Oskar Lindenmayer, Student of Rock.

No Vestige of Beginning! No Prospect of an End!

2010-11-10T07:10:00.001-08:00

A song inspired by James Hutton, written by Oskar Lindenmayer

The mind of every man aboard this boat will be unfenced,

Though they’re doubtful what I’ll show them will convince them of my sense.

We’re headed out upon the waves a treasure trove we seek

Not gold or jeweled bracelets, but the proof of time most deep.

When years ago I traveled south and worked upon the land

I planted crops in springtime midst the hills, rolling and grand.

I watched my precious soil carried off by floods and rain

And wondered just how many times a flood had done the same.

For if my hills denuded annually, as such one might expect

Then I’d soon run short on soil and my crop growing prospects.

So I reasoned that new soil was eroded from the rock

And was both carried in and carried out maintaining gain and stock.

But where then did this dirt end up? Of course it went downhill,

And into flowing rivers, never resting, not until

Its journey’s end, or so I thought, was deepest oceans floor,

With this in mind, I went on planting, and for years I thought no more.

Then later in the highland peaks that rise above the land,

I chanced upon a seashell buried in a rock of sand.

How it came to be in mountains high I hadn’t but a clue,

Unless the mountain once was sea bed, though that went ‘gainst all I knew.

But what else could bring these shells, for more and more I found,

From the depths of deepest ocean to so high above the ground.

And the rock itself was made of sand, the link formed in my mind

My highland stone and weathered farming soil were of a kind!

Whatever force had driven those shells up out of the water,

Had fused the sand and formed new land, I beheld erosion’s daughter!

But then I realised the implications, Good grief! I must be wrong!

For such sediment's depth below me would have taken far too long

To accumulate from river flows, why millions of years would be needed,

But with no way 'round I must take what I've found and insist that my findings be heeded.

And so on this fine day, we paddle away in our boat, in search of an outcrop

And I see what I seek, there's no time to be meek and so boldly I call for a stop.

On the cliffs up above a formation displayed that promises to shatter their normity,

'My friends', I exclaim, 'Have you changed what you claim, now you've seen angular unconformity?'

I am supposed to be studying for my exams, not writing songs about the findings of James Hutton, who was the pioneer of uniformitarianism. Nevertheless, I think I did a pretty good job of it and it kind of counts as studying, sort of, maybe, a bit. The tune I was thinking of was the one that seems to be used in all musicals where instruments accompany someone talking purposefully without drawing attention to themselves.

All for now,

Oskat.

I have a foram on my forearm...

2010-08-13T02:50:00.001-07:00

Wow, it has been ages! (I seem to start most of my posts like that.) I won't appologise for the delay between this and my last post, because I have been really busy and feel that the accumulation of knowledge trumps the spread of gossip.

I am, however, back.

And I am back with some good news (for those who are fans of foraminifera, palaeoclimatic research and me). Today I discussed the possibility of a research project with Ass. Proff. Stephen Gallagher, a micropalaeontologist. He said that he'd be happy to have me and suggested a project involving the identification of changes in species of foraminifera over time in the Gippsland basin and their use as a proxy for palaeoclimate.
Understandably, I was pretty happy with this.

He also gave me back my shoes, which was a bonus. (I left them in the back of a van while doing field work over the winter break.

So, as of next year I will begin being involved in actual science for the first time, which is completely awesome.

For the uninitiated, forams are unicelular organisms that construct a shell called a test. They are used extensively in biostratigraphy and as palaeoenvironmental indicators. They are awesome (some benthic ones are in fact both boring and awesome [as in they bore into the sea bed {thought I could get through the first post in months without using three kinds of brackets? You thought wrong}])!

I'll post again soon,
Oskat.

Ode to Coal.

2010-02-19T04:18:00.000-08:00

I decided to write this song about the ultimate origin and formation of coal...

What?

Our story starts like most things: Solar.

Four thousand million years and older,

from nebulaeic clouds it all condensed.

The sun, our great nuclear reactor,

pumpin' out light by fusing matter.

Shining on a new-formed Earth, that's how it went.

Skip forward two billion years or so.

Cellular life has started to grow.

Photosynthetics oxygenate the atmosphere.

Ice-age, greenhouse, its understood.

Sea grass, land-plants, -SNAP!- we've got wood!

stacking into airless swamps for millions of years.

Half a billion years of fossil sunlight,

cooking hot to keep my, lights bright.

Tapping ancient swamps, I'm burning COAL!

Half a billion years for it to build up.

Four hundred years then dug and drilled up.

To feed our growing needs at any toll.

Did anyone else notice my prediction in the last bit. We've only been seriously mining coal for the last 200 years, so I am telling you I expect us to run out in around 200 more...

Also, in the third and fourth paragraph-y things it looks a bit like I think photosynthetics, seagrasses and wooded land plants all emerged during both a greenhouse event and an ice age, around two billion years ago. I know that this is not true. I didn't put in any more lines about time passing because they wouldn't fit.

All for now,

'Skat.

The Nature of Nature.

2010-01-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

A number of possibilities for a definition of 'nature' have been proposed.

The first I will examine is 'Wilderness, a physical area unaffected by humanity'.
Personally I consider this to be an unrealistic view of any part of the world. All environments are inextricably linked and we humans have had some degree of impact on all of them. Even places where no human has ever been are in some way affected by us, through our pressure on migratory organisms that do come into contact with us and our impact on the global climate system. In addition, if we only consider things to be natural if no human has come into contact with them, then none of us have ever actually experienced nature.
While it is true that some environments can clearly be seen to have been further affected by humans than others, the impossibility to draw a line makes this definition of nature unrealistic.

Next we have ' The opposite to culture, that which is not culture'. This is an interesting one, that at first looks promising to me. Difficulties arise, however, when one has to define culture. Somehow I feel 'The opposite to nature' isn't going to cut it. The definition of culture that I have generally used is 'Any learned behavior, or product of this behavior, that can pass between individuals'. This definition seemed fine when dealing with human culture as opposed to nature, but I then considered the culture displayed by other animals. For example, styles of bird song are learned. Certain types of song go in and out of fashion for birds in different areas, even those of the same species. While this, by my earlier definition, is certainly a cultural phenomenon, it is something that I generally would have considered natural.
The difficulty with this definition of nature is drawing a line between whether a phenomenon constitutes culture or is driven by instinct (and if it is a combination of the two, is it natural or cultural?). Language in humans, for instance, is universal, indicating that we have some kind of in-built language instinct, but individual languages are culturally developed and transmitted.

The definition of nature that I am most comfortable with is 'Every element of the world we inhabit'. The implication is that humans and our constructs are not separate from nature, but an integral part of it. Some claim that this would excuse us from our degradation of other natural things, as we cannot be doing anything wrong in exploiting that which we are a part of. I find this most unsatisfactory. It is perfectly reasonable to be worried about one part of a whole damaging another, particularly when one part is self aware.

I am reminded of Richard Dawkins' metaphor of a selfish gene at this point. A self interested part of a whole, that will 'try' to ensure its own survival at the expense of other parts, but has found that cooperation and mutualism are more successful at ensuring its continued existence that all out exploitation. That is not to say that sometimes, it is in the best interests of a self interested propagator to exploit. The fact that humans, unlike Dawkins' unaware selfish-genes, are able to plan and to think forward gives us two greater opportunities.
One is the ability to propagate ourselves at the expense of other elements of nature with much more efficiency and success.
The other, is to look ahead and steer ourselves away from mindless propagation (in terms of population and of material wealth and power) that will not benefit us in the long term.

I hope that we can see fit to choose the latter option.

This essay is far from perfect or complete, I am using this blog as a sort of sounding board. I am stressing that I really need people to criticize me. This is the way that I sort out what is going on in my head. I really do think I'm on to something with the layers withing layers of selfish propagators, though. Anyway, thoughts?

Loren is The best Person in The world ...

2009-12-21T04:32:00.000-08:00

She dares Me to Post something Like this. Why am I writing Like this.

Conversing with a Monk.

2009-12-17T09:41:00.001-08:00

Today I was approached by a monk on Bourke St. This is the conversation we had:

Monk: Hey there, how are you today?

Me: Not bad, thanks. How are you?

Monk: Good, good. I was wondering if you'd heard about yoga?

Me: Yes, yes I've heard of it.

Monk: How about karma?

Me: Yes.

Monk: Reincarnation?

Me: Yes, that too.

Monk: What about monks?

Me: Yes, I've heard of monks.

Monk: Well, I'm a monk!

Me: Oh, ok. (he was wearing a white robe and had a white mark on his forehead, I was pretty sure he wasn't a banker)

Monk: Let me give you an example. Imagine someone has a car. It starts off really good and fast, but over time it wears out, just from being used. Eventually the driver gets a new car, because the old one wears out. That's like the immortal soul in reincarnation. The body is like the car.

Me: I see.

Monk:We have this publication of information. We give you knowledge. Most people give a donation to cover the cost of printing, but you don't need to.

Monk: You see, karma is really all about having a good time. Are you the kind of person who likes having a good time?

Me: Um, yes... (NO I HATE GOOD TIMES!)

Monk: You see, our, sort of, god, really just wants us to have a good time. We do yoga and maintain balance and have a good time.

Me: How do you know this?

Monk: What? Ah, well it works!

Me: What do you mean?

Monk: If you try it you will find yourself feeling better and more fulfilled.

Me: More so than the regular stretching and relaxation would leave you feeling?

Monk: Yes!

Me: How do you know that?

Monk: Well, I started all this, became a monk and now I feel much better than I would have if I was just stretching.

Me: So you feel better than you did before and this is the only explanation that you have to account for it? I'm sorry, but do you think you're not being very open minded?

I gave him $5 for his book, which I read, then threw out. I regret the waste of paper.

Don't worry, I don't just pick on the religious who approach me in the street. I do the same thing for members of the Socialist Alternative!

A Bike Powered Gun!

2009-12-16T07:22:00.000-08:00

That's right, it's that time of year again! The time of year where I get BRILLIANT ideas for electrical things I want to build. This time I'm planning on combining my old design for the ball bearing accelerator with a three phase DC power generator run by an old exercise bike.

