the back and front and sides of my head (nooks and crannies are free of this thought).
Take a moment and consider light. Go on................ It has a velocity: 3.0 x 10^8 m/s (or verbally, three hundred million meters per second). That's pretty stinking fast you say. Duh, I know, I'm an astrophysicist (in training). Anyway. Now consider what light does for us. It illuminates things. Everything you can see with your eyes is because light is reflecting off of it. Shocking! If it were not for light bouncing off things, we would not see them, unless the object itself was a source of illumination. Now, put these two ideas together. Velocity and that things we see are because of light. We are constantly seeing the past.
Yes, we are always seeing the past. Never the now. A little meta-exi-physi-stensial for you? Well, I'm only putting it how I heard it and then thought about it. Light takes time to travel from an object to our eye. Thus, unless the object is in your eye, you are experiencing it as it was in the past (and we won't discuss neuron sensory path time). There is no now when it comes to visual stimuli. It's easy to say light from a star took 100 million years to get here because it's 100 million light-years away, but it's not something people think about when they look at a train coming at them from say....1 kilometer away. Do you know how long it took that light from the train to get to you? It's Math Time (insert intro credits to favorite TV show here).
Distance = velocity x time so t = D/v or t= (1000m)/(3 x 10^8 m/s)
t= .0000033 seconds
AHHHH! That train could have exploded and you wouldn't know it for 3.3 micro seconds!!!
So, cue a discussion if you like. Perhaps others are so adamant about the absurdity of my statement that an answer to life, the universe, and everything will come out of discusssion.
P.S. As an aside, or I guess more accurately a post script, I would like to point out the distance from the Sun to the Earth is 1.49 x 10^11 meters, which is 149 billion meters. Couple that with light speed and the Sun could explode and we wouldn't have a gorram clue for 8 minutes. Makes me chuckle just thinking about it.
Take a moment and consider light. Go on................ It has a velocity: 3.0 x 10^8 m/s (or verbally, three hundred million meters per second). That's pretty stinking fast you say. Duh, I know, I'm an astrophysicist (in training). Anyway. Now consider what light does for us. It illuminates things. Everything you can see with your eyes is because light is reflecting off of it. Shocking! If it were not for light bouncing off things, we would not see them, unless the object itself was a source of illumination. Now, put these two ideas together. Velocity and that things we see are because of light. We are constantly seeing the past.
Yes, we are always seeing the past. Never the now. A little meta-exi-physi-stensial for you? Well, I'm only putting it how I heard it and then thought about it. Light takes time to travel from an object to our eye. Thus, unless the object is in your eye, you are experiencing it as it was in the past (and we won't discuss neuron sensory path time). There is no now when it comes to visual stimuli. It's easy to say light from a star took 100 million years to get here because it's 100 million light-years away, but it's not something people think about when they look at a train coming at them from say....1 kilometer away. Do you know how long it took that light from the train to get to you? It's Math Time (insert intro credits to favorite TV show here).
Distance = velocity x time so t = D/v or t= (1000m)/(3 x 10^8 m/s)
t= .0000033 seconds
AHHHH! That train could have exploded and you wouldn't know it for 3.3 micro seconds!!!
So, cue a discussion if you like. Perhaps others are so adamant about the absurdity of my statement that an answer to life, the universe, and everything will come out of discusssion.
P.S. As an aside, or I guess more accurately a post script, I would like to point out the distance from the Sun to the Earth is 1.49 x 10^11 meters, which is 149 billion meters. Couple that with light speed and the Sun could explode and we wouldn't have a gorram clue for 8 minutes. Makes me chuckle just thinking about it.
October 9, 2008
Stupid Irony
Just a quick little blurb about something I found on the internet. Yes, I know, I've succumbed to sharing things on a blog that I found while surfing. Well, this deserves it. Check it out if you want because it is really short. Here is the skinny. Some clock in New York City has been showing a running total of the national debt since 1989. The debt is now too large for the clock to properly show. What are we doing about it? We're getting a frakkin' new clock! Why in the name of all good and sensible things would we pay for a (no doubt cool looking, digital, fancy, atomic, large, very pricey for something so dumb, and pointless) new clock??!! Who cares? It's going to be ready in a year. Can you think of how much a clock thing that takes a year to build would cost? Even if it was ten dollars, I'd say, screw the clock and go buy that homeless man down the street a new sweater. I can't believe this country. Do you see the irony?
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