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

I'm fast running out of creative ways to greet new people. Anyway, hi there. You seem pretty cool...any university student studying anything mathematical who uses the word "nifty" gets my seal of approval.

(wish I could draw a seal)

Hi. The word Nifty was implanted in my brian by the comic Sluggy Freelance, IMHO the best comic on the face of the Earth. www.sluggy.com. It is most nifty.

You like maths? What sort, if so?

Most nifty? Better and better.

Theoretical, definitely. Love that number theory. Admittedly a ways away from physics, but there are so few pure math types out there, I'll take what I can get.

And you have a Brian? I envy you. I had half a Zack a while ago, but now my friend has sole posession of it. I miss having a slave. It was nice.

I have a Brian, who has a life, which may explain my lacking one. Sorry. Bad Monty Python joke.

As to Number Theory, pure maths is one of the most lovely things there is, up there with water. The Calculus is more my thing, but I'm moving further away from it to complexity and similar things. It's been my (as yet unsuccessful) mission in life to combine the 2 into a soluble model for turbulent fluid dynamics. Perhaps not very productive, but there are worse ways to spend time. Fluid dynamics is wonderful .

Monty Python is everywhere. With good reason, of course.

Calculus I seem not to be very good at, but fortunately I only have to take one more semester of it. Glad you appreciate the beauty of pure math despite being involved with applied math .

Actually, fluid dynamics does sound like it might be very nice to study. If I were a physics type I just might consider looking into it myself.

While I hate the thought of being an applied mathematician, it may well be true. However, The one saving grace is that I can't stand approxmations. The main equations of fluid flow are laid out, but there are terms (Reynolds stresses, in particular) that are unknowable. So a good deal of the bulk of turbulent fluid dynamics is making up/using other people's approximations. All of the models only work under certain conditions- away from walls, for example. It all strikes me as inelegant, contrary to the nature of fluid flow.

That does sound inelegant. But then it seems to me that often the more elegant something is in nature, the harder it is to describe it mathematically. Kind of a shame, but in a sense sort of fitting, perhaps....

And what is it that you hate about the idea of being an applied mathematician...the mathematician part or the applied part?

Most definitely the applied part. The theoretical bits are so much nicer. Applied maths reminds me too much of physics pracs, which, at my uni, are lacking in inspiration, amoung other things.

As for beautiful things being hard to describe, this is true, but it is also true that amazingly complicated systems like a dripping tap, which exhibits chaotic periodicity, can be model with lovely maths. So much great work has been done lately. I once went to a lecture given by Michael Barnsley, which was just fantastic. He got 4 rectangles on a slide. Then he applied a few affine linear transformations, and it was a fern leaf. Apparently he sat down and figured it out with a pencil and a protractor. Wow.

One of the few things I am sure of is that there is a better, and very elegant, way to handle fluid dynamics. I'm not necessarily sure I can find it, , but I'd love to see it done.

That really would be something, wouldn't it?

But what are "pracs"? Are they what we over here would call "labs"?

And am I to take it that you prefer the theoretical aspect of physics as well?

I think labs are the same as pracs (practicals). Are you in the US? Practical physics can be fun, but the best experiments I've ever seen done to sophisticated things with simple equipment (or with huge amounts of mind-bogglingly complicated equipment), instead of the pracs we are given, which used cool equipment to do silly things... I spent a significant amount of time on one a few weeks ago arguing with my partner about a colour - blue or green spectral line. It was vital to our results, but strangely not to our conclusion, that we picked the right one. Most of the experiments could be done with a rubber bouncy-ball, a slinky, and a piece of string.

Must run,
Cyanblue.

Sounds like they are the same. Yes, I am in the US...and fortunately am no longer taking classes where the darn things are necessary. I have friends who are taking lab classes and the number of hours they have to spend on them is ridiculous, especially compared to the number of credits they get for them. The only labs I've had to do so far--and hopefully the last I'll have to do throughout my college career--have been for Astronomy, and they've been easy ones...although I did come up with an extremely wrong answer when I attempted to use parallax to determine the distance to San Francisco. Hardly surprising, though, considering the number of steps I had to go through and the number of unfounded assumptions I was going on. But fortunately the unfounded assumptions were part of the assignment, so one can assume I won't get graded down--much.

