Resonant Constellation

On Monday, NASA brought out a mockup of its new Orion spacecraft to the National Mall for public viewing. This vehicle is pretty damned cool: it’s supposed to bring people back to the moon and perhaps to mars. This, however, is supposed to occur in the 2020s and 2030s, in other words 10-20 years from now. Now, I understand the rationale behind NASA’s long lead times-there’s not much money to go around, so they need to develop and build stuff when the money is around. This leads to truly ridiculous situations (example: the Orbiter’s computers compared to, say, my laptop and the obsolete, though awesome equipment on the Cassini probe).

For once, the problem is not NASA’s, it goes back to the Federal Government (as most problems do these days). In the 60s and early 70s, this country managed to go from never having sent a person into space to landing two on the MOON in just eight years (1961-1969). They had to develop all of the technology, the physics, the methods, the equipment, all of this incredible stuff with the severely limited technology of the time all from scratch. Nobody had done it before. Now the exact same agency, using the same technology (even though we’ve had 40 years of incredible development), the same methods, doing the exact same task is going to take two years longer. This is comically ridiculous, bordering on absurd.

So, I’ve gotta say: if the government wants to set these lofty goals for the space program, they should actually put some funding behind their words. At that point, the problems would all become NASA’s, and based on that institution’s intriguing history, I’d bet we’d have even more fun and dangerous problems. But at least they’d be working on them.

I’m always on the lookout for new material to help my guitar playing along. I consider myself a rank amateur on this instrument: I may have a decade of transferable (to one degree or another) skills on a LOT of other instruments, but each instrument has it’s own ticks and wierdness that must be worked out individually-you can’t apply a universal formula to playing all musical instruments. Guitar is a perfect example of this: when you first learn it, the strings are tuned in a very unnatural, brain twisting manner (at least to a classical cellist, which is what I was when I first picked up guitar). The best part of guitar, however, is that there is an enormous body of literature on alternate tunings for it. Learning and playing in these alternate tunings is challenging, but insanely fun.

My first foray outside of standard tuning was to Drop-D, a very common tuning in Irish music. Drop-D tunes the lowest string down one note from E to D (if standard tuning is EADGBe, Drop-D is DAdGBe), hence the “drop” title. I find that Drop-D is a great tuning for accompanying driving music, and can really get tunes going. The lower harmonies available really make good use of the guitar’s larger body (larger than, say, a fiddle or mandolin). Similar to Drop-D is Double-Drop-D, in which you drop the highest string (an e two octaves above the standard tuning lowest string) to a d two octaves above the already dropped low D. I find that this tuning is only minimally useful in the music I play, so I don’t use it all that much.

My short investigation of blues led me to learn the Drop-C# tuning, wherein all of the strings are dropped a half-step from the Drop-D tuning. If Drop-D utilizes the resonance of the guitar better than standard tuning, Drop-C# maxes out the guitar’s resonant capabilities. Some truly incredible sounding music can come out of this tuning, but also some weird buzzing artifacts can show up too. As it stands, I know about three blues tunes in Drop-C#. I would play it more, except that tuning all six of the strings back up again can be tedious and is sometimes hazardous (strings almost always break during tunings like these).

Currently, I’ve been keeping both of my guitars in Drop-D and dividing my time about 2 parts Drop-D and 1 part standard tuning. Today, however, I discovered a new tuning-DADGAD. It differs from Double-Drop-D by only one note, dropping the second highest “B” string to an “A.” Despite this seeming minor difference, this opens up incredible new melodic worlds. If you play guitar and you haven’t yet tried DADGAD, I highly recommend it. Take a look at this website: Han’s DADGAD Guitar Page.

I found this page today with only three hours to go before my usual weekly session, so I frantically scrambled to learn some chords and put together some progressions before I had to leave. The result, you will find below:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I hope you’ll agree that it sounds pretty good for having picked it up three hours previously.

