julius [dot] o [at] drexel [dot] edu
juliuso.com
I’ve always enjoyed Paul Graham’s essays, and while most of his writings are centered around the startup and technology scene, this article, and what he links to, is for every human being. It’s important, and emphasizes some good ideas for living: individual happiness, rational thinking, and not wasting time.
A good framework for thinking, is Physics. This sort of first principles reasoning. Boil things down to their fundamental truths, and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy.
—
Elon Musk, when asked how he’s able to successfully combine technology, design, and business, and advice for improving the education system.
Classic, timeless, on this Wednesday morning.
(Source: Spotify)
To see a world in grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
— First stanza in Auguries of Innocence, William Blake
MU SPS @ APS BALTIMORE 2013
20-MAR-2013
I planned to write before spring break started, but now that it’s almost over, it’s a good time to catch-up!
I along with other MU Physics students had a great time attending the American Physical Society (APS) conference in Baltimore this past week. Major themes at this year’s conference were talks in Material Science, Graphene, and everything under the umbrella of Quantum Mechanics. While I couldn’t understand any of it, I think some of the graduating seniors were able to appreciate it much more, as they’ve completed, and/or are nearing, their training in Physics. We had to leave Wednesday, so we missed the talks by last year’s Physics Nobel Laureates David Wineland and Serge Haroche. Luckily, you can watch them here.
On a similar note, this will be the final APS conference I’ll be attending with our graduating seniors, as they anxiously wait for their Graduate school decision letters to start their Ph.D programs. Thanks to all of you for helping me kickstart my studies, and hope we keep in touch. You guys are brilliant and awesome!
Millersville’s library has been out of commission for over a year as it undergoes expansion and renovation, and this has made it difficult to find quiet study space on campus. While I’ve enjoyed working and hanging out in coffee shops, the noise sometimes gets in the way, and all the academic buildings appear to be locked on weekends. I’ve found that I’m much more productive getting stuff done outside the apartment. So I decided to spend part of today at the Lancaster Public Library, then head to the libraries at Franklin & Marshall College. While it’s nice to have reciprocal agreements with other schools, I can’t wait until ours opens again this coming fall. But it was kind of weird studying at another school’s library, but think I blended in ok.
Second test in Calc II is next Friday, and I need to start preparing for it soon. Topics covered will be finding Solids of Revolution, Calculating work, and for the main course, Convergence tests on Infinite Series. Yay!
My Intro to Programming II class has been going well, though I’m unsure as to how I did on some parts of the written exam such as evaluating code that utilizes objects and inheritance. My amateur programming skills were self-taught, and all of my code was written procedurally. I’m thinking objects and inheritance will take time to get used to.
Physics is fascinating, and is sometimes hard to understand for those (like me) that have just started in their Physics studies, and have been out of school for a while. I’m working to improve my reading and study habits so that I can do a better job at grasping the fundamental concepts, working through the problem sets more quickly and accurately, and getting better grades on the exams. I’m doing ok, but can do much better. But I read these today, and are absolute MUST READS for doing well in Physics courses.
How to Study Physics by Seville Chapman
Physics Study Tips from Oberlin College
Elon Musk, the inspiration for Tony Stark’s character in Ironman.
In memory of Aaron Swartz, here are my raw thoughts for the day. I didn’t know him personally, but he wrote back to me once after pointing out a few typos in an essay on his blog, which he then corrected. I’m often compelled to point out typos because it’s nice to read error-free text. He fought a good fight.
Studying Math and doing homework problems can be analogous to TRON trying to destroy the Master Control Program (MCP). Towards the end of the movie, TRON tirelessly tries to throw his disc into the MCP’s central core from different angles, but is blocked by the MCP’s force field, and the disc ricochets back to him. Flynn then drops into the core, making the MCP drop its guard, and TRON delivers the final blow to destroy it, making grid free again. In Math, you must keep trying, and exhaust all tricks in one’s toolbox, to get the right answer. It’s also amazing to find that working on a problem late at night without any hope of getting the right answer is then completely solvable the following morning. I also built-up a great network of Math majors, and other Math enthusiasts to help me when I get stuck. Bottom line: Get unstuck as soon as possible, and keep moving forward.
I bought my TI-83 calculator back in the late 90s, around the time I started Pre-Calculus in High School, and have sadly noticed that they haven’t evolved much, aside from having a choice of colors, added memory, and an upgrade to a USB data port over the headphone jack-style serial link mine has. In particular, they seem to have the same low resolution LCD screens as their predecessors. Sure, the “TI-Nspire” series have high resolution LCD screens, but the switch should’ve been made years ago across their product line. It didn’t even have to be color, just a higher resolution display with anti-aliasing for super nice graphs, and faster redraws would’ve been great. But I’d like to get an HP-50g someday, and I have access to the Swiss Army knives of computation at my disposal: Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha.
The E-ink look and feel of the Kindle can be easily mimicked on an iPad by applying an anti-glare screen protector, and adjusting its brightness and contrast controls. It works amazingly well.
I picked up a 7-foot bean bag lounger from Comfy Sacks, but haven’t been able to use it much because it takes up all the free space in my room. I may throw out the mattress box spring and frame, and just roll it on top. I could also sell the mattress, and conceivably just sleep on the lounger, but I’d have to sleep on it a few days to determine if it provides adequate comfort. Plus, I’m not sure if it’s healthy to regularly sleep on an uneven surface. I’ll figure this out eventually. But for now, it’s propped up against the wall so that I can actually walk around the room.
I need to better organize my notes, as I’m realizing that I spend too much time shuffling through so many notes and handouts. I’m actively thinking of other areas that have become massive, unnecessary timesinks, and am working on ways to eliminate them.
Spring Semester has got off to a rough start, but am adapting and keeping up with with the coursework. Because I’ve found Calc II and Physics I to be major time commitments, I withdrew from my Discrete Structures class because there’s no point in trying to be a hero by taking 17 credits, working part-time, and getting mediocre grades in all classes. We had our first Physics exam Friday, and didn’t do as well as I hoped, because I was recovering from food poisoning/Norovirus earlier that week, which made me lose a lot of time studying.
First Calc II exam is next Friday, and am waiting for our Professor to post his Exam review sheet on his website. The exam will cover Integration techniques, including u-substitution, Integration by parts, Trig substitution, Partial fraction decomposition, and Improper Integrals. I’ll need to memorize some formulas and identities, and so long as I avoid making stupid mistakes, or doing illegal Algebra, I should be ok.
Finished Calc homework today and submitted my programming assignment involving 2-dimensional matrices and matrix subtraction. It’s a nice feeling to get stuff out of the way, so one can spend time focusing on the hard stuff.
Added to my list of heroes: Elon Musk
My last Piano teacher got me into Brad Mehldau’s work, and I’ve been killing this track lately. Just fantastic.
(Source: Spotify)
I’ve been shaving my head for over 4 years, and have had problems with having cold hands ever since. While believing the problem to be a medical one, or to a lack of proper nutrition, it occurred to me that without hair follicles to insulate and retain the heat generated from the head, most of it radiates away, preventing the body from properly regulating itself.
I was never much of hat person, but am now wearing one almost constantly. My hands aren’t cold anymore, and am glad that I don’t have to constantly warm my hands up under hot water.
It’s nice to be warm again.
