h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi. Welcome to the Guide. I too am a physics student. What was your suject area again?

Hi, I'm doing Maths&Physics. 2nd year undergrad.

Nifty. Mathematical Physics/Advanced Physics undergrad. Pet topic is fluid dynamics, although my Uni doesn't specialise in it.
Yours?

Warwick Uni's physics department is mainly into Solid state physics, semi-conductor physics etc... And astro physics. I dont think we have any fluid dynamics groups here (but i'm not sure, it probably says onthe web site (www.warwick.ac.uk))

My Uni also does solid state - but I meant what do you do? Not necessarily physics- just because Cyanblue is obssessed doesn't mean anyone else has to be. It being the exam period, I do not have much going on outside Uni, but again, see above sentence. Ahhh. Gratuitous use of smily faces.

Oh right, well cos' i'm only a 2nd year, we tend to do a bit of everyting. We dont have to realy specialise untill the 3rd/4th year. At the moment i'm most interested in Quantum Mechanics and Cosmology (the both extremes of the scale i guess!)

Appart from academic stuff i'm pretty interested in beer (mandatory for uni life). But i do a lot of swimming/cycling/general fitness stuff as well

Having spent some time persuading myself that things other than physics *do* exist, I can say I like rock-climb, cave (pothole), SCUBA dive, and ride horses. None of which, bar the rock-climbing, I get to do in term-time much. But never mind, the Australian academic year finished in a little over a week, so I'll be free, free, (insane laughter)...

Where was I- that's right things other than physics. As to beer, I don't drink, but living in a residential college I cannot disagree about it being mandatory for uni life.

An Australian University tale for you: I was sitting in my room last last night/early this morning, listening to the frogs and the crickets down by the creek. The sounds of summer insects, and the music from some room a few doors away. Then the pleasant noises were added to by the sound of a burping contest on a floor below. That's Uni for you I suppose... (rolls eyes).

And isn't that just another one of Life's Little Ironies: your Uni doesn't offer a faculty for specialized study of your pet subject, yet the student body, with its beer-being-mandatory-for-Uni-life, gets up to its armpits in the consequences of fluid dynamics...

Another irony is that the only uni that does do fluid mech. properly is the Defence Force Academy. And I refuse to be a cadet. Left-wing politics... That, and I like my freedom/individuality.

I agree. And in peace-time you get to enjoy what you like. Reminds me of the 1960's Flower-Power hippy slogan: "Military Intelligence is a Contradiction in Terms!" This thread also puts me in mind of some song lyrics and albums. One especially.
Kate Bush album: -The Whole Story- track, -Experiment IV- "They told us all they wanted / Was a sound that could kill someone from a distance..."

Fluid mech / dynamics : coming from a baseline of general knowledge, I hazzard a guess that dicipline runs from blood circulation to glaciers...?

Yup. There is all sorts of fun stuff in fluid mech. Glaciers less so, because the solid/fluid definition is a little hazy. Yes, the do deform internally, and transport processes are important, but it's also true that in geological techno-speak, ice is a mineral.
But can be done from a fluid mech point of view.

I prefer to play around with less viscous fluids like air and water, though. It's amazing how some things we take for granted seem incredibly complicated when one really thinks about them, but then we think some more and they are elegantly simple. Fluid mech is nice like that.

Thanx. And it is all wrapped up nice an snuggly in the blanket of Chaos Theory

This is so very true, and yet the computational equations of change do not use chaos at all. They are fine for laminar (smooth) flow, but when that breaks up into turbulence, the maths becomes a matter of whose approximation is best in this circumstance. A few people, like Benoit Mandelbrot and Steve Smale, have made comments about it, and there are probably a few people working on it somewhere, but IMHO chaos is going to be the next big thing in computational fluid mech.

Hmm... <THINKS: "Air + water + maths + computers + turbulence + (IMHO chaos = next-big-thing)" Sounds as though you are champing at the bit to take up Helen Hunt's role in the movie "Twister" -charging arond trying to get little sensors into tornados. Is that sorta the direction you might career in..???

Modelling turbulence was supercomputer territory. But the desktop CPUs are closing the numbercrunching gap there and the price gap as well. I'm thinking of Apple's latest G4 PowerMac in this context.

Not for me, tornadoes, methinks. I was gonna do atmospheric science, but the latest Earth sciences course I did put me way off. I like water best. Computational power has long been the big thing in computational fluid dynamics, but I'm hoping that will change when chaotic considerations and suchlike come into use. A model that could use chaos/fractal geometry really well would need only a fraction of the power and run-time that we use now. Something to look forward to, and to think about, although I'm beginning to form the impression that my university discourages independent thought. Ironic.

But isn't that at the very core of what a university must do? Provide just enough pressure from upstream to discourage but not to stiffle and extinguish independent thought. And thus to challenge its students to swim against the flow. Expand the frontiers of human knowledge. Or to at least acquire the techniques for doing so. The institution of the university has a considerable and successful history in human society.

This is good and interesting chatting with you and your pet topic. The specifics of your field of study appear to be above my head but I enjoy reading and acquiring from others. And you were first of the friendly and helpful H2G2 community to welcome me here. Thankyou. But it is late and I must away to bed.

Catchya!

Your optimism/faith in my uni is encouraging. I wish I could believe they're all that nice.