This week has yielded some interesting occurrences. When I came back from my less than relaxing, sickness-filled spring break, I was expecting a week full of:

• 3 Tests (one Optics oral exam, one actual Optics test, and one Radiative Astrophysics exam)
• One Optics quiz (yes, two tests and a quiz in a week.  And it’s a Tuesday/Thursday class)
• Multiple homeworks in all classes

I hurriedly completed my quite ridiculously oversized Astro homework at the last minute in order to study for all of the tests.  Then Tuesday, my Optics teacher gave an exceedingly easy quiz and completely forgot about my oral exam.  This had to be rescheduled for next week.  Thursday rolls around, and I am ready for my Optics exam: waking up early even (this is drastic for me).  I got into class, sat down, and listened to my teacher explain that since he would be gone next week, we’re moving the test back in order to not miss class.  Okay this isn’t too remarkable: teachers move tests all the time and it was all due to a notoriously inconsistent teacher.  What happened next shocked us all.

Since we had so many things to do this week, nobody had time to study for the impending astronomy test, so after colloquium today, where we knew we’d be able to find our teacher (there is a funny story here: we went to colloquium as usual, then observing that she was talking with the speaker, we went outside the lecture hall to wait for her in the courtyard.  There is no way between the lecture hall and her office except through our line of sight.  Several minutes pass, and she is still not seen.  We check the lecture hall: it is now deserted.  We checked her office and found her to be sitting comfortably at her computer.  I believe somebody has discovered reliable matter transportation and is keeping it to herself…).  We expressed our story in four or five babbling voices and a wonderful thing happened: she took pity on us. Our Astronomy test was moved to Monday.  I’m used to my teachers being inflexible and antagonistic: this change has me mystified and more than a little wary.

Now, instead of having three tests this week, I have them all next week.  Somehow, I think this isn’t the greatest thing in the world, but at least its better than having them before I’m prepared.

Aw, crap.

Okay, so here’s the situation: today I was in E&M class, sitting in the back (I had biked in and was almost late, so I took the first seat available). My glasses were smudged a little, so I took them off to clean on the bottom of my shirt-this is a commonplace occurrence. While cleaning, I heard a popping sound, and the glass/plastic piece that actually corrects my vision clattered onto the floor. This was a little surprising, as it had never happened before, but I was theoretically prepared for it (I knew it could happen and was not overly alarmed).

I quickly retrieved the wayward lens, but noticed that the small bolt that holds the frame together and the lens in the frame had disappeared. As far as I can tell, this tiny screw evaporated into thin air-I never found it. The puzzling part of all of this is that the threads in the tiny little hole aren’t stripped at all and the whole assembly is otherwise intact (sans tiny screw). Now, I say I never found the screw, but it could have been right under my nose-I believe it to be too small to be perceived by human vision (yes, it is smaller than the wavelength of optical electromagnetic radiation). I’d need to requisition the department’s scanning electron microscope to find it.

Okay I thought, I’ll just wait until I get home to repair it and go today without glasses. My prescription isn’t that intense, I can still see. Sure, past me, you can see. Here’s what you can see: the people in the rows around you, the seats, and senseless blue smudges on the whiteboard that must have been equations. Squinting, focusing hard on the distant board, I gave myself a headache and eventually felt nauseous. Awesome.

Now, a whole day passes like this, including other symptoms, such as my right eye beginning to twitch again (this was a weird tick I developed before I had glasses when I needed them). This is so incredibly annoying, I do not have words to describe it. By the time I ride my bike home, I am really ready to break out the eyeglass repair kit. After about a minute of searching, I locate the tiny kit with its tiny screwdriver, and its even tinier screw (remember:scanning electron microscope) and get to work (this is difficult, as I can’t see that well without the glasses…which I am repairing).

Twenty truly excruciating minutes later, I conclude that the tiny screw included in the kit is somehow not tiny enough to fit through the indescribably tiny hole in the actual glasses. I gave up this line of attack.

