walsh's blog

I'm really excited about the nuclear seminar tomorrow. The speaker is talking about GRETINA, which is like SeGA, only more so. I'm looking forward to hearing more about this really cool germanium detector array-to-be. In addition to being SeGA-like, GRETINA is going to form the basis of a bigger array, called GRETA. (Does this make anyone else want to see a companion array called HANSA?)

I had a phenomenal high school chemistry teacher. I took honors chemistry as a sophomore, so it was really hard, but it was also really worth it. There were several reasons the class was memorably great, among them the extra credit opportunities available to students who wanted to present a chapter from the book (I always liked to play teacher), the teacher's amusing habit of practicing putting during our tests (he had a putting green in the front of the room), and the giant, wooden periodic table hanging on the wall in the front of the classroom. Gosh, I liked that class.
 

Am I one of, like, two people who liked Sightings as a kid? In that context, does anybody else listen to Coast to Coast AM?
 

(Yeah, I know it's cliche, but somebody had to say it this semester.)
 
I'm coming to appreciate the topic of electromagnetism much more than I did before. The impression I got when I first encountered the topic was that it amounted to calculating the potential and field of a spherical conductor, capacitor, solenoid, and other such objects, given a smattering of equations to use. How enthralling.
 

Neutrinos are Sinister Objects
A Standard Model Perspective
 
Neutrinos are sinister objects
Suspiciously lacking in mass
They come from the Sun
Shooting through everyone
And blow through the Earth like it's gas
 
Neutrinos are sinister objects
I lit'rally mean what I say
Though scaling with h-bar
Momentum and spin are
Aligned in the left-handed way
 
Neutrinos are sinister objects
They're tiny and move really fast
When trav'ling through stuff
They get much less buff
And pick up an effective mass

The mnemonic I learned in middle school for the categories in the electromagnetic spectrum is Raging Martians Invaded ROY G. BIV Using X-rays and Gamma rays.
 
I always thought the last two pieces were silly--what's the point in making up a mnemonic if it's identical to the thing you're trying to memorize? Additionally, the "Invaded" part makes it sound like the Raging Martians are performing an unwanted medical procedure. I like the "Raging Martians" bit, though.
 
I've recently come to prefer
Raging Martians Insulted ROY G. BIV, Urge Xenophobic Giraffes.

Hey, everybody, look at the NSCL homepage! See the person at the top? That's my advisor! Here's a paraphrase of the blurb: "News Flash: Everybody Else Thinks She's Awesome, Too." (Ha! I win at advisors.)

The total lunar eclipse last night was awesome! I missed the point where the moon was completely in the deepest part of the Earth's shadow, but it was still way cool.

I was surprised at what the eclipse looked like; I had expected something a bit more like Ragnarok.

'Tis Valentine's Day
At the NSCL
Get out of our way,
We're racing pell-mell
Talking in hallways
On stairs, elevators,
And looking 'round always
For collaborators.
 
It's Valentine's Day!
Not a chocolate in sight
For, I'm sad to say,
We've been here all night
Writing proposals
That lack in romance
To study intently
The nuclear dance.
 

Yesterday, a couple of astrophysics grad students and I went on a mini road trip to Ann Arbor to see two string quartets perform (both as individual quartets and as an octet). It turns out that the composer of one of the octets studied astronomy at Yale before becoming a composer. Brian May got his Ph.D. in astrophysics as well, although he took a long hiatus in the middle of it to be a rock star. Maybe the question I should have asked is rather, what is it about astrophysics people and music?