For the last lab of the term, we learned how to use the scanning tunneling electron microscope, or STM.
<img src=“/data/posts/93/graphite.png” style=“width: 100%”, alt=“Graphite STM image” />
This is an image of the surface of a flake of graphite–the same stuff pencil lead is made out of. We take a small block of graphite and peel off layers using Scotch tape, then mount them on the bed of the STM. An extraordinarily sharp needle, with a tip only a few atoms thick, is given a small electric charge, and positioned a few angstroms above the sample. Electrons then tunnel across the gap between the needle and the surface at a small rate, yielding a current. We sweep the needle across the surface using piezo crystals, and measure the height/current data at each point. That data yields an image, which we’ve filtered with an FFT to show the structure more clearly.
I reorganized the photographs according to EXIF dates, where available. This should clear up the fact that I tend to go back in my archives and publish things months or years after they were taken. I’m not sure what to do about new material yet; I may let the front page see recently updated photographs, but put old photos in their temporal context, or leave them at the top of the stack for a few days then let them slide back.
I really don’t know how to explain this one. I walked out of the restaurant, took one look at the sky, and sprinted to the van to grab my camera. Two hours of thunderstorms and a tornado system moving up from the southwest left the sky churning with clouds, at times pale gold, at others a vicious burning orange. I spent the next 45 minutes running through Superior, past scrap yards, bar parking lots, and through the massive granary complex on Dock Street. Each photo just kind of led to the next in an adrenaline-fueled rush; I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to witness a storm system like this move overhead at sunset.
I don’t know how to handle the color correction for these images: Stormstack is basically a flat white-balance with the saturation brought down, and it’s still a little too orange. All I can tell you is that yes, the sky did look like that. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.
So, I just got a cell phone for the first time. I held out for 6 years; almost unheard of for an IT guy and student. Ended up with a little Samsung slider phone, the t429, which I’m growing to like: it’s small, lightweight, has easy-to-feel buttons, and a large screen. I do have one complaint, however.
I don’t really need text messaging. I have email and IM already, and both are more convenient for actually writing something down. However, people my age are obsessed with it. I got a text within 2 hours of getting the phone out of the box, and made the unpleasant discovery that receiving a 36-byte message cost me fifteen cents! Fifteen cents for something I didn’t even ask for! If I had a chance to reject it, as you can with calls, that’d be fine, but apparently that’s not an option. You just pay whenever someone else decides to send one to you.
I talked to my friends, who said their providers let you opt out of receiving text messages; great, since it’s a service I didn’t sign up for or want in the first place. However, T-Mobile doesn’t let you opt-out, claiming their software isn’t smart enough to do that. I can block texts sent as email, which I guess is a big problem thanks to advertising, but I can’t keep my friends from costing me money by accident. The network obviously knows what kind of plan I have, as it bills me for service instantly. Why can’t it also check to see if I don’t want the messages in the first place?
Over the past 10 weeks, I made a book, entitled Sampling Error: Stochastic Perturbations to Reality. It explores the relationship between measurement in the physical sciences and photography as an act of measurement. I designed the layout in Scribus, an open source desktop publishing tool, worked with a local print shop to have the photographs printed, cut woodcuts and set type, then folded, bound, and cased six copies. They’re finally done, and being distributed to friends and family.
I’m really happy.
So, life continues insanely unabated. This week in lab we’re a.) measuring the speed of light, and b.) weighing the galaxy, which means we get to spend time on the roof playing with the radio telescope! Gave the talk on pi0 photoproduction, which Nelson says went pretty well. Pre-2nd kyu test is coming up next Wednesday. Still working on The Book, which is rapidly acquiring more capital letters.
Anyway, the awesome news is that I drew Scott 300, a townhouse apartment! Reid, Josh, Laura, and Jennifer will be rounding out our amazing house. Should be a terrific year!
These are pictures of various transverse electromagnetic modes for the laser we’re working with.
Laser beams aren’t constrained to being nice little smooth dots, though that’s one of the possible modes (TEM00). Since TEM00 has the most tightly focused beam, and the fewest irregularities, it’s the one many laser manufacturers force their device to operate at. There are other possible solutions, with varying patterns. The subscripts here indicate the number of divisions in the beam—I’m guessing on some of the higher ones. There’s also a strange pattern which looks like it has radial, not rectilinear, divisions; I’m not sure what that is, exactly.
TEM00
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TEM01
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TEM02
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TEM11
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TEM22
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TEM23
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TEM33?
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TEM35?
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Radial mode?
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Winter term concluded nicely: solid work through 9th and 10th week, then caught a ride with Anna out to Madison for a couple weeks with Justin & company. Finished up my finals and emailed them in from WI–everything was either a paper or take-home, so I was able to take my time, put in my best work on everything, and turn them in without a 4 hour drive. So, spring break felt like 3 weeks, which was a really nice change. I needed the space to decompress, get to know myself again.
I’m taking up the guitar again: bought an old Suzuki from a guy in Madison through Craigslist, which sounds pretty good. Deeply resonant sound, bit of a buzz (in the tuner?) on the open G string, but otherwise plays nicely. I ran into Dirk’s Guitar Page, which pleasantly has many of the same pieces I played as a kid: Carcassi, Sor, Paganini. Progress has been surprisingly fast, but I’m a long way from playing well.
Carrie, Justin, Jenny, Bobby, and I all trekked down to Florida for Spring Break; my first independent vacation! It was really nice to spend the time with friends; screaming through the Tower of Terror at Disney World, swimming and hanging out with new friends from Ohio State at the beach, learning to play tennis, and just relaxing on the beach. I do regret not reading more of Quantum State Diffusion, but that’s a small complaint.
You know what’s going to be awesome? When I have to get a normal job.