Soon, though, a new idea struck me: solder! I have a kickass soldering iron, which I’ve been itching to use, so I broke it out and got to work. Another twenty excruciating minutes later, I again concluded that this is a failed effort. The solder, even with a resin core, just wouldn’t stick. I realized halfway through this process that it’s kind of irreversible, so maybe it’s not so bad that it didn’t work.

So that’s where I stand now: not quite blind, but headache-ridden, and a little blurry. Anybody out there have good ideas to help me out?

I have a weird tradition whenever I go on vacation. I’m not much for souvenirs or trinkets, but when I go on a trip I like to bring back a hat. I’m not entirely sure when this started, but the first hat I can remember bringing back from any trip is my irish cap from a trip I took back in middle school. Since then I have collected about four others-two varieties of Australian hats (one I got in Colorado of all places, the other bought in Sydney), a kind-of flat brimmed cowboy hat (imagine Clint Eastwood in For a Fistful of Dollars. I have no idea where I got it), and now a nice brown Indiana Jones-like fedora.

The only rules I have are that the hat must be appreciably different from hats I have collected before, they must be of relatively good quality, and they (obviously) have to fit my ridiculously oversized noggin. This sometimes makes acquisition of new hats difficult-I often come back from trips without new headwear. Still, hope springs eternal-I never get on a plane to go somewhere already wearing a hat. The excitement of a new find never gets old.

What I really need now is a hat tree.

Real life is often more amusing and strange than fiction. Sometimes, though, it gets really weird.

On Sunday during the space shuttle launch, NASA observed a small bat clinging onto the Liquid Fuel Tank. After blaring loud sirens and trying to get the bat to leave (and failing), NASA officials signed off on a waiver that said that flying with the bat posed no risk to the mission. The bat was observed clinging on to the tank even as the shuttle lifted off:

The Batstronaut: Ready for Launch

Unfortunately, the Batstronaut was probably either fried by the heat of launch or froze in the upper stratosphere. Nevertheless, his valiant effort does not go unappreciated: he has done more for bats around the world than anybody since Count Dracula. We salute you, Batstronaut!

Today an odd thing happened: I had watched a movie previously on my laptop (Macbook pro 15.4 inch) while plugged into power, then unplugged it and went elsewhere to work. I was surprised to find that, even though 100% full, my cpmputer only predicted about an hour battery life. I thought this odd, since it is usually around 2.5-3 hours if I’m not trying to conserve power, and about 5-5.5 if I am. I looked up battery issues with my computer model and found that it has about 300 cycles in the battery until it’s supposed to degrade, but this didn’t solve my problem (mine is at about 100, which is not bad for a year old computer).

So what’s the problem? I found a great site with a bunch of tips to maximize battery life. My problem? I had left the DVD in the drive after watching the movie. Turns out that the moving parts and laser diode of the CD/DVD drive burn a lot of power. I quickly rectified this, and followed the rest of their recommendations. I am now “Calibrating my battery,” which includes completely running it down…as it is about to do. I shall leave you now before my laptop dies on me.

On Sunday I was lucky enough to attend a great concert given by the Irish band Danú. When the concert was over and we were leaving, my first thought was:
Why haven’t I heard of these guys?

I was absolutely blown away by the talent displayed by every member of the group. The button box playing was spectacular, the fiddle was wonderful, the guitar and bouzouki were as good as I’ve ever heard (and that’s saying a lot, since I seek these instruments out), and the flute/whistle playing were excellent. The highlights of the evening, however, were the singing and the drums. I hear a lot of both of these in sessions and more often than not they’re just disappointing. Out of the dozens of Bodhran players who’ve come through our local session or who I’ve met outside of it, I’d say I’ve only met one who has truly musical sensibilities and talent. For singers, I might increase that number to two. The singer for Danú, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh (don’t ask me how to pronounce it) has an incredible voice, and moreover, she knows how to use it-her ornamentation is nothing short of perfect.