THE ACCELERATOR FOR THE WASTE CONSCIOUS CONSUMER

I'm not sure what the said consumer is consuming exactly, but they're probably doing so AWESOMELY!

While strictly speaking a completely different design, this German Railgun also accelerates pieces of metal with electricity...

Previously, when one wanted to accelerate their ball bearings they would have had to connect their accelerator up to a car battery or some other one-use-only power source (or throw it). I think I should be able to produce a higher amperage from the bike than any easily obtainable battery would be able to (thus inducing stronger magnetic fields and propelling my projectiles faster).

I've also never made a proper generator before, and I think it will give me a healthy respect for how hard generating power is, when I have to pedal to do so. Perhaps I can also use it to educate others as to how difficult it is to generate electricity, or even use it as a practical generator, for when I need to... light really small light bulbs while cycling...

Re: Title: If the ball bearing comes out fast enough it could be considered a sort of gun.

Decimal Time, Oskar Numbers and The Rock Python.

2009-10-23T01:38:00.000-07:00

Such a lot has happened!

I think the best way of leading into all this is to cover some history of an Austrian mathematician called Erdos.
Erdos was, in some ways, an itinerant mathematician. That is to say, he wondered around Europe working for board and lodging. In this capacity he co-published some 1200 papers.
Later, while studying academic networking, some of his colleagues (not entirely jokingly) came up with the 'Erdos Number' system. They gave Erdos himself an Erdos Number of zero. Anyone who had co-published with him directly was given and Erdos Number of 1. If these people co-published with someone, they would give them an Erdos Number one value higher than their own. Those who have no publishing link to Erdos have an Erdos Number of infinity.

Upon learning all this, I decided that I needed to start a similar system for myself. I decided that since publishing papers is a bit beyond me at this stage, the interaction that I would track with Oskar Numbers would be the high-five. I explained the system to a few people and high-fived them. I now know of about 15 people with Oskar Numbers of varying magnitude. No doubt this number will grow as the high-fives spread.

I have also (with some prompting on the 'other people coming up with good ideas' front) decided that time needs to be decimalized. From now on you will use the following time keeping system:
The basic unit of time is the jasecond (often shortened to 'second). This is the equivalent of 4.32 seconds in the old system. There are 1000 jaseconds in an oskhour (often shortened to 'hour) and 10 oskhours in a day. What we used to call midnight is now 'time zero' and the time is counted from 0-10 oskhours after this time.

There are now 100 days in a year and the seasons no longer correspond to the year. There are 10 months, each of 10 days; Monember, Duember, Triember, Quadrember, Quintember, Hextember, Heptember, Octember, November and December.

Naturally, our system of angles will also have to be changed (angles being ultimately derived from our time keeping system). There are now 10 degrees in a circle (the Earth rotates one degree every oskhour). We will continue to use radians for simplicity of calculation, but I'm sure you'll all agree with me that 5 degrees=pi radians is much easier than 52.whatever it was under the old system.

In other news, I found out that each of the jungle book names that me and my fellow cub-leaders adopt has a meaning beyond its animal type:

Baloo- the bear- teacher

Rama- the great herd bull- leader

Chil- the kite- observer

and of course, me:

Ka- the rock python-
... wait for it...
TREE CLIMBING!

I am awesome, thank you for reading,
'Skat.

Things People Should Realize.

2009-10-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

Stuff is older than you can possible imagine.

Exponential growth cannot be sustained.

Learning is FUN!

Everything is really little balls and wiggly lines.

Public library books are free.

They should look around more.

The universe is bigger than you can possibly imagine.

People aren't always nice, but it can help to pretend they are.

Maths is art.

Most people don't realize the above.

Once more I walk through the hallowed halls of our noble University

2009-10-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

I can't quite place what it is, but there's something wonderful about being back at uni. I've visited it many times during the holidays, but it wasn't the same. There's something about being a part of one of the country's greatest hives of intellectual activity, even if it is only as a lowly first year student, that excites me. I've already had two lectures, both packed full of lovely new knowledge about animals, oceans and winds.

Later this week ( in fact some might say at the end of it [Saturday]) I will be going on my first proper geology field trip. I am excited about it, not least because it means I get to sped a WHOLE day wandering around the beach looking at rocks and finding fossils.

I'm sure to look the part of course. My dress sense was described recently to me as a cross between lumberjack and Hagrid (possibly when Hagrid is going hiking?). This coupled with my sturdy, but almost antiquated equipment (grandpa's geological hammer, great grandma's hand lens [they really built stuff to last back then]) will make me look like a professional, I'm sure.

With this in mind I came up with a great idea for a T-shirt: A picture of a T-Rex skull and underneath it the words "Geologist, cleverly disguised as a Palaeontologist". I will work on making this brilliant design a reality.

I was recently told that some gelogists can tell what kind of rock they're dealing with by tasting it. I have set myself the goal to be able to do this and have been practicing with my collection. for some rocks it is pointless, as they look different, but there are some things that tongues are really useful for determining. An example is differentiating between mudstone and fine sandstone, impossible with the eye and very difficult by touching them with your hands. The tongue on the other hand is much more sensitive to sedimentary grains (if you can distinguish grains it isn't mudstone).

Just last night i found out that my new ability qualifies me for a badge from the 'science scouts'; the 'Rock Licker' badge. There are several other badges they have that I feel I quilify for, perhaps I should look further into them and update you later.

In other news: my mother now has a blog. If you're interested in cooking, but not very good at it then you might be interested.

Note: You will now find the science scout badges that I have earned displayed down the side of the page. For a description of what they represent see the link in this post.

Because I'm NOT a biologist...

2009-09-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

Those of you who are like me (notice patterns obsessively) will no doubt have checked and found that a large number of my recent posts have gone up at around the same time. This is because it is the time when I have nothing else to do. On Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:00-12:00 I have nothing on, while almost everyone I know at uni has Biology. Two days a week the same thing happens with chemistry, but I often sit in on chemistry lectures (my physics/maths background allows me to get a lot out of them, even though I haven't done any chemistry since high school). I even take notes (much to the disapproval of those whop know that I don't need to).
I can't seem to bring myself to sit in on biology lectures. This is strange, because I actually do a (fringe) biology subject. I suppose I turned my back away from cell biology and genetics when I decided not to turn up and collect the subject prize for biology at the 2007 graduation (actually I was in year 11 and didn't know that it was happening).
Anyway, enough of projecting my internal musings into a domain for public viewing, I have a Climate Change lecture to got to (Not that I expect to get much out of it, I can't seem to understand a word our current lecturer says [to make matters worse, he's not talking about science or economics, but SOCIAL IMPACTS! What is this, an arts subject?] ).

Also, apparently I haven't done a post on Non Linear Thinking for a long time and Reuben is getting annoyed (perhaps he should look at his recent track record with his OWN blog?). I might do something on integers and continuity in nature or something.... might...

Oskar.

For when you need some consistancy in life.

2009-09-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

I recently met someone who was able to reel off about pi to about 17 decimal places. This impressed me a great deal, and showed me I was being slack in my remembering of constants.
I then wondered which physical or mathematical constants I would most like to memorize.
I have always had a soft spot for the speed of light, as well as the charge of an electron (the actual charge, not some dodgy Faraday's constant {I really admire Michael Faraday and am disappointed that he has such a boring and unnecessary constant stuck to his name [if you know the charge of an electron and what a mole is then you can work it out /no animals were harmed in the calculation of this constant/]})

1.60217646 × 10^{-19 Coulomb}

See what I mean, such a lovely number, more than half of the digits are divisible by two.
Lightspeed, on the other hand, is a lot nicer when you stick to just three significant figures.

3.00*10^8 ms^-1

When you go any further you start getting all sorts of crazy 9's and 7's.

I don't mind Avogadro's constant either (though it is fairly arbitrary).

One of my more mathematical posts in a while, but you know how you sometimes get in the mood for some nice numbers. I also managed to embed four sets of brackets into each other, no meant feat, even for someone like me who thinks that brackets are the pinnacle of literary...goodness.

Yours,

Lindenosk,
Oskar,
Oskat,
'Skat,
Lewie,
Esky,
Osk,
Captain,
Ka.

God created the integers? I thought she was more of an arts person.

2009-08-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

In time I'll probably write some kind of well thought out, structured essay on why I don't think integers occur in nature, until then rest assured: they don't.

According to the head of the school of physics at Melbourne Uni, arts students (like Americans) are likely to be religious.

There are a whole lot of things that are mildly annoying in a highly intelectual way. I've decided to list them for your reading pleasure.

People think Earth Science is about saving the environment. It isn't; it's far more rigerous and self interested than that.

Some people take way too long to say things that could be said in a single sentence. They sometimes do this because they think it makes them sound smarter.

Some rocks are difficult to break, while others have dirt in cracks and just look brown inside when you smash them.

I can't remember where I put the key to my bike lock, currently attached to both my bike and a public fence.

Magneto from X-men can control all metals, though most are not ferromagnetic.

People are always going on about saving impressive animals, but not boring ones.

Politicians are the ones who relate scientific data to policies.

Thank you for reading.

The Present is Past, The Zombie Apocalypse is NOW!

2009-08-17T03:20:00.000-07:00

I have had an action packed last few days.
On Saturday I went to a friend, E1's birthday party. This involved dressing up as a zombie and seeking the nourishment of grey matter in the CBD. This was excellent fun, although my costume was more of a 'homeless person who had been run over my a lawn mower' costume. A highlight was our visit to Macdonalds, in which we made up for driving customers away by buying a miniature game of monopoly. After an encounter with a group of slightly more impressive, but perhaps less apocalyptic zombies (they were in period costume), we went back to E1's house. There I tried one of the infamous 'alco-pops' for the first time (with purely academic motivations). It tasted suspiciously like red cordial, a fact that was both appealing and worrying for different reasons.

Here is a photo of the zombie crew. We really do look like we've been beaten up, don't we.

