SCHOOL?fucking hell. i was just finishing my finals at uni.
(
boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 10:58,
archived)
Goodness, you're quite old aren't youHow is the Russian lady?
(
zoldergoose,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:00,
archived)
Didn't happen :(Couldn't get hold of her and I'd forgotten I was meant to be at dinner with some friends - one Italian, one Finn, one Iranian and the Finnish/Iranian baby that was wandering around the place.
I'm back in the Vaterland this weekend but I've warned the Russian lady that next weekend she's going to be bought a lot of wine.
(I'm back in the Vaterland this weekend but I've warned the Russian lady that next weekend she's going to be bought a lot of wine.
boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:01,
archived)
What can I say?I have transcended the casual racism of my youth to the point where I can sit in rooms with Germans and Italians almost *never* mention the war.
( boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:23,
archived)
Russian lady?She should be careful - she'll only end up making mistakes if she rushes. AH HAH HAH.
(
Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:02,
archived)
HA HA HAThis is why I come to this website. The vintage humour.
I've been trying to think of other "Russian" puns but I suck. Imagine something like "I'd better not RUSSIANto anything here!"
(I've been trying to think of other "Russian" puns but I suck. Imagine something like "I'd better not RUSSIANto anything here!"
boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:04,
archived)
She bored her colleagues.. border.. her colleagues... collie... bored her...Is this thing on
( zoldergoose,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:08,
archived)
Just rinse it off and replace the batteries.BEN HELP PLOS. I'm expected to write two emails voluminous in content, and ideally good content. I have not slept and I have nothing to say. How do I progress from here?
( Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:12,
archived)
DrinkEdit tomorrow while sober. This tactic got me through writing a PhD thesis.
( boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:14,
archived)
I have a weak solution of lime and water. Is this lime/water instance of drink able to suffice?
(
Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:16,
archived)
It will if you leave it in the sun for a couple of weeksOtherwise no. Add vodka.
( boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:21,
archived)
Is it 40% alcohol?If so, use it. Vodkat, lime and water. Mmmmm.
( boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:24,
archived)
Well - my old tip of looking at dictionary.com's word of the day and working that into the first sentence still applies, of courseBeyond that I suggest googling "filetype:pdf" (nobody makes a pdf unless they're proud of what they've written) and just copy and paste chunks of a few of them. Swap a few nouns. Augment a few verbs. Liberal smattering of exclamation marks. Send.
( zoldergoose,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:16,
archived)
No that's too convoluted. I need a quick fix which'll earn me points and save me time. Go go go.
( Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:19,
archived)
Okay do bullet points of what you want to say then add some little words such that the bullet points unbulletted and joined together make sense. zoldergoose,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:20,
archived)
Do it for me. I pre-emptively thank you for your contribution.
(
Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:22,
archived)
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERNI, Ttssamttsr, write to you this fine morn in the hope of discussing upon a subject which causes me great consternation. The verisimilitude of one's own perspective is called into question by the incessant dissent which you have shown, and it gives me no great pleasure to challenge you to a duel, whereupon your voluminous rhetroic will not counter the inherent frailties in your legs. Which I will kick.
( zoldergoose,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:30,
archived)
THE SUFFICIENTUDE OF THE WORDATION YOU HAVE BE-PENNED ONTO THE INTERNET IS APT FOR USEAGE IN MY ENDEAVOUR TO SENDIFY A GOODULATIOUS EMAIL. Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:36,
archived)
WHAT NOI've moved on from discussion of the Russian lady to discussion of puns in general.
Did your nose get better? Tell me about some space you've done recently.
(Did your nose get better? Tell me about some space you've done recently.
zoldergoose,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:17,
archived)
Ah I seeYou are forgiven. I'm rubbish at puns in general, too.
Spacy stuff. Hmm. Recently I have been looking at the backreaction induced by perturbations in an unfixed gauge, invalidated my previous results, and started specifying a gauge that makes the calculation as simple as possible, which is a gauge with a vanishing spatial Newtonian potential with the other freedoms eliminated by removing a combination of other spatial curvatures and the shift vector.
In layman's speak:
* Cosmology is wrong, it assumes the universe is smooth which it isn't
* If you try and average what's there instead you'll go insane
* I am doing a halfway house, taking normal cosmology where you assume the universe is smooth and add ripples, and then averaging *that* to see what changes
* My previous results are wrong
* I am trying to find a way of making the calculation as easy as possible, since I am extremely lazy
Investigations are ongoing.
Edit: Also, a week on from the torrent of blood, my nose is almost OK. I don't even get dried blood flooding out when I blow it anymore.