The drummer with the band that night (he’s not part of the band, he’s just touring with them), Martin O’Neill, is famous enough that I actually have heard of him, though I didn’t connect the face with the name until after the concert (he played on the album Secret Orders by Claire Mann and Aaron Jones which I reviewed a while back). This man did things with his drum that I am still not sure are physically possible. Beginning with a jazz-like bit of brush work, he did a solo set in which he actually played a walking bass line on his drum. His pitch was impeccable.

So, my recommendation? Go see this band if you have the chance, you’ll have a blast.

Today, 3/14, is a special day. That’s right, it’s Pi day! Today is the day to celebrate the gloriousness of the mathematical constant pi. Let’s consider:

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
5820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982
1480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811
1745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881
0975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566
9234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870066
0631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001
1330530548820466521384146951941511609433057270365759
5919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495
6735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664
3086021394946395224737190702179860943702770539217176
2931767523846748184676694051320005681271452635608277
8577134275778960917363717872146844090122495343014654
9585371050792279689258923542019956112129021960864034
4181598136297747713099605187072114999999…and so on.

Ha ha! Pi is really irrational, it doesn’t continue with a string of nines forever (or does it? You’ll have to find out…). But anyway, pi day is a really special day for a lot of people. Today is Albert Einstien’s birthday for one, which is reason enough to celebrate, but on a more personal note, today is the anniversary of two very good friends of mine (one is a math teacher and the other is a physics student). For all these reasons, Pi day is one of my ever growing list of “Science Holidays,” (for example: Apple day or Gravmas, Issac Newton’s birthday. Which also happens to be Christmas.) I urge you to celebrate-bake a pie in the shape of pi, do some relativity, study brownian motion, there’s tons of things you could do!

Note: The point in pi at which I stopped (…999999…) is a very special sequence, known as the Feynman point. In a lecture once, Feynman said he wanted to memorize pi up until a point when he could say “Nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, and so on,” implying that pi is rational and ends in a repeated sequence of nines. This is typical Feynman awesomeness. The fact that this sequence occurs so early in pi (starts at digit 762) is truly intriguing. Read more here.

This next week is spring break at the university, so I’ll be going home. I always look forward to this opportunity, as it allows me to catch up on some sleep and decompress a bit. Beside this, I also get to eat good food for a while-an opportunity I will NEVER turn down.

As I write this now, I’m sitting in the Tucson (theoretically) International Airport. Going through airline security always makes me slightly frustrated. It seems an ineffective inconvenience (for more ranting on this subject, see my Australia Travelogue, though you’ll have to dig to find it). I used to really enjoy flying, especially by myself. I once flew by myself from Albuquerque to Las Vegas to visit my grandparents (who live in Lake Havasu, Arizona, but spend quite a bit of time in Vegas). This was a very exciting experience that I truly enjoyed, but sadly this is no more. Ah well.

I say I’ll be relaxing in Albuquerque this week, but I seem to have accumulated a busy schedule. Aside from working on an image processing project for a class, I’ll be working for my research advisor, Matt Kenworthy, on our multiple brown dwarf system project. I also hope to get out to somewhere dark with my telescope (which I unfortunately have to leave in New Mexico) and perhaps take a few astropictures with my camera (you’ll see ‘em here first). Other possible activities include hiking and (as I always do) visiting the local music stores to gawk at the merchandise that I can’t afford.

Also, there’s a hint that a store in Albuquerque may have some of Deschute’s Brewery’s The Abyss. Excitement!

Afterwards:
The flight was uneventful today, but a funny thing happened right before I got on. I got to talking to the people right behind me in line, and the subject of my field of study came up (seems it always does). Now, I had a choice: If I feel like talking I could say that I’m an Astronomer, or if not I could say that I’m a Physicist. The reactions are always the same-if I say Physicist everybody says “Oh. Physics. That’s hard,” and the conversation is over. If I say Astronomer, the reaction is much more positive: “OOOh, Astronomy, I loooved looking at the stars when I was a kid. My brother…” and so on. Eventually they ask me if I think “Like, maybe there’s aliens out there somewhere?” I swear to you, this works every time, including today (I was feeling good, so I said Astronomer). People are funny like that.