Yesterday (Sunday) I volunteered at The University of Melbourne's open day. I was working to promote the Department of Earth Sciences. My job involved handing out fliers, holding a balloon and telling people that they wanted to do subjects offered by the department. Our recruitment was not helped by the confusing nature of our surroundings and advertising material. All the pamphlets/stickers/magnets had 'Earth Sciences' written on them and the sign above our booth proclaimed us 'Atmosphere and Ocean Science-Geology'. On top of all this we were located opposite the boothes for 'Geography' and 'Environmental Science'.
I will have some photos (ok, so I ended up with one photo, but what a photo it is) of my action packed weekend up in a few days.
Until then,
Lindenosk.

Cycling Around Melbourne

2009-08-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

I have finally put into action my 'new educational institution resolution' to ride my bike to uni.

In order to do this I had to first ride it from my mother's to my father's house (Balwyn Nth to Northcote).

I have noticed a distinct difference between the way I am treated as a cyclist in the inner North and inner East. Riding through suburbs like Bulleen, Heidelberg and Alphington, drivers of cars seem to hate you for being on the road. I don't think I was doing anything wrong, but was beeped about 6 times in the half hour it took me to cross into the city of Darebin.

However, once I got there things did not immediately pick up, you see I went via West Preston to visit my aunt.

In the 'medium rare North' (I don't want to call Preston outer in case I spark another battle between Preston and Lalor) I was challenged to a race no less than two times (by local gentlemen in Ford cars reverberating with the distinctive humm of turbo chargers {I made the turbocharger bit up, I have no idea what one sounds like, if it even makes a noise})

In Northcote, Clifton Hill, Fitzroy and Carlton, on the other hand, You are treated like royalty for cycling. They even have special paths set aside for you. The only major disadvantage to riding in the inner North is that you have to compete for road space with the lycra people. You see, it is an unwritten law amongst cyclists that the rider with the tightest lycra suit gets the right of way. This leaves me with my distinctively non-tight leather jacket at the bottom of the pecking order, a fact which the alpha lycra-wearers are never slow to demonstrate to me by speeding past me dangerously close.

As I am riding a mountain bike, while they are without fail riding super-road bikes, I am often tempted to give them a bit of a warning nudge. So far this is just a fantasy, but if you do happen to see me on the road, please don't tempt me.

So I am interested in any region specific cycling experiences any of you have had, whether you were a cyclist, pedestrian or even, (insert deity of choice) forbid, a motorist.

Wise Words From Australia's Academics.

2009-08-09T18:16:00.000-07:00

I might start making this a recurring segment (how may times have I said that?). Attending University of Melbourne, The, I have the opportunity to be taught by some of Australia's leading academics. They have taught me a great deal, and I will recount to you, dear readers, some of the most groundbreaking (in the case of my geology lecturers, pun absolutely intended) and life changing things they have told me.

"So if you ever find yourself attacking a prickly pear with a machete, you'll probably come out second best."

"I've been smashing granite with a sledge hammer for around thirty five years, and the thing is that it actually breaks fairly easily. If you try to smash quartzite on the other hand, the hammer will just bounce right back, you could get splinters flying around, so you have to wear protective goggles."

"So then the nucleophile is like 'Whoa! That's a big mother of a positive charge!', so it goes in via the rear access pathway."

"Geologists only use the word 'stone' as a verb."

"Last time I checked, Chemistry and Physics didn't have any field trips!"

"You won't need any lab coats for this prac, or any safely glasses or any molecules or anything."

So there you have it, I hope you will all take these wise words to heart and apply them to your day to day lives. And remember, as our University's motto loosely translates to: 'We will grow in the esteme of future generations'.

Witness to Crime

2009-08-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

I was recently a Witness To Crime in the fair suburb of Northcote! That's right, I actually saw crime happening right in front of me. I was also witness to the swift rsponsive action of our state police force. Don't worry, I won't keep you hanging.

Here's what happened:

I was returning from a movie marathon night at a friend's house at around 12:30am. As it was late, I decided to walk home rather than wait for the irregular tram (Reuben is forbidden from commenting on this, I know it's bad that we don't have ultratrams every 30 seconds.).

Walking home involved traveling past Batman Park (those of you who are not familiar with the area can pause for a moment to be impressed with the name of our park). As I did so I noticed a car had stopped in the middle of the road.

There was a speed camera that was flashing at it every two seconds and many passing cars were beeping at it.

Then the police showed up, at which point the occupants of the car decided that their lack of being caught doing whatever they were doing was worth more than the car, so got out and ran into the park.

The police, still within their vehicle, followed the two (apparently) criminal gentlemen and caught them on the far side of the park.

So there you go, I have often heard of crimes taking place in the Northcote area, but have never before been witness to such an exciting one. Perhaps this is because I don't often go wandering down St Georges road an 12:30 am, anyway, they perpetrators (of what I'm still not sure) were caught, so no harm done.

A Student of Rock

2009-07-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, apparently I'm shouting into an empty room here. On the upside, I don't need to worry about my spelling any more!

Some big news at the moment (if you're particularly interested in me) is that I have decided to major in geology. You see, geology rocks. Also it is gneiss and is not schist. That's right, I have changed my academic plans because geology has better puns than physics or maths.

Actually, the stuff I would like to end up doing as a geologist is fairly similar to that which I would have liked to do as a physicist, only with more rocks.

Australia is also a good place for geologists. There is no shortage of rocks here (I wouldn't want to be an Australian hydrologist).
That said, I don't particularly want to end up working in the mining industry, which means that I'd be pretty much limited to academic positions if I'd like get payed. I hope that this means I will never have to get a real job and can continue at educational institutions indefinitely.

Geologists also get hammers in second year, which is great.

With my new intended major, I have a new host of subjects this semester:
(I haven't lost my compulsion to list things)

Earth Science:
This subject is looking like being quite enjoyable. We do much more practical work than last semester, including two field trips.

Biology of Australian Flora and Fauna:
Described by a friend as "the love child of Earth Science and Biology", this subject has also had a promising start. One of the greatest features it has is a botany lecturer who bears a close resemblance to Wolverine. I am hoping that many of my future lecturers will resemble the X-men.

Natural Environments:
Not technically a science subject, but counts for science credit. This subject covers the major natural systems that effect environments (tectonics, climate, biota).

Introduction to Climate Change:
Breadth subject taught by no less than 6 Professors. Covers climate change and its effects from a variety of perspectives (science, economics, ethics...etc.). So far it has been fascinating, with my ol' pal David Karoly giving a lecture on "why Ian Plimer and Senator Fielding are wrong".

New banner is expected soon, but I may lose interest in no one comments,
Oskat.

WOW! It's been ages...

2009-07-28T17:38:00.000-07:00

That's right, I'm not dead (yet)! I have done a lot recently, and will let you all (if I haven't lost my entire, already meager, readership) know what has been going on in my life in due season (I picked that one up from the PM).
Where to start... I suppose the thing foremost on my mind is that I found out how close to town I live. I am now at my father's place (Northcote) half time, and looked it up on google maps for the first time. Northcote is as close to the city as St Kilda! (the north part of the city, anyway). Even my Mum's place in North Balwyn is close-ish, with a 25 minute trip down the freeway (in a bus).

My appreciation for my proximity to our CBD was compunded by a tour of the entire metropolitan train system (over 4 days) that I undertook during my (just finished) month of holidays with some friends from uni.

Got to go to a lecture now, but I look forward to finding out who still checks my blog and what they have to say about my recent discovery.

Lindenosk, signing out.

Oskar, the INTP

2009-05-14T03:40:00.000-07:00

My obsession with reaching self knowledge through questionnaires has culminated in me doing the Myers-Briggs test, reportedly the best and most accurate personality test available. The result: I am an INTP. This is the one personality type (out of sixteen) associated with Introversion, Intuition, Thinking and Perceiving. The other sixteen are combinations of these four qualities and their opposite components; Extroversion, Sensing, Feeling and Judging. A general description of INTP's is included below:

INTPs are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them.

Precise about their descriptions, INTPs will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives INTPs so inclined a natural advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists.

INTPs are relatively easy-going and amenable to most anything until their principles are violated, about which they may become outspoken and inflexible. They prefer to return, however, to a reserved albeit benign ambiance, not wishing to make spectacles of themselves.

A major concern for INTPs is the haunting sense of impending failure. They spend considerable time second-guessing themselves. The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one's conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well have overlooked some critical bit of data. An INTP arguing a point may very well be trying to convince himself as much as his opposition. In this way INTPs are markedly different from INTJs, who are much more confident in their competence and willing to act on their convictions.

Mathematics is a system where many INTPs love to play, similarly languages, computer systems--potentially any complex system. INTPs thrive on systems. Understanding, exploring, mastering, and manipulating systems can overtake the INTP's conscious thought. This fascination for logical wholes and their inner workings is often expressed in a detachment from the environment, a concentration where time is forgotten and extraneous stimuli are held at bay. Accomplishing a task or goal with this knowledge is secondary.

INTPs and Logic -- One of the tipoffs that a person is an INTP is his/her obsession with logical correctness. Errors are not often due to poor logic -- apparent faux pas in reasoning are usually a result of overlooking details or of incorrect context.

I think that is a pretty good description of me (and I'd know, wouldn't I?). So have you done the Myers-Briggs test before? What was the result? Was your result better then mine? Why? Am I beeing too pushy whith these questions?

If you would like to try a free online version of the test, then this one is pretty accurate, though some of the links its website are very dubious. These explanations of the types are also quite good.

Be like Oskar, don't have better things to do!

2009-05-05T23:16:00.000-07:00

Right, so I've found another great way to procrastinate. I now regularly read about a million web-comics, so I can be sure that at least one will be updating soon ALL THE TIME. I cycle through them, waiting for one to update. This is great because I was exaggerating and really only read six of them, so I end up re-reading them several times every day.

That said, I do think that some of the best humor around these days can be found in online comics.
I will once again provide you with a list (listing has become my 'thing' if you haven't noticed), this time of some of my favorite web-comics. Hopefully you will also like them and start wasting your life too!