(Spacy stuff. Hmm. Recently I have been looking at the backreaction induced by perturbations in an unfixed gauge, invalidated my previous results, and started specifying a gauge that makes the calculation as simple as possible, which is a gauge with a vanishing spatial Newtonian potential with the other freedoms eliminated by removing a combination of other spatial curvatures and the shift vector.
In layman's speak:
* Cosmology is wrong, it assumes the universe is smooth which it isn't
* If you try and average what's there instead you'll go insane
* I am doing a halfway house, taking normal cosmology where you assume the universe is smooth and add ripples, and then averaging *that* to see what changes
* My previous results are wrong
* I am trying to find a way of making the calculation as easy as possible, since I am extremely lazy
Investigations are ongoing.
Edit: Also, a week on from the torrent of blood, my nose is almost OK. I don't even get dried blood flooding out when I blow it anymore.
boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:27,
archived)
What a lot of space. What is the universe like if not smooth? I always imagined it to be like sandpaper. Sandpaper on my soul.It sounds like you should pretend none of this happened so that your previous results remain correct lending you ample time to drink with Russian ladies instead.
( zoldergoose,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:33,
archived)
Ah but sandpaper is not smoothThat's a reasonable analogy. I usually use a loaf of bread cut into slices. Looks smooth from a distance but actually full of holes and strings; the strings are networks of galaxy clusters and the holes are voids.
Sandpaper works fairly well as well though.
Thing is neither are "smooth", they just look it on average. And the very phrase "on average" is dubious in general relativity, because to define an average you have to define a coordinate system in which to take that average, and then average across vector or tensor fields, immediately rendering your results meaningless. There's ways of doing it, which aren't ideal, and they're what I've been using. (We're working on other approaches too which are much nicer, but currently, err, don't work.)
Basically the problem is if you take an average, and then evolve it through time (which is what cosmology normally does) you don't get the same answer as if you evolved through time and then took an average. We can't actually do the latter cos we don't know how everything was exactly distributed, but in principle it's what we should be doing.
TOO MANY WORDS.
I'm going to hide the fact I've changed my previous answers by changing my definition of what "acceleration" means in an averaged universe. There's a few ways of doing it when you use the time coordiante I'm using so I'll exploit that.
That'll leave me more time to go drinking with Russian ladies and have a high quality of life.
(Sandpaper works fairly well as well though.
Thing is neither are "smooth", they just look it on average. And the very phrase "on average" is dubious in general relativity, because to define an average you have to define a coordinate system in which to take that average, and then average across vector or tensor fields, immediately rendering your results meaningless. There's ways of doing it, which aren't ideal, and they're what I've been using. (We're working on other approaches too which are much nicer, but currently, err, don't work.)
Basically the problem is if you take an average, and then evolve it through time (which is what cosmology normally does) you don't get the same answer as if you evolved through time and then took an average. We can't actually do the latter cos we don't know how everything was exactly distributed, but in principle it's what we should be doing.
TOO MANY WORDS.
I'm going to hide the fact I've changed my previous answers by changing my definition of what "acceleration" means in an averaged universe. There's a few ways of doing it when you use the time coordiante I'm using so I'll exploit that.
That'll leave me more time to go drinking with Russian ladies and have a high quality of life.
boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:18,
archived)
It took me at least three attempts for Einstein's General and Special Theory of Relativity to go in.It wasn't that the concept was unbearably hard to grasp - the problem was the language he used to convey the concept. He had a wonderful ability to complicate a simply analogy to the point wherein it became irritatingly hard to understand.
Still, good book, that.
(Still, good book, that.
Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:23,
archived)
I've actually never read itI may give it a shot. If your maths is fine then Carroll's "Spacetime and Geometry" is probably the best GR (and SR though he assumes you know a lot of SR at the outset) textbook I've found. Easier to read than Wald, a shitload less up its own arse and irritatingly smug than Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, more up-to-date and less heavily based in SR and coordinates than Weinberg.
At heart, general relativity is extremely simple. Just as centrifugal force is a fictional force that only exists when you sit in an accelerating reference frame, gravity is a fictional force that only exists when you sit in an accelerating reference frame. Real forces don't give the same acceleration to any mass - it doesn't make sense for them to. Gravity does. Either nature is fucked up and playing games and making inertial and gravitational mass identical for no good reason or, much more simply, gravity doesn't actually exist as a force.
It's beautiful.
(At heart, general relativity is extremely simple. Just as centrifugal force is a fictional force that only exists when you sit in an accelerating reference frame, gravity is a fictional force that only exists when you sit in an accelerating reference frame. Real forces don't give the same acceleration to any mass - it doesn't make sense for them to. Gravity does. Either nature is fucked up and playing games and making inertial and gravitational mass identical for no good reason or, much more simply, gravity doesn't actually exist as a force.
