After dinner at work last night, I met a new postdoc working down the hall from my office. I said hello, attempting to overcome my social awkwardness, and asked what type of research she does in the chemistry department. She replied “I’m an experimentalist. You, ahem, must be a theorist.” Whoa!

How in the spirit of chemistry did she know?! So I asked. She replied “I can just tell.” Baffling! Then I looked down and realized the first corollary and theorem, in my developing theory of how to not behave like a theorist (hereby termed atheorism):

Corollary 1: Chicken noodle soup shrapnel on a shirt is neither necessary nor sufficient to indicate someone is a theorist.

Theorem 1: Chicken noodle soup shrapnel on a male wearing a t-shirt that says “Visionary Women: Challenging assumptions and inspiring change” from 1993 is sufficient but not necessary to indicate the male is a theorist.

It turned out that I had forgotten to bring dining utensils with my dinner to work. Slurping Campbell’s chicken noodle soup seemed like a good idea at dinner time. Forgetfulness is also typical theorist behavior and will be a later theorem, when my sinful theorist nature catches up with me.

Sincerely,
A devoted atheorist

It’s 6:42 am, and polls opened 42 minutes ago here in Indiana. I was 5th in line at my polling place at about 5:51 am, just in time to watch the live news report and be on camera for a few minutes. This was my first primary vote, my first in-person vote in Indiana, and actually my first at-a-machine vote in history (Oregon is all vote-by-mail).

Man did they have issues. As soon as polls opened, each one of their check-in machines crashed at least 10 times. They thought it was due to high activity around the state on whatever servers run the system, but find that sort of hard to believe — it’s not as though everyone was really powering through at 6 am. Though they had tons of issues actually getting people to the polling machines themselves, once I was there, it was surprisingly smooth. Dare I say the voting experience itself was perfectly acceptable. I have no idea what types of machines they were using and my thoughts on electronic voting machines are well known, but absent these more theoretical complaints it couldn’t have gone much better.

This is probably the first election I’ve voted in where there’s some major ambiguity as to who will win (the democratic nomination). Cross your fingers everyone. Cheers.

In this month’s Physics Today, there is an article called “Chemistry on the computer”. The first major quote from the article caught my eye. It comes from Auguste Comte, a natural philosopher, in 1830.

Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry. If mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry — an aberration which is happily almost impossible — it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science.

Awesome. I don’t think that Mr. Comte would be very happy with me or a number of people here at Vdov.net.

Many (some) of you might remember my last attempt at going to Hawaii. It was after my first year of college and myself, shollen, aboone and ifriedrich (no he doesn’t contribute to Vdov but I have to keep things consistent) had planned to go and stay there for about a week. I had tickets and everything. Then I came down with an absolutely horrific case of mono and couldn’t go. Shollen, aboone and ifriedrich went without me while I was lying on either the couch in my house or in a hospital bed. Awesome.

Well, tomorrow I finally rectify this as I’m traveling to Hawaii for Jason & Mica’s wedding. I’m in Honolulu tomorrow night then Molokai till Monday (where I have an 8 hour layover in Honolulu, I think I’ll go exploring). Not only is this going to be an awesome trip, but it will be the 45th state I’ve visited. That leaves only Alaska, North Dakota, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas left on the list.

I really have no idea if I’ll have internet access there so you may or may not see Twitter feed updates from me during the trip. If not, trust me, I’ll be enjoying being completely unplugged and unable to be contacted. Otherwise, of course, I can’t help myself.

Cheers.

“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” -Samuel Adams

Vdov.net is not normally prone to politicking and this post is mostly about principles rather than politics. The authors here, from what I know of them personally, tend toward unfettered freedom rather than more tempered and restrained freedom. I am personally enamoured of the cause of liberty wherever it arises. I have a soft spot in my heart for all democratic reformers and movements that sincerely want to replace repressive regimes with open societies governed by democratic principles, whether that be anti-theocratic student movements in Iran or the Free Tibet movement. (more…)

Tonight I went to a town hall meeting with Senator Barack Obama in Lafayette, Indiana. Those of you who know me well are well aware of my feelings on the candidates, though I don’t consider Vdov the appropriate venue for that kind of analysis. As such I’d rather talk about the “Town Hall” experience rather than specifics about Obama and his platform. I had never been to one of these rallies before and it was a pretty interesting experience.