Dr McNinja: My favorite comic at the moment. It combines some brilliant meme-trend-setting material, with bizarre circumstances, plenty of 'in' jokes and some decent art. Also, it's about a doctor who comes from a long line of Irish ninja and his 10 year old, mustache sporting, sharp shooting sidekick called Gordito, who rides a raptor called Yoshi.
Check it out at: http://drmcninja.com

XKCD:
Old favorite of mine, I have been reading this comic since about half way through year 11. Might be a bit mathsy for some, but usually a good read. Some really clever stuff too, which is contrasted by the very simple drawings, mostly sick figures.
One of my favorites: http://xkcd.com/435/

Dinosaur Comics:
I've had mixed responses about this one. Perhaps its a bit too nerdy, even for the people who are nerdy enough to talk to me. It features the same images in every comic strip, with the writing altered each time. It has some good jokes about linguistics, literature and philosophy as well as a smattering of less intellectual jokes about sex, eating and cephalods.
Couldn't find my favorite, but this one is pretty good. Be sure to read the text when you hover your mouse over the image. http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000298.html

Saturday Mornin Breakfast Cereal:
I've only started reading this one recently, but it is quickly making its way up my list of favorites. It usually features a scene designed to give you one impression, then turns your idea of what's going on around with a second scene or sometimes just an additional sentence displayed below the comic.
This one's great: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1481#comic

Least I Could Do:
This one has its ups and downs; I really enjoy the superhero/starwars refferences and Rayne's (the main character) spontaneous actions, however it sometimes takes its more risque' jokes too far and can be downright disturbing. Not for the easily offended.
http://least.coulddo.com

Hope you like them too.

New Calculus Theme.

2009-05-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

So, I've started to see the absolute brilliance of maths. I've always found it kind of interesting, but the stuff we're doing at uni is so awesome that I am seriously considering straying away from my intended physics life pathway. If only mathematicians got to help design the most powerful machines in the world...
Anyway, I've got a new banner (don't criticize it yet, I'm not finished) and name for the blog (which I'm planning to start updating regularly again).

In the spirit of all this, I've found a limerick that is mind bogglingly perfect:

Here it is:

Which, of course, translates to:

Integral t-squared dt
from 1 to the cube root of 3
times the cosine
of three pi over 9
equals log of the cube root of 'e'.

And it's correct, too.

Six books to take back in time (or possibly read)

2009-04-15T02:04:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a brilliant T-shirt, produced by the author of one of my favourite webcomics, Dinosaur Comics. I will be purchasing one in the near future, but quite apart from being an examination of my strange ideas of style, this post is about the kind of things you would take with you, were you forced into the past (or preserve during an apocalypse). What do I consider the most important works of modern times?
I have compiled a list of the six books that I feel make up a formidable chunk of current knowledge and techniques that I would not wish to be without. I willingly admit that there are surely books much more complete than the ones in my list (indeed all six of the books in my list happened to be on my bedside table, perhaps a hint of some influence on my choices. All were also on special at Borders within the past five years :) .), but i have not read them. Here goes:

A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson.
This book was my first and most obvious choice. It contains an extraordinary amount of information, covering our current understanding of cosmology, as well as a general history of how we arrived at these conclusions. It provides many specific statistics including the size and gae of the Earth and Universe, as well as a rough guide to the kinds of thought that could be used to expand on this existing knowledge.

Bad Science, Ben Goldacre.
I did not choose this book for its specific content, but the tools it explains and promotes. It coveres the basics of the scientific method, the use of statistics and the potential ways they can be manipulated to apparently give false conclusions. It provides reasons for holding a skeptical world view and suggests tools for maintaining this view.

The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.
One of the most influential books in the history of Western thought, though unintended. I have chosen this book because of the amazing way it explains the processes and complexity of life (one of the more significant aspects of the world if which we live).

Collapse, Jared Diamond.
This book is a historical study of the sustainability of human civilisations. It provides strong evidence for the idea that almost all human civilisations that have failed have done so because of self instigated environmental degradation. It also gives suggestions as to how this might be avoided in the future. This book would be particularly significant if brought into the past, as it could be used to prevent much of the damage done to our resources, or if taken past the apacalypse, ensure we don't repeat our mistakes.

Six Easy Pieces, Richard Feynman.
Six essays based on six lectures by one of the greatest modern physicists of all time. In this book, Feynman explains the basics of physical chemistry, classical mechanics, conservation of energy, gravitation and reletivity, quantum physics and how physics can be applied within other sciences. While being extraordinarily informative and useful, the contents of this book are easily readable and persuasive.

Sophie's World, Jostein Gaardner.
So far my suggested books have all been related to science, or at least practically oriented, so you would be forgiven for being surprised by my final contribution. Not only is Sophie's World one of the greatest works of fiction of all time, it is rich with history and my other (than science) love; philosophy. This book covers the history of philosophy from ancient Greece to modern times, pacing itsself and asking as many questions as it answers, keeping the reader as intelectually challanged as the characters in the story. This book would be invaluable as a source of knowledge of thinkers throughout the ages and stimulating intelectual thought and discussion.

So there's my list. As a final comment, you will probably have noticed my lack of lists of which horses won races and who won which battles in the past. This was a diliberate choice I made, not an oversight. I made the list with the intention of trying to accumulate as many important ideas, not to get rich by predicting the outcome of the battle of Hastings. In that case, why did I not simply choose a detailed text book from each of the subjects that i consider important. Sure, a text book of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Philosophy and Environemntal Science would have made up a substantial portion of our current important knowlege, but I do not think it would be a very accessable or interesting series of books, besides, it would probably be too heavy...

So, do you agree with my selection of important books? What books would you take in place of them? Also, even if you do not have the opportunity to take them back in time, these are all books I would reccomend you read.

Oskar at Uni

2009-02-28T00:03:00.000-08:00

That's right, I am starting (The) University of Melbourne. I have just finished O-week and will have my first lectures on Monday. It is at the same time an exhilirating and daunting idea. So without further ado, a run down on my subjects, clubs/societies and experiences so far.

Subjects:

Physics 1: Surprise surprise, I'm doing physics. I'm really looking forward to this and given my struggles to do well when I'm not interested in a subject I think I might do well accademically (moving from "why do cars have crumple zones?" to "what is the nature of reality?" might have something to do with it).

Calculus 1: As some of you may know, I have never really struggled with maths, just had trouble keeping motivated during the mindless repetition that seems to follow the actual learning. I will have to put up with this and commit to the subject though, because I need a good mark if I want to do Advanced Physics in second Semester.

Global Environment: This subject is described as an introduction to Earth Sciences. It looks like being a very interesting undertaking, covering geology, meteorology and paleantology amongst other things. It is also a subject with reletively few people enrolled, which I think will make for an interesting dynamic when compared wth the large groups enrolled in most of my other subjects.

From Plato to Einstein: My token arts subject required under the new 'Melbourne Model'. This is a history of Western thought. Basically it covers some philosophy of science, a subject that I am fairly interested in.

Clubs and Societies:

Physics Students Society: This looks like a great group and a look through their quarterly 'maglet' ElectroMAG reveals that they have the same sense of humour as me: "Emma recently invented a machine that allows her to travel through time, but as yet she has only managed to travel in the forward direction at the rate of aproximately one second per second." They are also a reletively new group (only founded late last year), which makes me think that they might be more welcoming and open to new students than some of the older, more established clubs.

Melbourne University Mathematics and Statistics society: I ran into these guys near the Science Students Centre and had revealed to me that I was their nth visitor and that this allowed me to gain a full rebate of the $2 entry fee. They also have a common room and invited me to visit and (on hearing I was a physics student) have a conversation of the probabilistic/deterministic nature of reality.

ScienStudents Society: This is one of the biggest and oldest societies on campus, I felt compelled to join them as I am a science student. The majority of members are actually not science students, but they seem to offer lots of free and cheap stuff (mostly food and alcohol).

University of Melbourne Secular Society: Given my views of religion, science and philosophy it is no real surprise that I have joined this club. They run various meetings, discussions and seminars as well as encouraging secualr though and education.

Experiences:
I haven't really done all that much yet (O-week was a bit slow because my hobbies don't include suffering from alcohol poisoning), but I did attend a few seminars on subjects and met the heads of first year Physics and Earth Sciences. They seemed like nice people who weren't out to see you fail at anything (always a good sign).

Youmay also have noticed that my banner and the name of my blog have changed. The administrative staff made a decission that with the increasing likelihood of someone else who understands physics looking at the website, the title should cover something that I am more familiar with. This, coupled with my desire to include some sort of pun and my name restricted me to simple-ish mechanics, so Coupled Oskarllations (it sounds like you're mispronouncing coupled oscillations) it is.

Plans for Australia

2009-02-19T04:34:00.000-08:00

Having spent the past 13 years aquiring knowldege and the past three months observing the world, I can now reveal what I would like to see hapen to my country accomplish in the next 10 years. Some of my hopes and suggestions may seem completely unrealistic and unachievable, but I feel that all my ideas listed here are within our capacity if we work hard and start soon. I have ommited any ideas that rely on yet unachieved technology or circumstances ("the aliens come down, fix poverty, global warming and inequality, then leave us with a parting gift of an unlimited resource machine" for example). In this way I guess my ideas are socially optomistic and progressively pesemistic. They are certainly not just my ideas and many of them have been borrowed from others or developed through discussion with others. If anyone can see improvements to or practical problems that may face my dreams then please highlight them.

Net zero population growth:
I know I sound like a broken record, but overpopulation is one of the biggest problems that faces the world today. A stable population size would allow increases in efficiancy to effectively add to our resource pool, rather than slowing down the inevitably increasing rate of depletion. I realise that eventually a reduction in population size will be necessary, but a stable population would be a good and managable medium term goal. A halt in population growth could be achieved by a combination of further education on contraception and the dramatic effects of overpopulation, scrapping the baby bonus, making abortion widely available and heavily cutting down on immigration.

Harnessing the 'new monsoon':
If, as is predicted, the recent floods in Queensland become an annual event during the new weather patterns we are experiencing, then I propose a new water redistribution system. If we were to build a large dam in central Southern Queensland and dig drainage channels so that water could run from mid to Southern areas of the coast into this dam then we would be able to greatly reduce the impact that the increased rain would have on the communities that inhabit these areas. The water in this dam could then be fed into the Murray-Darling river system in the Northern reaches of the Darling river. This would transport the water south without the need for vast pipelines and would ensure that the Murray's mouth was not at risk of re-closing. The new excess water going down the river system would allow a relaxation of the tight irrigation laws, allowing a greater food production in allong the river. Unfortunately this still leaves most of Victoria without Northern Assistance for water, so it is likely that desalination and cutting down on water use would have to continue.

