the joys of college life...

OK, I had to post about this. When else for the rest of your life will you be able to do things like this if not in college?

So, for those of you who are unfamiliar with my situation, I'm living in Sweetwater, TX working for ADIT Photomultipliers, a subsidiary of Ludlum Measurements, Inc. Ludlum Measurements purchased a house right next to the main office in April that they plan to tear down and turn into a parking lot eventually. However, for the summer, they're letting us live in it for free, which is very nice. However, it is what you might call a "fixer-upper". Among many other quirks, the shower is by far the most interesting feature of the house. There are actually two showers, but one is in a sort of closet-turned-bathroom and it does not function. That is, unless you refer to brown water drizzling from the hot and cold knobs (that's right, not even the faucet) when you turn it on as "working" (I think they may have unclogged it, actually, and now perhaps it shoots a single laser-like stream of water at speeds that would put a hole clean through a kodiak bear). Anyway, the functioning shower consists of a bathtub and a faucet with one of those little hoses with a little plastic showerhead thing attached to one end and a rubber tube that slides over the faucet and is supposed to stay on from the water pressure. However, the tube would never stay on, and you had to just hold the little showerhead and spray yourself and set it down when you were washing your hair or whatever. The whole thing felt like a setup where they might bathe baby seals at a traveling circus or something. It was quite strange.

Last night, Ryan and I decided to take action. Ryan bought some SWEET camoflage duct tape at Wal-Mart, and we went to work. We wrapped the duct tape around the faucet-hose junction about 49 times, then we taped the showerhead to the wall, giving it a slight angle by lodging it against an old toilet paper roll. Other than the water that sprays furiously (in small quantities, high pressure) from the leaks in the faucet-hose connection, it works pretty well. We have some ideas involving epoxy to fix that, though.

Anyway, it was a fun experience. I got to take the inaugural shower, a great honor.

Poor Brits

Henman draws Federer in the second round of Wimbledon (after a shaky 5-setter against Solderling)? At least their dreams will be crushed early on in the tournament this year, as opposed to those years where Henman gets a draw where his hardest match is Paradorn Srichaphan until the quarters (he still manages to build up suspense by drawing out what should be easy matches to 4 or 5 sets). Then he plays Federer or Agassi or someone along those lines and gets destroyed.

the world-renowned Sweetwater Municipal Band

My employer, a Mr. Larry Ludlum, has been talking to me for some time about coming out with my piano to practice with the Sweetwater Municipal Band, so last night, I finally went. They already had one pianist, but I brought my stuff just to come sit in and play a little bit if I could. It was fun. We played some boogie and blues stuff, which is a lot of fun. We also played some marches and stuff, during which I was decidedly outdone by the old lady with the keyboard with little colored buttons and cheesy drum loops. It is always good to play with some musicians that play outside the style set that you are used to. I was reminded of my ever-growing sightreading deficiencies and how good old people are at their instruments. Even though they make some questionable fashion decisions, they have been playing these things for 20 to 40 years, which makes my 14-ish years of piano seem sort of silly. Fortunately, after the 4th of July concert next week, they're back to jazz and blues again.

Anyway, so, it's true what they say: while slow and dangerous behind the wheel, senior citizens can still serve a purpose...

The Quantum Eraser

I apologize in advance to most of you reading this. This won't happen often, I assure you.

Ok, my current tally is 1 perky post, 2 melacholy posts, and 3 sports posts (one of which doubled as a "soap-box post"), which means it is time for a nerdy post. However, to my less mathematically inclined readers, please do not be discouraged, as I will try not to get technical here, and the experiment I'm going to describe is truly mind-blowing.

One of the most fundamental, underlying principles governing quantum mechanics is that all objects exhibit both wave and particle features. For objects of everyday size, the wave features are negligible for reasons I will not delve into here. However, for an object like a photon (the fundamental "packet" of light), wave and particle features are on almost equal footing. One of the experiments that helped to show this was an experiment in which beams of light (or photons) were shot through two slits. If you fire the photons through just one slit (either one), they produce some light on a screen on the other side, as expected. However, when you fire them through both at the same time, instead of adding up their intensities, which seems intuitive once you know that light is made up of little tiny particles called photons, they behave like waves and generate an "interference pattern", which can be thought of like crossing water waves adding their intensities and cancelling each other out in some spots. On the screen is a pattern of alternating light and dark bands.


