I had to show up and wait nearly 2 hours in line yesterday to get tickets for this town hall, and I showed up more than 2 hours early to get an even slightly reasonable seat. Now, it was a relatively small venue (a high school gym), and pretty much everyone had a decent seat, but I didn’t know that ahead of time. Getting into the venue was more or less going through an airport security checkpoint, only a bit worse. Not only was I “metal-detectored”, but I had a *very* complete wand scan as well. At about 5 o’clock, someone came out to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. This was interesting: I probably hadn’t said the Pledge of Allegiance since middle school. Then a pastor came out and gave a prayer. Another 20 minutes passed by before a major political figure in Lafayette/West Lafayette came out and gave a sort of pre-rally pump-up speech on issues important to her and those that would conceivably be addressed by an Obama administration. It was all pretty mundane up until the final speaker introducing Obama to the crowd. He was a regular guy from Lafayette who owned a small business, and who had obviously never given a major speech to that many people (over 3000) in his life. Most striking was his choice of attire. He was dressed in a ratty sweater and kakhis. I imagine this wasn’t intentional, though I have since decided that it was probably a play to the audience: before the big-wigs come out, get someone truly “of-the-people” to speak. Then he introduced Obama.

Obama looks exactly like you’d expect him to. The only other even pseudo-celebrity I have ever met/seen in person was Matt Fox (of Lost and other fame), and he looked completely different in person than he does on TV. Not Obama. I could have sworn I was just watching a youtube video or reading a Drudge Report headline when he took the stage. The only thing I’ll mention about the speech itself was that it was refreshingly original in structure. Yes, he talked about exactly what I thought he would talk about, tailoring it slightly to the Indiana audience, but the flow of the speech was new (at least as far as the videos I’ve seen of him previously … they are numerous). Standing ovations were abundant, as expected. However, it was only after the speech that things got really interesting.

He took questions. And the questions from the audience were interesting. The first question came from a middle-aged to slightly-over middle-aged woman who had obviously experienced some significant hardship in her life. There’s no question that she had real, serious problems that she was concerned about. But her 15 minutes of fame was ill-conceived. Instead of asking a well thought out question, she instead droned on about everything that was wrong with her life in great detail, to the point where it just sounded like she was whining. Then she says “what can you do for me *before* you get elected to fix all my problems?” Absurd. Here she actually has the opportunity to ask a real question and instead decides to kill her opportunity. I realized afterward that her question effectively boiled down to and would have been equivalent to her asking Obama to come over to her house and fix her broken down TV, an obviously ridiculous way to spend your time with a direct voice to the candidate. Obama did what he could: in this case all he could do is address some of the issues she brought up and those he had specific plans for, and try to come out of it looking good and with a cheer from the audience. He certainly succeeded.

The rest of the questions were fine. A cute little elementary school girl came out and asked a question her parents had obviously written down on a card for her about national and sub-national testing in elementary and secondary education, for which she received a standing ovation. It was a good question, and the audience responded in kind. Other questions were directed at specific issues, such as his thoughts on the election of supreme court justices (the most interesting of the questions and a policy of Obama’s I had not heard before), environmental policy, free trade agreements, etc. etc. etc. At the end Obama thanked everyone for their time and gave his farewell. After which he shook a lot of hands and exited the gym.

All in all it was a very interesting experience. Obama is a charismatic speaker, I think we can all agree on that. And regardless of your politics, I recommend trying to attend a “Town Hall”-like event in the future. It was really a lot of fun.

I am trying to move Vdov into the times with some major updates (mostly coinciding with the release of Wordpress 2.5). Unfortunately I had the old mechanics of the site heavily customized and/or written from scratch, so now that Wordpress is actually capable of doing what it is I want, it’s taking me some time and effort to make the switch. Point being, Vdov will probably look a little weird now and then as I test some stuff out. Don’t worry, all your favorite content is still here (and even backed up, theoretically).

Cheers.

Yes, today I turned 25 … a quarter century. I can no longer fool myself, I am supposed to be an adult now. At least that’s what I thought, until I talked to my Mom who said, “back in the 60s and 70s, the mantra was, ‘don’t trust anyone over 30′, so I’d say you don’t have to be an adult until at least then”. Awesome.

Then Shawna sends me this birthday message:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
you are a quarter of a century now
which if you live to be old means you have already lived 1/4 of your life
and you have chosen to waste it doing chemistry
at least now you are doing physics masqueraded as chemistry

I laughed. Cheers.

Why? has bubbled incredibly beneath the surface for far too long. They now have 3 LPs and 2 EPs without ever garnering major attention even amongst the indie crowd. With almost no “mainstream” recognition “Elephant Eyelash” was one of the best albums of 2005 that no one heard. Perhaps this was due to the tepid 7.8 from “Pitchfork Media” for the wonderfully energetic, breakthrough LP or the refusal by front man Yoni Wolf (Why? himself) to conform to normal indie musicality. My guess is that despite the fact that Chris Dahlen at Pitchfork seems more concerned with understanding Why? (”…I finally understand how he feels.”) what really throws people is the genre bending, musical avalanche unleashed on Elephant Eyelash and, more importantly, this year’s “Alopecia.” Why? is tracing out a wonderful arc with every album rising higher than the last and Alopecia makes the trend solid. The quartet of Yoni Wolf (the original holder of the moniker “Why?”), his brother Josiah, Matt Meldon, and Doug McDiarmid are ready for some attention, which they seem to be getting. Or at least the indie critic establishment is taking them seriously or at least writing more seriously about them as can be seen here and better yet here.
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Microsoft Ultra Genius Clean complimentary laundry detergent! Made with a sprig of Galileo and a hint of Einstein. Feel the zest of your future!