Refilling the inland sea:
For those of you who don't know, Australia's interior was once filled with water. A relic of an earlier climate pattern, it slowly dried up, leaving us with the interesting rock formations in the nullabor and red-centre and not much else. I propose that we make some attempt to refil this vast area with water in order to increase rainfall and productivity of inland regions. If possible (if we are able to collect enough water in it) we could use excess water from the 'South Queensland Superdam' I suggested we build above. If this was not practical, then it might be viable to pump sea water into lake Eyre. Doing so would make previously unusable lands good for farming and habitation.

Solar farms and Alchohol/Sugar storage. It occured to me while being driven through cane feilds in Queensland just how inefficiant our current production of sugar is. For a start, plants generally exhibit 1-2% efficiancy in collecting the sun's energy, a figure far outmatched by our current solar pannels. Not all of the energy collected by the plant is put to use making sugar and we don't collect all the sugar in the plant. We use energy running sugar mills and transporting the cane pulp around and ulitmately end up with an impure product. Electrolytic cells that produce sugar from CO2 and water could probably run at around 60% efficiancy and be powered by solar cells with a much lower space use and upkeep cost than the current cane farms.
This idea brought another to my mind: why not use sugar as a means of storing energy for later use (it is often said that the limiting factor in solar power is the battery, so why not do away with the battery all together?). I later decided that ethanol would be a better chemical to store energy in as it can be fed into fuel cells in its pure form and is less likely to be eaten by bacteria . I also believe the efficiency for an electrolytic cell producing ethanol is around 80%, the same as that of an ethanol fuel cell.

Decentralised living:
I am, as some of you probably know, a decentralist. I was impressed by the multi centred living that I witnessed in Queensland and New South Wales (although perhaps it was just the result of a lower population density) I think we need to move away from large urban areas surrounding a small industrial/commerce area. Incentives should be made available for people to move and work into regional centres, particularly out of large cities. Another related idea I have is to only allow skilled immigration on the condition the the migrant spends a certain amound of time providing their skills to a regional/rural community.

Pomegranite farming:
This is really my Dad's idea. He informs me the pomegranites are the ideal crop for Australia because of their low water use and the comparatively low quality of our imports. They grow well in Callifornia, a comparative climate and orriginate from the Middle East where water is equally (if not more) scarce as here in the lucky country.

So there you go, my hopes and dreams for the future. Mr Rudd's infrastructure package could go a long way towards some of these, though I think it might be a bit late to bring these up now when local councils are already planning where they are going to put their next community hall. Maybe someone will read this and be sparked to do something about it, or perhaps all these ideas have already been considered and rejected as being too costly, impractical or impossible. Thank you for reading,
Oskar.

Oskar (and Rory) in Brisbane.

2009-02-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

As you may have guessed after reading the title, we are now in Brisbane.
When you last heard from us, we were in Sydney and about to leave to take the ferry to Manly. You may or may not be pleased to find that we both escaped the ferry ride without harm.
We left Sydney the next morning on a bus to Coffs Harbour, a 9 hour trip.
Coffs wasn't very interesting if you weren't "in to" surfing [or cool], so (after seeing the big banana and the all new big slurpee [Coffs seems like an odd location for a gigantic slurpee sculpture as there are no 7/11s in town]) we continued on to Ballina (4 hours atop a Greyhound).
Ballina was a great little town with very little to do but lots of nice people (Perfect!). We spent two nights in Ballina, then took the three hour bus to Brisbane, where we are staying with some relatives of mine.
Yesterday (our first full day here) we went in to the city to experience the wonders of Brisbane. We visited the Brisbane museum, which turned out to be a modern art gallery (urgh), the state museum, much more to my taste (full of interesting information and displays) and the 'Sciencenter', full of interactive things, but a little bit small. Rory won a Slurpee T-shirt in a competition on his second 1.2-litre Cola Slurpee (over 3-litres were consumed that day).
We were lectured on the faults in democracy by a sweaty man why asked where the cultural centre was, then made several (well rehearsed) cutting remarks about the state of culture in Australia.
And now, to profile some of the many diverse we have encountered on our travels:

Andrea and Gaphlibaliba: Hailing from Italy, these two were the first other backpackers we met. We shared a dorm with them in Sydney. Gaphlibaliba was very nice but did not speak English.

Nick: Hailing from Saskatchewan, Canada, standing 5 feet tall and possessing the combined muscle mass of both Rory and myself, Nick was quite a guy. We shared a dorm with him in Coffs where he was staying three weeks for free while cleaning the YHA for a few hours a day.

Irma: Irma was from Switzerland. We had a conversation with her while eating our $7 all you can eat pizza in Coffs. There were no spare tables in the room, so she was forced to sit with us. Our conversation revolved around the fact that both me and Rory have met someone from Switzerland before (Rory had a French-Swiss Physics sub teacher and Oskar's aunt Romi).

Brick:We met Brick in the TV room in Coffs, where he gave a constant, frustrating commentary on the episode of NCIS we were watching. He was in Coffs doing a training course to become a security guard. He was about 7 feet tall and... built like a tram inspector.

Zeva: Zeva's actual name was Zufit (most of our fellow travelers listed here do not have their real names used {we made up better ones for them}). She was from Israel, so enjoyed the local fruitbats of Ballina (where we met her).

Pierre:As his name might suggest, Pierre hailed from noneother than France. He was a really nice guy (contrary to our opinions of the French), who we shared a room with for both nights in Ballina. He seemed to enjoy our anti-George Bush jokes.

Jamie: We saw this guy in Coffs but only met him in Ballina. We were cooking our dinner at the same time as him which allowed us to talk to him without feeling awkward (we struggle with the most petty of social interactions). We were cooking rissoles with couscous, mushrooms and corn when he began to cook his dinner. His culinary skills were comparitively amazing as he ignited his frypan of meatballs in a epic red flame (hence his name Jamie). On closer interrogation by Oskar, Jamie was revealed to be a chef in his native Southern England. He was kind enough to improve our meal with a sprig of coriander (which Rory thought ruined it). Jamie was somewhat impressed by our magazine choices, Australian Warship for Rory and Australasian Science for Oskar.

The 4 Stooges: We didnt actually talk to these blokes, but on observation, these 4 brits (of which at least one was a distinct Cockney) kept to themselves, playing poker and watching the YHA's DVDs. Oskar offered one a Bavarian Cheesecake, which he refused politely. Oskar gives the most terrible of Cockney impersonations (Rory edited this post).

Celine: Celine was from Winnipeg, Canada, (the slurpee capital of the world). She Arrived late-ish on our last night in Ballina, so we didn't really get to know her...

Richard Lionel: The afformentioned anti-democrat from Brisbane. He approached us on a street in Brisbane City, then asked us "What is the difference between Australia and a yoghurt? Leave one for a few weeks and it'll develoup a culture! HA HA HA" He later said that democracy is the was the stupid rule the intelegent because the stupid far outnumber the intelligent. In retrospect we both would have liked to challenged his ideas, but at the time were both too scared of him.

That's all for now, until next time,
Oskar (and Rory).

Oskar's Trip so far.

2009-02-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

For those of you who do not know, I have been for the past 9 days on the adventure of a lifetime. I am writing from Sydney (Rory is writing because I type frustratingly slowly and it drove Rory mental) which I arrived at yesterday.
Arriving on ther 24th by train and coach having missed the flight operated by the evil fascists (Tiger Airways [who checks-in 4 hours early anyway?!]), I stayed in Canberra and Wollongong for 3 nights each, experiencing the somewhat frightening patriotism and underage alcoholism of the Canberrans during the Australia day festivities and brawls. From Wollongong, I travelled south to the brilliant sandy beaches of Jervis [jarvis] , staying on Bravo Secure HMAS Creswell, where normal NSW legislation is null and void and anything goes (Creswell is technically on waters of the ACT). Whilst there, I managed to destroy a 14 foot yacht in the 3 metre swells in the bay and catch a Taylor (fish) that was mediocre and undersized (HMAS Creswell is located within the Jervis Bay Marine Sanctuary, so the fish are plentiful and only legal to catch in the restricted waters of the base). I kissed the fish before throwing it back, a trick I learnt from television. Last night Rory and I stayed at the Sydney Central YHA, where we shared a 4 bed dorm with 2 Italians (Andrea and Gephlibiliba [He said his name with poor English and too fast to comprehend, leaving a fair bit to the imagination]). Today I plan on catching the Manly Ferry (to Manly) after exploring the fairly inferiorly cultured city of Sydney (the Kebabs {they don't know what a souvlaki is} are good though).
Until next time,
Oskar (and rory)

Move No. 14

2009-01-11T01:06:00.000-08:00

I've moved house... again. This is my 14th move in my 18 year life, so I'm fairly used to it. Why do I move so often? Well, I hold I'm nomadic. Its just the way I live so leave me alone...
I'm a bit dissoriented by this move, as for the first time in about 10 years I'm not living in the city of Darebin. My new place in North Balwyn seems both very green and a bit remote. In actual fact I've lived further from the CBD before, but the new place is further from the other cultural centres of Melbourne; Northlands, the Plaza and the house on the corner of St Georges Rd and Bell St.
Also, its now less than two weeks before I head off on my trip up allong the Eastern Seaboard so I might have some more interesting things to write about soon. This will probably correspond with me writing more about what I'm, doing. I'll let you know if anything juicy (I'm not sure what that adjective is getting at) happens. Until the,
Oskar

Merry Solstice and a Happy New Year

2008-12-24T07:49:00.000-08:00

So, I'm celebrating Christmas in Cambodia this year. I'm having a pretty good time because the only people around be celebrating it are family or friends of family. I'm not exchanging gifts (that is I'm not giving any, I might receive some, but I don't know) and the whole affair is pretty relaxed. I''m staying with my uncle and aunt in their mansion in the capital Phnom Penh. Along with four cousins, another uncle, my Dad and some friend of my cousins, there will be 11 of us. These conditions should make for a nice quiet celebration, which I will enjoy immensely.