I hope they don't grade you down. I did an astronomy course in the last year of high school, which was pretty good. For pracs we used to go up and use an old telescope at the observatory not far out of Canberra. It was great- I loved the exposed clockwork on the tracking mechanism.
On of my physics lecturers uses unfounded asumptions on occaision. The last time he used a proposition that his result proved invalid. Several people spotted it, but we gave up when it became clear that he wasn't going to change his proof . I guess we'll find the right one somewhere. Classes are over for the year now, and the first exams begin shortly. I should study, but there's only so much you can do.

Of course...and h2g2 comes first....

Classes are over for the year? I hope you mean the calendar year and not the academic year. And even so, that's crazy. Classes started at my school considerably earlier than at most schools in the country, and we still have a few more weeks before exams start. When does the school year start over there?

And you seem to be lucky in other respects too...we didn't have astronomy in high school, and even here we don't get to use telescopes that often. But I did get to see Jupiter and Saturn up close a few weeks ago. That was very nifty.

I had a bio teacher once who sounds like your physics prof...wouldn't retract anything when we told him it was wrong. Got very frustrating at times, especially since he'd grade us down on the basis of his own incorrect answers.

The Australian academic year starts at the end of our summer, ' round about March the 1st, and finishes mid to late November. So yes, I mean the academic year.

Most high schools don't have astronomy, but the one I went to in Canberra had a really good science program, and were allowed to choose what subjects they offered. As a result we got Atomic and Nuclear Physics as well as astronomy and the normal physics classes. Better yet, there were 8 maths units at my level offered over the 2 years.

Did you see the transit of Mercury today? The physics club on campus was going to set up some of the uni's more portable telescopes and screens, but it was too overcast to even see the Sun, so we didn't. Typical Sydney weather- hot enough to fry an egg on the paths (I didn't try, but I was tempted ) and humid with it yesterday, and then rain last night. Can't be helped, I suppose. I hear NASA had it on the net live, but only after it was over .

I can sympathise with you about the biology lecturer, although to be fair most of the people were I am are pretty good.

Yes, most of my teachers have been pretty good too...and the odd thing is that often the ones I like least seem to like me the most. Never have been able to figure that one out. But I do envy you the choice of all those science classes. I went to a pretty good school too, but the most advanced class they offered was anatomy/phys.

Not only didn't I see the transit of Mercury, though, I didn't even know about it. Perhaps I ought to go to lecture more often...but then I was working on a lab for that very class, in addition to a Philosophy paper. And I'm not sure they'd've had the facilities set up for us to see it in any case. You know...lowly undergrads....Actually they do let us use the equipment some of the time, but when something important happens of course the grad students get first crack at it.

The academic year thing makes sense now that you explain it; you get summers off just like we do, it's just that summer is at a different time of year. School starts here around early September--or mid- to late August in my case--and ends in late May or early June. What happens if you're studying in Australia/the US and want to spend a year studying in the US/Australia, I wonder?

There are quite a few students from the US in my residential hall (college), but I don't know what they do. I've got a maths exam tomorrow, so I should probably get some sleep. But the guide is addictive...

You're telling me. I ought to be doing my calculus homework right now. I swear, I spend two to three hours here daily. I have got to cut back or I'll start failing my classes.

Having just finished my maths exam, I feel justified in spending a little leasure time in the guide. Dangerously addictive that it may be. One of the reasons I haven't bought a network card so I can connect my laptop to the net from my room is that I think I would spend way to much time on the 'net.

In less than 2 weeks, however, the academic year is over and my brain can sleep for a little while. Do you get a winter break?

My problem is that the guys down the hall are too generous with their computers, so it doesn't really matter that I don't have my own. That and there are computing centers all over the place....

Yes, we do get a winter break; it starts in about three weeks, I think, and lasts about a month. After surviving the rainy season here, I ought to make it home just in time for the rainy season there. But at least I get to see my high school friends again, and my best friend has promised me we'll go clubbing or something along those lines, so I've got things to look forward to. And then it's back to the grind...ho-hum.

Meanwhile, next weekend is Thanksgiving and I will very probably be bored out of my skull. Just about everybody, I think, is flying home for the weekend, leaving me with nothing to do but wander a rainy campus, or perhaps try to find a good bookstore. I expect I shall be spending large amounts of time online. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I'm curious- what prescisely is Thanksgiving? I know only what I've picked up from TV and comics.
At least you have the break to look forward to, although coming back is always a downer. Seems like I'm going to be at Uni for the rest of my life.