Even if you slow down the photons and fire, say, one every ten seconds, they generate the same interference pattern, which is amazing since none of the individual photons can interact with any of the others -- they just know, somehow, where the crests and troughs are for the interacting wave pattern. Wave nature can also be thought of as the particle being sort of a lot of places at once (not that we just don't know where it is, but experimental evidence has shown over and over that an electron or a photon or any particle is described not as being here or here, but sort of spread out in and being sort of here and sort of here and sort of there, etc.).

That is, until you look at it. When you measure a particle, somehow, by some mechanism not understood by modern physics, the particle suddenly collapses to a specific position. The interaction of the measurement somehow forces the particle to lose its wave-like nature. By repeating the same experiment described above, only putting sensors on the slits to see which one the photon passes through forces the light to behave like a particle. The interference pattern disappears as soon as you do this. However, as soon as you turn off the sensors, the interference pattern magically appears again.

However, the amazing part is that if you muddle the sensor information down the line in the experiment such that it is no longer useful, the interference pattern mysteriously reappears. If the sensors are down-convertors, which take one photon in and launch two photons out (one in the original direction and one in a separate beam to tell you "the photon went through this sensor"), this experiment is easy to describe. The "which-path" information is given by the down-convertor's beam. However, if, the two output beams from the down-convertors are fed into a mixer which jumbles them up down the line such that no one could get the "which-path" information, the interference pattern reappears on the screen. This is incredible, since the interference pattern shouldn't seem to care whether or not you look at the "which-path" information, and since the jumbling could occur far, far away, which would make the mixing of the beams happen after the photons actually hit the screen.

This experiment challenges fundamental assumptions that we have about physics and how the world works. We assume that the universe is causal (events happening now can only be affected by past events), but this experiment seems to suggest that, at best, our model of causality is far too simple. With this experiment, and several other, more famous ones, our assumption that the universe is local (stuff happening here can't affect stuff happening over there until "information" such as light or gravity waves has had time to travel the separation) is severely shaken. Also, it is almost as if quantum mechanics shows that things don't really exist until you interact with them. Does the moon exist when no one is looking at it? Some of the more liberal quantum philosophers would say no.

Quantum mechanics has a lot of other crazy stuff, but I think I'll limit myself to just one today. I got the description for this experiment from "The Fabric of the Cosmos", by Brian Greene, and if, by some miracle, this post interested you, you should definitely read it. Anyway, if our universe truly is held together by something as nutty as quantum mechanics, I'm just glad I believe in God...

I still love Bill Simmons

Another good article (mostly the second half, after the whole Shaq-Wade bit at the first, although that part is funny too if you're a fairly serious NBA fan). Hilarious. But the rantings from my previous post still hold.

And this, too, shall pass away...

Okay, so I'm still a little upset at the Mavericks' loss, and perhaps I still will remember for years to come the phantom foul from game 5 and the game-6 elbow that D-Wade threw at Dirk's chest that somehow got whistled against Dirk. Perhaps I still believe that the Mavericks would have won the NBA championship had the officiating not been so one-sided at critical times (I understand bad calls go both ways, and that was somewhat true throughout the majority of the middle of games, although Wade still shot an obscene number of free throws). However, I'm struggling to see how this should really be affecting my life. What does it say about the priorities of someone who is so affected by a game played by a bunch of grown men whom he has never met that he would let his thought life be affected for more than a day at the outcome? I'm not sure why people care so much about professional sports. Maybe it stems from some subconscious, "my daddy can beat up your daddy" syndrome, but at least there the vicarious pride involves a close relative.

I watched the game in a bar a Chili's sitting around four other people whose collective IQs probably just eclipsed triple digits. They kept screaming things like "YEAH! F--- SHAQ!" and then laughing drunkenly. When they'd shout things like, "You *bleep*-ing idiots! Why don't you just foul Shaq?!" I would calmly explain that 1) Shaq is on the bench and 2) if you intentionally foul away from the ball within 2 minutes of the end of the half/game, then the fouled team gets two shots and the ball, but then they'd resort to more drunken laughing and comments like the first one I mentioned or, "Well foul him anyway." I've also spent some time this morning reading comments on Mark Cuban's blog, half of which were written by people who could barely string together a coherent sentence but tried to write in such a way as to sound like they were profoundly revealing the single truth of the mysteries of basketball. I think all these events have really put things in perspective.

Life's more than girls. Life is more than money, or careers, or cars. Life is definitely more than basketball. Go learn a foreign language. Read a book (a meaningful one, not "The Devil Wears Prada" -- not that I haven't heard good things about it). Study science or mathematics or philosophy. Consider the meaning of life. Go feed a homeless person. Help someone who is sick or suffering. Do something unselfish. Consider God and your own mortality. America scares me sometimes. Oh well, there's always next season.