Has your genius lost it’s zip? Need some help to restore your drive? Don’t be frustrated even the brightest of the bright need refreshing sometimes. Introducing Ultra Genius Clean! Concentrated cleansing agent that invigorates your genius and freshens your mind. Wash away inanity and restore that clever bounce with the suds of your future …. Ahhhhhh …..

From Microsoft. Yes this box (pictures here and here, apologize for the crappy resolution iPhone takes terrible pictures in low light) was placed on my desk in my office at work last week. I still don’t know who it’s from, but it made me laugh. There’s also a web site associated with it: http://hey-genius.com/. It sort of reminds me of that Google billboard advertisements for people. You know, this one:

{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com

The solution is easy. A really cheap easy solution is here, though there are others. Please forgive the formatting of that post … it was a long time ago and vdov.net has changed substantially since those days.

Also, check this picture out. I took this at a gas station in West Lafayette, IN about a week ago. See if you can figure out why I think it’s funny.

Vdov seems slightly more alive as of late. Cheers.

I don’t normally just repost something that someone has already done. However, I thought that at least someone might like this little gem about the calculation for the date of Easter. The Wikipedia article also goes into a lot of depth. I had no idea this was such a complicated endeavor or that ancient people had spent so much time calculating the occurrence of this most glorious date. My absolute favorite part of the whole calculation is the beautiful condensation of all of this math into a nice easy to read, no math involved, histogram. The only anomaly seems to be Easter dates that fall on the 26th of April are moved to the 19th. The upshot of all of this is that this very Easter (today) happens to be the earliest Easter that any of us sad mortals will ever experience barring massive increases in human longevity since the next march 23rd Easter will be 2160. The earliest date possible for Easter is March 22nd which last happened in 1818 and won’t happen again until 2285. We can all rest easy though because barring rapture most of us will still be around in 2038 when we have the latest Easter of our lifetime (barring once again ludicrous increases in human longevity or singularity events). For those that don’t care a whit about Easter… well have fun roasting in the fires of hell for all eternity. I hope all your fancy math comforts you then.

There has been a lot of talk on the tubes lately about the traffic flow problem, specifically a part of this problem that we’re all familiar with: complete stoppages that seem to have no explanation. Some recent links on the popularized tubes (aka, not the science tubes), seem to indicate that there has been some incredible breakthrough in our understanding on this subject. For example:

Slashdot: Scientists solve the mystery of traffic jams

This is fine and well, but unfortunately these people fail to mention the most important work on the subject which initially came from the theory of nonlinear wave equations, and was more or less solved in 1974. It was summed up in a classic text on linear and nonlinear waves so titled and written G. B. Whitham. The book is out of print but it’s around on Amazon as well as other stores and any self-respecting science library should have this book sitting on the shelves. The main problem is one of wave propagation leading to “shock fronts” in traffic. If one person brakes for no reason, shock waves develop and travel backwards (for most flow problems) relative to the moving frame of the cars. Consider a velocity function for cars as a function of the density.

It’s quite simple to assume that must be a decreasing function of which starts from some maximum value at and decreases to zero as , and the maximum density flow occurs at some specific value of . Guess what? Actual observations peg the value of at about 255 vehicles per mile and the maximum flow density at about 80 (or 1500 vehicles per hour). Amazingly these values scale in a near linear fashion as lanes are added to the flow on a simple highway. It turns out the maximum flow rate is actually achieved at about 20 miles per hour. If we then develop a simple expression for the propagation velocity:

Since the derivative of the velocity function is less than 0, propagation of shock waves in a traffic flow travel backwards, and according to Whitham, “warn the drives of disturbances ahead”. Unfortunately this has some pretty negative consequences for you and I, the driver, who will inevitably be fed up with random stoppages in the road for no particular reason. Whitham continues to make some elementary arguments on the status of a wave near the stoppage density of traffic on a road. It turns out that the second derivative of the density flow function is less than zero, which means that a local increase of density propagates backwards, and shock forms somewhere behind the initial disturbance.

Now I’m sure that people have made some improvements in the mathematical description of this problem since the pioneering work of Whitham, but don’t be fooled: pretty much everything you read about “new developments” in this area in the popular media have been solved for more than 4 decades.

Cheers.