"So, why do you think you'd be great at Jimmy John's Sub Shop?"
"Ummmm... I can compute first-order perturbations to degenerate Hamiltonians. Please hire me?"
"What else?"
"I can design your web site and ordering system..."
"Nope, already got one."
"I can be thrown around safely!"
"Next please."
I have the weirdest skill set on the planet.
In the Broomball Caucus conference, we’ve been debating whether to separate teams into softcore and hardcore leagues. Jack Delahanty wrote against splitting the league, because it would (he asserts) increase forfeits:
There's one problem, though - teams that are comprised of [softcore players] do have fun, and they deserve to be able to have fun. The problem is that these are also the teams that tend to forfeit games. The same players that enjoy sliding around on the ice and hanging out with their floor also TEND to be (and I'm not accusing anybody here, just observing a trend) the players that won't show up when it's cold, when they've got homework to do, or when they have some other thing going on. I'm not saying that players who enjoy broomball for the sake of sliding around don't deserve respect and consideration - they absolutely do. But I am saying that we had a huge problem with forfeits this year that has extended into the playoffs, and we should definitely not gear the league or even one division in the league to teams that are apt to forfeit. Forfeits, more than 12-0 losses, are the real evil that needs to be addressed.
I totally agree that forfeits are a big problem: you make space in your schedule, put on all your pads and cold-weather gear, get onto the ice, wait 15 minutes, and then don’t get to play! On the other hand, I got to thinking about this, and realized it’s not actually true that forfeits would get worse with multiple leagues. In fact, splitting games up into leagues which are correlated with a propensity for forfeiting actually reduces the chances any given game in the league will be forfeit.
One of the things we’ve been discussing in Metaphysics this term has been the problem of motion through time, and whether or not Russell’s at-at theory sufficiently explains our everyday perception of change as occurring through time. Meanwhile, in Quantum Mechanics, we’ve been talking about the Hamiltonian operator as the generator of translations through time, analogous to the momentum operator generating translations through space.
I’ve got two weird ideas at the moment. First, momentum and position space are Fourier conjugate pairs of each other: you can convert states between them with a symmetric Fourier integral. I wonder if a similar relationship exists between the energy basis (or some other space related to the Hamiltonian) and time.
The other question is whether the perception of change in time really involves any real change at all. Augustine was content to measure the extent of time periods through the duration of his mind, which, I suspect, could be adequately explained as the spatial relationship of neurons in the now. That would sort of eliminate the now as any privileged reference frame, but could retain the important perceptions of the past as having happened.
(Sharon sits down next to Matt)
Sharon: Hey Matt, how’s it going?
Matt: Not bad, I’m really excited about this course!
Sharon: Yeah… I mean, it’s the shortest class description I’ve ever seen: “English 324: Applied Hip-Hop Analysis - We be deconstructin’, yo!”
Matt: So terse, yet enigmatic! Hey–did you hear the Shakespeare lecturer last night? He did half the show in drag, and nobody could tell, because he–
Professor:
Good morning all, please take a seat
I’m professor Stevens, and for this I’ll need a beat;
Literary analysis of hip-hop’s the class,
But realistically we’re here for kicking names and taking ass.
As it’s the first day, we’ll start with something easy
Sharon, please read from the excerpt on page one-fifty.
Sharon: … Um… ahem… Mike Shinoda, of Fort Minor, in “Get Me Gone”:
After that I made it a rule
I only do e-mail responses to print interviews
Because these people love to put a twist to your words
To infer that you said something fucking absurd
Oh, did I lose you at infer?
Not used to hearing a verse that uses over first grade vocabulary words?
People used to infer that we were manufactured
Professor:
Now comes the part we’re best at in English
We make an argument and ram it like a shish-
Kabob through shoddy language and tumescent prose
My thesis, then, is what I want you to suppose.
When Shinoda uses the word “infer”,
His choice of language is poor and
Throws us a lure
That his diction’s unsure.
(Matt raises hand)
Matt: I think that it’s entirely possible Shinoda’s just misunderstanding the meaning of the word here; certainly his–
(Professor and Sharon stare at Matt in worried disbelief)
Matt: –diction is somewhat unclear
For in his first line he tells us quite near
That the interviewers falsely implied his career
Was fake; that sort of agency doesn’t mesh with “infer”
So it’s clear that his choice of words is disturbed
The man just can’t write, it’s a laughable stink!
He’d better step up if he wants us to link
His media, his message with intelligent think!
Professor:
Sharon, if I may beg you to flatter
My interest; please share your thoughts on the matter
I want words to clatter and mix like cake batter
Smashing Matt’s argument to pieces that shatter.
Sharon:
I agree with you Matt
The diction’s absurd
But you’ve got to look past the flat
Mat of ratted and tattered words
Into the deeper construct of post-structuralist norms
There are no underlying forms,
No inferrable swarms
Of congruent ideas labeled by a slurred
Blurred and unformalized word
When Shinoda says “infer” it’s a contradiction in terms
That’s the true message for us to learn
Through introspection he affirms and confirms
That arguing over meaning isn’t feasible;
Only in context are those inferences reasonable.
Professor:
Take a shot, Matt, here’s your chance to show off to the class
C’mon, pop a cap in her metalinguistic ass
Matt:
You know what? Fuck your post-structuralist diploma
You’re missing out on the key point of Shinoda
Which isn’t the absence of concepts right under me
The selection, perfection and subsequent rejection
Of meaning through useless semantic inquiry
It’s the binary opposition of “infer” and “imply”
Which gives rise to a structure worth giving a try
Shinoda’s leaving a puzzle for us to recognize
If you step back and think for a second you’ll find
That our own identity as intelligentsia elite
Has given us cred you can’t find on the street!
So pack your Focoult and get the hell out
Your model’s worth nothing when it comes to the shout!