It's beautiful.
boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:30,
archived)
I only read this stuff for personal pleasure, buddy - I don't want to get all math-y.SHUDDER.
( Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:32,
archived)
Avoid Carroll, thenThere's maths in there I don't know and I do this stuff for a living.
( boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:39,
archived)
I made you a matter/anti-matter pair in empty space but I annihilated it :( Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:39,
archived)
:(that's really hard to avoid. like the first time you go with a ladyboy it's really hard to avoid creaming your pants :(
( boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:19,
archived)
I made you some dark energy to account for the mass-energy deficit of the universe and apparent acceleration in the expansion of the universe but I losted it. Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:28,
archived)
YOU BASTARDthat's what we've all been looking for. yeah well joke's on you, we're all spunking hundreds of millions of pounds of your tax money looking for your dark energy now!
( boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:32,
archived)
I suppose it's somewhat more difficult to find than dark matter was.On the subject of the invisible, does anyone care about dark flow any more? Or was that debunked when I wasn't paying attention?
( Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:34,
archived)
Some of us careIt gets ignored by the mainstream (LOL I made a punz) cos it's really, really hard to fit in the standard paradigm, but it's there, so far as we can tell. What it means no-one knows, but it appears to be there.
How significant it is is a different argument.
We still also care about cuspy cores of galaxies. Standard models of dark matter say the galactic cores should be super, super dense. They're not. You can solve some of that problem, but I'd say the problem hasn't actually gone away. It just gets ignored.
The standard paradigm has been staggeringly succesful, and it's amazingly simple, too, which is why people don't want to drop it. But there's a few things, like the dark flow (horrible name) that don't quite fit, and they shouldn't be ignored. I'd personally put dark energy into things that don't work because unless you like an intrinsic energy of spacetime (which few people really do) there's no convincing models of it.
See also: dark matter. If you don't like supersymmetry there aren't any convincing models for dark matter, either. Odd that it only arises when we push our theory of gravity orders and orders of magnitude beyond what we can test, innit? Gravity can be tested out to Pluto's orbit. The Pioneer anomaly's *might* (probably don't, but might) point that it's failing even at the edge of the solar system. The solar system is, at an optimistic estimate, about a tenth of a parsec across. The galaxy is around 100,000 times bigger than that -- who the fuck are we to think that actually our theory can be extrapolated across that kind of jump? Then the universe is staggeringly larger than that, and we're *still* using the same theory of gravity.
Nah, something fishy's going on here.
(How significant it is is a different argument.
We still also care about cuspy cores of galaxies. Standard models of dark matter say the galactic cores should be super, super dense. They're not. You can solve some of that problem, but I'd say the problem hasn't actually gone away. It just gets ignored.
The standard paradigm has been staggeringly succesful, and it's amazingly simple, too, which is why people don't want to drop it. But there's a few things, like the dark flow (horrible name) that don't quite fit, and they shouldn't be ignored. I'd personally put dark energy into things that don't work because unless you like an intrinsic energy of spacetime (which few people really do) there's no convincing models of it.
See also: dark matter. If you don't like supersymmetry there aren't any convincing models for dark matter, either. Odd that it only arises when we push our theory of gravity orders and orders of magnitude beyond what we can test, innit? Gravity can be tested out to Pluto's orbit. The Pioneer anomaly's *might* (probably don't, but might) point that it's failing even at the edge of the solar system. The solar system is, at an optimistic estimate, about a tenth of a parsec across. The galaxy is around 100,000 times bigger than that -- who the fuck are we to think that actually our theory can be extrapolated across that kind of jump? Then the universe is staggeringly larger than that, and we're *still* using the same theory of gravity.
Nah, something fishy's going on here.
boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:44,
archived)
Oh I like this stuff. Remind me to pick your brain about it in hideous and upsetting detail soon.I wonder how many years it'll be before the CMS @ CERN throws up some curveballs.
( Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 12:51,
archived)
Go for it, anytimeThe reason I'm still doing this job is that when you sit back a bit and look at what you're doing you realise just how fascinating it is and how damned lucky you are you're getting paid to do it. Then it becomes an obsession you want to talk to everyone about.
Which doesn't bother me :)
(Which doesn't bother me :)
boris the spider,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 13:02,
archived)
I come here for the vulgarities. And sometimes the vulgarities make me come. It's a beautiful cycle.
( Ttssattsr,
Fri 11 Jun 2010, 11:10,
archived)