In other news, a beat my cousin Nick at eating chillies in a contest at a Khmer (Cambodian) restaurant (I ate three).

Finally, it occured to me that electrons can't be moving because they would give of EMR whenever they changed direction. This means that they must be getting from one place to another without actually moving. Spooky eh?

Danger: High Voltage

2008-12-14T12:34:00.000-08:00

Stupid signs, they're everywhere: near power stations, on the transformers inside microwaves, neon signs, even the power distribution systems at Thornbury station. 'Danger' they say. 'High Voltage' they say. Honestly, whoever came up with that as a warning was a fool. I have personally had 15000v of alternating current passed through me at no personal damage. The first rule of designing transformers is... well its n1/n2=v1/v2, but one of the rules is that current kills, voltage arcs. Provided the current is non lethal, the main problem with increasing the voltage is that is able to 'jump' further. This means that running a system of electrical wires with different voltages across them can be difficult, but this should not harm anyone unless they are standing between them. There is always a chance that an exposed wire will arc to an actual person, as a path to the Earth, but even this isn't necessarily very dangerous. Also, there is no way this would occur when the high voltage circuit was intact because the human body is a much worse conductor than electrical wires. Unless it goes through your heart the arc is unlikely to cause any serious damage. Because of the human anatomy, if you are standing on the ground (not an unlikely hypothetical), the only real way the current might pass through your heart is if the arc is to your head. This is made even less likely by the tendency for people these days to wear shoes with rubber soles. As such I have designed my own warning sign which I will apply to any high voltage devices I have. It says (in pictorial format) 'Warning! Do not aproach head first after removing shoes when damaged'.

Good to get that out, I feel relieved.

I can also anounce that a new group blog has been started up. Non linear thinking, a blog about philosophy, religion, life, magic and (if they'll let me) science. I will be a regular contributer, so if you enjoy what I write then have a look. If you don't like what I write then you'll probably like the what someone else writes, so have a look anyway.

Finally I'm heading off to Thailand and Cambodia for christmas, so I may have limited access to the internet in the next few weeks. If I have access then I'll make a few posts from those countries about what I'm doing.
Oskar, signing out.

Photographs of the past couple of weeks.

2008-12-03T21:19:00.000-08:00

A few photos from the graduatioin and formal. Not much has gone on since these events, except that I've been working on my tesla coil which is currently not working, but I know why.

The posse Y'all.

Outside before the formal

Me and Ms Hutchins. Go team physics!

Me and grandparents. My opa holding the piece of bamboo I gave them to thank them for being supportive during my study intensive last couple of years of schooling.

So that's those. I should have some more information RE: Tesla Coil in a few days time.
Also, my birthday is comming up, so if you would like to come to it then please let me know. I've given out a few invitations, but if I don't have your email adress then I probably haven't given you one (I won't give you one if I don't know you).

Shuffling, Alchemy and Mr N.

2008-11-26T18:47:00.000-08:00

I had my end of school formal last night. Overall, it was a pleasant event, with average food, average music and good company. I learned to dance in a non-committed way, was asked to write an article about how awful alchemists are (especially modern ones) and given some extremely deep life advice from a more than slightly tipsy Mr N (actual name has been removed for the sake of not bringing such a great teacher into disrepute)).

The dancing thing is fairly self explanatory: I didn’t think I could dance, but there wasn’t much else to do so I sort of half shuffled while bobbing up and down. This seemed to be what most people did.

Onto the more interesting parts of the evening. Having written something praising alchemists in his blog, I challenged Nat’s views on them online. We had a follow up conversation last night, in which I was challenged to write an article about why magic isn’t real, amongst other things. This lead to an idea which I am proud to unveil now: An inter-blog debate. Basically the three of us (Nat, Reuben and myself) will take turns writing an article and responding to the previous person’s article. As for the topic, well it couldn’t be about public transport, magic or science (all unfair as we do not have equal understanding of them), so we settled for debating nothing less than the meaning of life itself. Keep your eyes peeled for the first in this thrilling series of articles, which should start in a few days.

Now on to Mr N’s advice: It was such a brilliant conversation that a general description would not do it justice. I will approximate a transcript, but don’t be shocked if it’s not word for word perfect. It was all a bit hazy anyway.

Setting: Outside the building of ‘Leonda by the Yarra’. Present are Mr N, Oskar, David, Reuben, Carlo, later Mr B.

Mr N: (walks up, slaps Oskar’s back, looks at David) You know what I like about this guy? He’s strait, he’s rational and he uses reason.

David: Yeah?

Mr N: (looks at Oskar) But you’ve got to remember that intellectual thought comes from other people, you’ve got to have dialogue, you know, loosen up a bit. You’ve got to make friends and relate to people.

Oskar: Mmm, yeah.

Mr N: You know there are different types of people. (looks at Reuben) Like you, you’re always pretending to be all pretentious, you think you’re better than other people, but you’re not. I keep telling you. But Oskar’s not like that, he just needs to relate to people. You can’t generate intellectual thought on your own. It comes from other people.

David: Yeah, I know what you mean, like if you’re going for a job interview or something then it helps to be social.

Mr N: Yeah, not really. I’ve hired heaps of people, you know I’ve been on boards and things and as soon as a social person walks in the room and starts talking to everyone we all look at each other and (shakes head).

David: Really? Maybe that’s not so much the case in the business sector.

Mr N: Yeah, I’m in education.

David: Because this job I’m going for wants people who can communicate well and socialize.

Mr N: No I mean like real jobs, like post-grad. They look for knowledge and qualifications.

David: Yeah, of course, but if two people are equally qualified then they’ll hire the social one.

Mr N: Not really, because social people are really just saying the same shit to everyone.

David: Yeah, I guess so.

Mr N: You see I think that rationality and reason will always win out in the end. (looks at David) but we disagree don’t we, you said you need to have faith too.

David: Well yeah, sort of. I think rationality is good to have, but you need to have principles too.

Mr N: No, yeah, principles. Yeah.

David: ‘Cause you can go down the wrong path if you don’t have principles.

Mr N: Yeah, of course, you’ve got to have principles. But you need to try different things to see what’s right. Like I’ve got this friend who’s a psychologist and he was a pianist before he was a psychologist. He had like, all the hair and expensive suits and stuff and he said you’ve got to be self indulgent sometimes. You’ve also got to try living like shit. Do them both for a few months and then see how you feel. But you can’t always do that. You don’t go and jump of a cliff because you want to experience extreme spinal pain. That’s where reason comes in.

All: Yeah/mmm.

Oskar: So do you think that principles can be arrived at from rationality alone?

Mr N: No, you’ve got to experience things, try things, risk you life, but don’t do anything stupid.

Mr B: (walks up to group) How’s it going?

Mr N: I’m just telling Oskar that he needs to listen to other people and relate to them. He’s a great motherf****r, but he needs to do that.

These guys are going to be the communist intellectuals. They’re the future.

Mr B: Mmm, and they’re going to have a much more difficult future than we ever had, but lets not get into that now.

Mr N: (shakes hands with Oskar) You’re a great motherf****r, but you need to relate to people. (shakes hands with David) And you need to talk to him. You can get the dialogue going and learn a lot from him.

David: Will do.

Mr N: (shakes hands with Reuben) And you’re a good motherf****r too. You have to stop looking down on people and pretending to look smart. (shakes hands with Carlo) And you need to listen. (gestures at Oskar, David and Reuben) You need to listen to him and him and him. For five years before you start doing anything.

Good luck with the future boys.

Oskar: Thanks for all the advice.

David: Yeah thanks.

(Mr Norman and Mr Bugler leave and get into a car and drive off. {Teachers drink driving? Surely not?})

Focus Fusion: Let's hope we get there really soon.

2008-11-14T22:06:00.000-08:00

Some excellent news on the nuclear power front! I have long held that nuclear fusion will be the only way out of our long standing energy related problems, much to the disapproval of both my fellow environmentalists and my fellow physicists (I might be overrating myself by including myself in those two groups, but only five people read this, so oh well).
Nuclear fission, the kind currently used for civilian power (not here in the lucky country), works by taking large atoms such as uranium, plutonium and splitting them, releasing large amounts of energy as well as a variety of atoms about half the size of the original uranium (often radioactive).
Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, involves forcing two small atomic nuclei together with enough energy for them to combine and result in a larger nucleus. This releases even more energy than nuclear fission and produces differing amounts of radioactive waste depending on the atoms involved, but significantly less than produced by fission. So why then do those idiots in Europe, Asia and North America use fission, not fusion? Well they can be excused for it, as until recently nuclear fusion was thought to be a lost cause (It was assumed that it couldn't be done with a net gain in energy, given the energy required to fuse the atoms). Now, a group called the Focus Fusion Society is claiming that they are only years away from having a functioning fusion power station prototype.
What's more, their design makes use of only hydrogen and boron as fuel, both plentiful in the atmosphere and emits only non-radioactive helium. It is far more efficient than any design I've seen for producing power other than a fuel cell (so about 80% efficiency). Now many of you (perhaps all five of you who read this) will be thinking: That's good, but don't we already have the technology to implement renewable energy? Why is this better than say solar or geothermal energy? Well naturally I'd have an answer for you (I made sure I did before I posed the question on your behalf). While I believe solar power has it's uses and might be a very successful axillary power source, it relies on the abundant silicon waste produced by the computer industry, so would not be economically or environmentally viable if it's production exceeded the production of silicon chips. In addition, the potential of Fusion power is so great that a new meaning could be given to the word recycling. What few people understand is that with sufficient energy, almost anything can be done away with, replenished or completely 'unmade'. With the cheap and almost unlimited energy that focus fusion would give us we could desalinate and produce all the water we could use, while electrolysing the salt, reducing it to it's useful industrial components( sodium, chlorine). We could sequest carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it back into fuel, replenishing our dwindling oil supplies while reversing climate change. We could even denature radioactive waste, splitting into it's component particles and forming useful substances. I truly believe that if we ever successfully harness nuclear fusion we can bring about a golden age in which we can meet all our needs while reversing the effects we have had on the earth in the past. So there you have it: I'm excited about something and hope I've educated you on, what I believe will be a critical development in humanity's struggle in these uncertain times.