I love Bill Simmons

If you don't read Page 2 on ESPN.com, you're missing out. Bill Simmons is the funniest and best sports writer I've ever read (and I'm not just saying that because the of this article). Here is a sample of some things that people emailed him after game 5 (my favorite coming from Warren of Ludington, Michigan).

I do solemnly swear, this 19th day of June, 2006 that I will never watch an NBA game again. Everyone is supposed to say what a great game that was with a straight face? At least the WWE has the grace to give you a wink. If watching a man in a flak jacket and thigh pads repeatedly throw himself into defenders to draw foul calls is what passes for "competition," or better yet watching said man hit layups because no one can breathe on him, I believe I can live without [it]. Why would anyone follow a "sport" that employs Dick Bavetta and Stu Jackson? All that was missing was David Stern running onto the court with a steel chair, ABC execs in tow. Bill Simmons, I name thee prophet. It went down exactly as you said it would.
-- James, Richmond, Virginia

Have you ever, I mean EVER, seen a guy get more calls than Wade in Game 5? As staggering as it is to even think it, much less say it out loud, this surpasses the level of calls Jordan used to get in the playoffs. Simply AMAZING. I am a die-hard NBA fan, and I understand and accept the whole "stars get calls" factor, but this is an insane new level. Every time Wade falls down (even if not touched) he gets a call. You called it in your preview, the refs were gonna give some games to Miami, and they did.
-- Jonathan, Raleigh, N.C.

Please admit to everyone that the treatment Dwyane Wade is receiving is absolutely absurd. The final play in Game 5 summed it up: He commits a backcourt violation, pushes off on Terry, then goes wildly to the bucket and gets bailed out on a phantom foul call. Is what the NBA has to do to create its star of the future?
-- Mark, Chicago

I want to say something about Dwayne Wade, but I fear I may get called for a foul.
-- Warren, Ludington, Mich.

After witnessing the Game 5 debacle, I am absolutely convinced that Stern is trying to fix the Finals for D-Wade and the Heat. Stackhouse's suspension, Dirk's phantom foul in OT, and then Joey Crawford's inexplicable call for a Mavs timeout -- it all adds up too perfectly. This could be a conspiracy as far-reaching as Watergate. I can already imagine the inevitable ESPN movie, "All The Commissioner's Men," where a stubborn, upstart young sports columnist brings down Stern and the entire NBA hierarchy. So, Simmons, the only question is: Will you be our Bob Woodward?
-- Robert P., Topeka, Kan.

failure

I just broke something at work, something that is sort of bad to break. The details aren't really that important. Basically, I was doing something new, and I accidentally bumped something that I wasn't aware was extremely fragile (or I would have been more careful). Anyway, it was my fault, but it isn't like I did something too horribly stupid. I just hate failing. Oh well. It's not like they will fire me or anything...

depressed

Not only did the Mavericks blow it again, but I drove from Lubbock to Sweetwater after the game (I left around midnight), and I was at work this morning. What a horrible 12 hours.

alright, Rachel, I caved

I finally caved and created a blog. So, to my extensive fanbase, I hope you enjoy. I'm not promising that I will post regularly. I'm shooting for about the posting frequency of Jill or my sister (I don't pretend to aspire to Rachel's almost daily posting, although I might if I were as bored at my job as she is at hers...).

Anyway, I've been in California for the past two weeks. I visited Stanford (which was really really nice) and Berkeley (which was really really weird). The hardest thing will be getting a high enough Physics GRE score to get into any bigtime school, seeing as I don't have a few of the classes that I need to take for it. However, Calvin got a perfect score, which is good, because had he done average or above average with a degree in physics, I would not have been confident about my chances. Plus, with a Ph.D. from Stanford, I would be expected to win a Nobel Prize or something, and I'm just not sure I'm that excited about doing research. Anyway, don't tell any of the various admissions committees that. I've also been out on a houseboat for a week and at a cabin in the moutains for a few days ("it's nice to go to the cabin..."). I learned to waterski, also, which is quite a lot of fun. Right now I'm sitting in Kim's old roommate's (Stina) house watching the end of the Rangers' game and listening to Stina snore on the ground. It's hot in Arizona -- today was a very mild day because it only got up to 104 or so...so don't move here.

Alright, that's all for now. Probably no one will read this for a while, since no one knows it exists yet. Further bulletins as events warrant.