So close, yet so far.

2008-11-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

Less than three days until my final exam finishes at 10:30 in the morning, November 13. My first five exams went fairly well as far as I'm concerned. Nothing really special happened in any of them and, while I know I've made some mistakes, I don't know what my mistakes were (I'll take that as a positive {victories where I can take them}). In some ways I'm looking forward to the end of High School as much as I've ever looked forward to something, but in others I'm worried about the removal of purpose from my existence. Of course I'll still have things to do in the next few years, what with Uni, personal activities and the possibility of work (oh god, please no, I'll just double my sleeping hours to cut down costs), but for the first time I'm going to be, apparently, in control of what I do. This is a scary thought for someone as indecisive as me and I hope I don't get caught up in the routine of daily life just because I can't make a decision.
On a lighter note, I no longer have to formally study English! I'll keep up to date on anything interesting happening to it for interest's sake, but no one will be there to tell me when I'm wrong.
So... that's a kind of non eventful update on me... If you are looking for something interesting then try me in three days time.
Wait, I've got a maths joke:
'All for one and tan(pi*x/4) for all' when x=21
Get it? (tan(pi*x/4)=1 when x=21) ha ha ha.
Oskar.

Engineering Projects

2008-10-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

I plan on beginning several engineering projects once this business of studying is over. I will undertake two of them in cooperation with a friend who will have just completed 1st year Uni physics and chemistry (not to mention the thoroughly unhelpful studies of biology and maths {one to pure, the other not pure enough}).

Our original plan was to use them both for a science demonstration for the 2nd Clifton Hill cub scout pack, which we still intend on doing, but they have evolved far beyond that in my mind.
The first will be a set up for copper plating metal objects (many at once) and will make use of several old laptop power supplies, a fish tank and lots and lots of copper sulphate.

The second projects is, in my opinion, far more exciting. We will build a Tesla Coil. If you have seen a Tesla Coil before then you might share in my excitement, because the Tesla Coil is the most spectacular piece of electrical machinery ever to exist. While it looks unbelievably science fictiony, it works and I have seen several previously.

Later on I hope to continue my experiments with propagation of radio waves that I began during the year. Perhaps this time I'll be able to build a serviceable radio, not just an unreliable morse code machine that makes sparks.

Jumping the gun, Exams and Unhealthy atitudes.

2008-10-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

I, like many others in my situation, have recently been thinking about exams and ENTERs more than usual, recently. I keep wondering what kind of scores I'll get, what kind of ENTER will they result in and how this will impact on my tertiary education.
I am in the fortunate position of being pretty sure I will get the marks and ENTER I need to do what I want next year (85 clearly in, pass in physics and chemistry and 25 in methods), vut still I am nervous about the upcoming exams.
We have been constantly told that focusing on our exam scores is an unhealthy attitude, but If you want to get an idea for what you're in for, I have found a way to jump the gun (that sentence was very similar to my title eh?).
On the topic of ENTERs and such, what do you intend on doing next year when all this madness is over?

P.S. If Rory is going to comment on this, he should know that it is not a perfect opportunity to tell us about the merits the ACT high school system. If he does then I would like to remind him that everything else good is in Victoria.

Colours, Quarks and Names of Elements

2008-10-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

I have always (started too many posts referring to myself?) found it funny the kind of names that scientists give to things like elements. Most of the earlier discovered elements were name in an ad hoc way, before any scientific conventions had been set up. This set a precedent for those who discovered the later elements to name their discoveries after whatever they liked (themselves, countries, other famous scientists).
This tradition ended with the unimaginative naming of elements 112 through 118, simply called Unun- then a suffix indicating the third digit of the atomic number and the fact that it's an element (eg. Ununhexium, Ununoctium).
It will be interesting with the development of engineered atoms (through quantum dot technology) whether the convention of naming them individually will continue.
The other hilariously original names in particle physics are the names of the second generation quarks (called strange and charm). Unfortunately the namers of the other four quarks are rather boring (up, down, top, bottom).
These quarks have a property called colour (red, blue, green, antired, antiblue and antigreen). These have nothing to do with how they visually appear (in fact visual appearance is not something we can even talk about sensically when it comes to quarks).
As you can see in the picture of the proton the two up quarks are red and blue and the down quark is green.

Now that you've read through the physics you will be rewarded with the punch line:

Assuming there are fourth generation quarks (a massive assumption with no physical backing that I am completely unqualified to make), I would call them East and peppermint.
What would you call them?

Technocracy

2008-09-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

You may or may not be aware that I am a technocrat. The technocratic movement was started in the US and Canada during the great depression and is still alive today. At its most basic level technocracy seeks to greatly increase the efficiency of resource use (from about 20% today to a target of around 60%). This would effectively triple our available resources. Technocracy advocates a governmental or organizational system where decision makers are selected based upon how highly knowledgeable or skilled they are, rather than how much political capital they hold.
The other key difference between modern technocracy and our current societal structure is that technocrats seek to replace the 'price system' with an energy exchange system. This would eliminate the need for 'artificial scarcity' in order for the market to grow and also free up the huge resource expenditure currently directed towards moving money around (banking, economics, commerce).
The founder of Technocracy Inc. (a technocratic education group in North America) is credited with the quotation below, having been asked if his views contradicted human nature:

"Did you have to change human nature," he asked, "in order to keep passengers from standing on car platforms?"
"They put up signs first," he continued, "prohibiting the dangerous practice, but the passengers still crowded the platform. Then they got ordinances passed, and the platform remained as crowded as before. Policemen, legislators, public service commissions all took a hand but to no effect; then the problem was put up to an engineer."
"The engineers solved it easily. They built cars that didn't have platforms."

This is a great quote and a perfect example of how technical processes could be used in government.
If you are interested in finding out more about the technocratic movement the try:
http://www.technocracy.org/ or Wikipedia.

Oskar's Utopia

2008-09-25T01:40:00.000-07:00

I've decided that a new country should be formed. I'd like everyone volunteering to join it to gather together their torches and pitchforks and meet me outside parliament house at a later disclosed time (attendants will be looked upon favorably by the new government).
Before you all volunteer, I'd like you to consider the nature of the country you'll be joining.
I have decided that the democratic system is slow and inefficient, so it will be scrapped and replaced with a benevolent dictator (me).
While I will have power of vito, the day to day running of the country will be conducted by the government (half appointed by me and half elected by the people).
We will be founding a city in East Gipsland which will have a consistent population of 500,000 (regulated by laws which prevent you from having children before your parents have died).
The 500,000 will be made up of the greatest scientific, political and social thinkers, as well as artists, engineers and government loyalists.
We will generate our wealth by being the major provider of skills, technology and knowledge to the world.
Approximately 70% of GNI will be controlled by the government, which will provide free education, health services, transport, utilities and housing.
The government's priority will be to maintain the infrastructure required to provide the skills and services that will be the focus of our nation's power.
I don't plan on keeping a standing defence force, because I believe that a near monopoly on skills and technology will provide sufficient diplomatic power to avoid open conflict. If necessary the armed police will be able to step in and defend the city against ground attack, while automated air and sea defences will provide additional security.
While the population will be free to hold whatever beliefs they wish, religious indoctrination of a minor will be illegal.
So as to increase government efficiency, only 10 members will make up the government. 7 of 10 will be required to pass a bill (5 with my backing).
I hope to attract talented and bright people from all around the world, with the promise of funding and resources for their work.
So there's my Utopia, maybe it will become a reality one day. For now I'm content to strive for it within the current system and learn what I can.

Equations that look like names

2008-09-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

During one of the many Methods exams I've been going over, I came across an equation that looked a bit like my name. I then went and rewrote it so that it looked more like my name. I then thought about what it meant in mathematical terms and came up with a situation for which it is true.
Those of you familiar with calculus will appreciate the fact that the integral of a line allong the x axis is the same line (in this case k(r)=0). Those of you who are not familiar with calculus will note that the final line of the mathematical statement looks a bit like my name.
Some of you may also notice that for the first time I have included a picture in a post. This, as well as the stylish new header, is an attempt to drag my blog into the 21st century (I'm keeping the colour scheme and wallpaper though).
If anyone has come up with or would like to come up with an equation that resembles their name then let me know. I'll do my best to help, though I'm no professional.

Physicist in "Phocus": Tesla

2008-09-17T23:53:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning of a new recurring segment, in which I will bring to your attention a famous physicist. It will include what they did in terms of physics, inventions, applications and interesting things about their life.
Tesla has got to be one of my favorite physicists, not for his work, but for his attitudes and peculiarities.

Nikola Tesla was born a subject of the Austrian Empire in 1856 and studied electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz. After a few engineering jobs in Europe, Tesla traveled to the US where he worked for Edison Machine Works, but quit when he felt Edison had cheated him. Edison's response to Tesla when he claimed he had been promised $50,000 for some work he did was "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor".
He ended up digging trenches for Edison's telegraph wires for some years, after which he set up his own company and began experimenting with high voltage and alternating current electrical devices.
He developed the AC motor, the systems which we still use to transmit AC electricity, the Tesla coil (a high voltage device for creating 'artificial lightning') and many other ingenious electrical devices and theories.
During world war one Tesla lost much of his funding due to the collapse of his European patents and started to exhibit many of the odd behaviors which characterised him in his later life.
He became obsessed with the number three, and would only stay in hotel rooms that were multiples of three. He became physically revolted by jewelry and human hair other than his own and developed an unhealthy fondness of pigeons.
Tesla's was the only negative opinion printed about Edison after his death in 1931:

He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene ... His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 per cent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense.

Tesla died alone aged 86 in 1943. He had been celibate all his life so had no children or family in America. The US government immediately seized all his property, fearing that some of his documents might contain plans for his 'death ray' he had unsuccessfully promoted to the US army years earlier. Many conspiracies surround the missing plans for the 'death ray', some claiming it involved a cheap clean source of power which the US government overlooked.
Though he was critical of almost every other major physicist and inventor of the time and quite probably became insane, Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest minds of 19th century physics.

Queensland and working

2008-09-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

My family have decided to desert me and go off gallivanting around the country (just the gold coast actually). I decided to stay home and study for my approaching end of year exams. I don't particularly like the gold coast anyway. I will be taking a private holiday early next year up to Cairns on which I intend to see more interesting geographical formations than my family would consent to.
This is not the point of this post. The point is that my exams are coming up. I am in the lucky position of having done four unit 3/4 exams before, so have an idea of what to expect. Still I'm getting nervous at the prospect of putting all the knowledge of English I have gained over my thirteen years of official education onto paper in two hours. I was hoping that would be the last marked essay I would ever have to complete, but Melbourne Uni's 'new generation' degrees force me to do humanities for 1/4 of my course (should give me a break from solid physics and maths though).
I'll now give a brief overview of my 3/4 subjects and how I think I'll do in them:

Physics: Best subject, best teacher, best SAC results and I can't stop going over it in my head if I try. (should be all right).

Chemistry: Hope to get an A, easy and unnecessarily obvious until you have to answer questions about it.

Biology: I've actually completed this subjects and done quite well. A, A, A+.

Maths Methods: I'm worried about this one the most. I understand maths easily and am able to demonstrate understanding in class well, but this does not always translate into good SAC marks and I'll need to pull off a good exam result if I want to get the aprox 35 (raw) mark I'm aiming for.

Further Maths: Yawn, I could have aced this in year 9, let's hope I remember the work from back then.
English Language: This one will make or break me, one of my biggest advantages in competing with others wanting to get into the kind of course I am aiming for is my ability to hold my own in this subject. My SACs average about 87% which is better than I've done in English in other years so let's hope I can get that A+ level that I got in my essays and avoid the low A's I got for the tests.

To summarise: If all else fails I'll send you a postcard from Vic Uni.

Physics Songs

2008-09-13T05:24:00.000-07:00

I was recently made aware of a rap song about the Large Hadron Collider. After listening to it I looked up some other physics songs and found a great website: www.physicssongs.org .
Some of the songs are a bit lousy, but most of them are very clever, entertaining and (most importantly) educational. Lots of them also have free recordings downloadable online.
My favorites include 'Kronecker delta functions', 'Energy eigenstates' and 'Snell's law'.
I found a section of a song, 'Hail chemistry' by Tom Lehrer, particularly funny, so have included the lyrics below. I hope I haven't turned anyone away by the extreme nerdiness of this post, but this website really made my weekend (that last clause probably didn't help).

Professor :
Still my advice is to learn some math.
You don't have a thing to lose if, God forbid, to switch to Chemistry you should choose.

Student:
But sir, I think you go too far:
We do not dare disown
Our noble sister science
Second only to our own

Hail Chemistry, sung by the whole cast.

Hail chemistry, we all adore
Each answer you're referred to for
Hail chemistry, our staunch ally
It's us, it's us, whom you're well thought of by.

(sung to the tune of 'Hail Poetry')

Today the LHC is switched on!

2008-09-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

The Large Hadron Collider is to be switched on today. This is the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in existence and has been years in the making. While it has many applications, the most exciting by far is the potential to discover the Higgs boson, the particle which defines the masses of all other particles. There will obviously be a gap between when they switch on the electromagnets and when they run the experiments that we've all been waiting for, but it certainly is an exciting prospect.
What I find really interesting is the way the line between energy and matter has become blurred as we have delved deeper into the nature of each.
The first major step was in Einstein showing that energy and matter were equatable. Next the discovery of light quanta or photons (packets of light energy which have momentum and behave like particles) Then the discovery of wavelike behaviors of particles, which had traditionally been confined to the realm of energy.
The standard model of particles predicts a carrier particle for each of the fundamental forces. If this is the case then it is possible to have very small particles that lack a Higgs boson so have no mass, has a wavelength, but are still essentially what we would call matter. This sounds to me very much like a photon which is definitely energy.

Too picky?

2008-09-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me well will know that I am mildly obsessed with things being correct. I am constantly correcting peoples' grammar, pointing out continuity problems in movies, and am the one who is largely responsible for the frequent 'lack of citation' notes of Wikipedia. This always goes down well with other people who have these habits (I seem to get along awfully well with most teachers), but the majority of you who are normal seem to get annoyed with me.
Related habits I possess are suggesting alternate words to people who aren't obviously having trouble expressing themselves and answering questions directed at other people (because I am obviously better qualified to answer them than anyone I hang around with).
This might seem a bit far fetched to some, so I'll add and example. It is from a while back, but has stuck in my mind:

On my year 9 'nerd camp' (an overnight stay at Queenscliff with the two 'high achievers' classes) we watched the gripping film Anacondas II. In this film a crew of treasure hunters hired a steam boat to go up river to try to find the elixir of life. Later in the film when they had not changed direction they went over a waterfall. I immediately saw this and laughed, assuming it was a joke. Needless to say I received inquiring looks from those near me.

I did not sit down to watch the film intending on keeping an eye out for continuity errors, it is just something my mind does on its own.
If I am looking out for logical errors, particularly in writing, I can debunk most arguments quite easily.
My question to you readers is thins: Should I reveal what I notice to those around me or keep to myself?

Stamp Collecting or Physics

2008-09-06T00:25:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting quote about science recently, by Ernest Rutherford (the kiwi physicist who demonstrated that matter is mostly empty space):

"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."-Ernest Rutherford

Now while this might seem cruel and insulting to the many who associate whith other sciences, I think I can see what he's getting at.
All science can in theory be derrived from physics, but doing so is impracticle and oftem impossible given our limited knowledge about physics and our lack of enormous computational power. Imagine trying to predict, for example, the results of a psychological experiment knowing the exact state of every particle within the system the experiment takes place in.
This is of course impossible given the probabalistic nature of quantum physics, but even if it were possible it would be so difficult to know the nature of all the particles and then calculate their actions that it would certainly be beyond current human ability.
While this is true, we still go ahead and conduct psychological experiments, record them and manipulate them as independent entities from the physics on which they are ultimately based.
This is the kind of 'stamp collecting' I think Rutherford was talking about.
All sciences have the same relationship with physics, with the exception of perhaps chemistry which is so close to physics that it is usually a direct application rather than independently concluded.
Some would argue that physics itsself is only an aplication of mathematics, but I draw the line at physics seeing as it is the most pure science that directly relates to the world. While mathematics is the application of reason on reason, it could not be used to (in theory) arrive at anything about the experiencable world independently.

What we know.

2008-09-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

I've always been interested in knowing things. As a young child while others were being read nursery rhymes I preferred books on geology, biology and astronomy. As I progressed through primary school it became clear to me that my greatest skill was my ability to easily absorb and recall facts.
Entering high school I began to understand that application of knowledge is equally important in life and became quite proficient at this. I reached the age at which subject selection started and was never in any doubt that I would pick those subjects I had excelled at in the past (maths, science) and give up what I had always thought of as the useless 'fuzzy' subjects, where anyone with half a brain can bluff their way through (arts, humanities, social sciences to a lesser degree). Around year 10 I think we started to prove things in classes. We were introduced to new topics by being presented with old information and asked to draw conclusions. We were of course nudged along by our teachers, but it taught me another important lesson about information: Most of our information is based on previous information.
I became interested in philosophy about half way through year 11 and with the encouragement of likeminded friends decided to start a philosophy club at school. I loved the fact that I could be sure about the world through philosophy and science. Science provided a means for the world to work and philosophy confirmed it. Those of you who are well versed in philosophy will no doubt be laughing at the notion that a philosopher can be sure about the world, but I was yet to read anything in philosophy that I disagreed with.
Not long after the 'Clear Thinking' club had started up I experienced something of an existentialist crisis. I have never had a problem with lack of purpose to life. From about the age of six I have believed in a world without purpose and can remember giving and taking punches on the subject during playground arguments in primary school.
My trouble was that my beloved knowledge was thrown into doubt. I reached the conclusion that we cannot really know anything. All knowledge, I figured, was based on our observations, which can be flawed. After a few months of mental fiddling and desperate reading I changed my mind.
I was reading a philosophical essay when I came across something about Plato and his 'ideas'. It said he was fascinated by the way angles were thought of. They were perfect thoughts, but impossible to ever be perfect in reality (I know this is incorrect, Plato thought differently). This led me to think about mathematics.
I have personally never witnessed an imaginary or irrational number, but I do regular calculations involving them. Mathematics is universal, and does not change between languages or cultures. Many mathematical concepts have been independently arrived at by the mathematicians of Europe and the East. I concluded that mathematics is universal human reason. While it comes more easily to some than others, anyone with the time and inclination could potentially arrive at the same conclusions as me, even if they had not experienced the world as I have.
The next part of my justification I arrived at when reading a book dedicated to the famous brain in a jar dilemma. It reasoned that even if we are a brain in a jar or computer simulation, the reality we experience is no less real from our perspective. I thought of this in terms of our ability to deduce information form our surroundings. If I observe a sequence of events occurring regularly then even if I cannot say it is true for others it is true for me. My subjective truth, the one in which I currently reside, requires objective truths for it to work, so from my perspective truth is objective. I know this explanation leaves much to be desired, but I am simply recounting the way my mind works.
The information I hold so dear can exist for everyone (from my perspective) and be related to mathematics in the regular way we call science (In my mind the basis worldly knowledge). For this reason amongst others (such as enjoyment) I have moved toward the more mathematical of sciences (I intend on majoring in physics, not biochemistry as I wanted to in year 10) in order to stay closer to what is universally reasonable for humans.

Eigenstates of Oskar

2008-09-03T05:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog "Eigenstates of Oskar". By now you will have read those words at least three times seeing as I named my first post after my blog. So what is this blog about? Well if you are the kind of person I am you'll either know the meaning of, or have looked up the meaning of eigenstates. For those of you who haven't I'll try to explain my title. In certain branches of advanced physics eigenstates can be thought of as possible paths for reality to take. All exist, but only one is manifested in the reality I am experiencing. In naming this I wanted to show that I am fairly 'into' physics. I also thought that seeing as blogs tend to be, in part, about peoples' lives and experiences the title was appropriate. In the future I will be posting about things that go on in my life, things I think about, Ideas in physics that my Physics teacher Ms Hutchins doesn't know and someone on the web might know and anything else I can think of. Now I'm off to bed.