Jump to content

Akano

Premier Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    778

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Akano

  1. Akano

    Snow Days

    By Akano,

    So, today was the second day this week where classes have been cancelled for snow/winter weather. Today the cancellation occurred due to power outages and falling frozen tree branches.
     
    So, I'm now at home doing work since there's actually power here. So that's been fun.
     
    Outside looks especially pretty, though.
     

  2. Akano
    I have posted before about the genius of physicist David J. Griffiths. I thought I'd post a few quotes by him to share why I think he's awesome.
     
    "…You can always tell the particles apart, in principle—just paint one of them red and the other one blue, or stamp identification numbers on them, or hire private detectives to follow them around."
     
    "...And, of course, if you’re in a really bad mood you can create a state for which neither position nor momentum is well defined..."
     
    "It is traditional to write the Bohr radius with a subscript: a0. But this is cumbersome and unnecessary, so I prefer to leave the subscript off."
     
    "If you think this is starting to sound like a mystical numerology, I don’t blame you. We will not be using Clebsch-Gordan tables much in the rest of the book, but I wanted you to know where they fit into the scheme of things, in case you encounter them later on. In a mathematical sense this is all applied group theory—what we are talking about is the decomposition of the direct product of two irreducible representations of the rotation group into a direct sum of irreducible representation (you can quote that, to impress your friends)."
     
    "I’m not at all sure what I’m supposed to say today. Maybe you’re expecting a grand philosophy of education. But I learned very early as a parent that almost any philosophy of childrearing is worse than no philosophy at all, and I am inclined to think the same applies to teaching."
     
    "Personally, I never bring notes to a lecture unless I am egregiously ill-prepared, for they break a very delicate and important bond of trust with the listener: If B really follows from A, how come he has to refer to his notes?"
     
    "There are a thousand ways to get a problem wrong—not all of them bad—and many ways to get a problem right—not all of them good."
     
    "Above all, I think studying science—and especially physics—is a tremendously liberating experience. I don’t happen to know how a carburetor works; I’m not even sure what a carburetor does; let me be frank: I don’t know what a carburetor looks like. But I do know that the behavior of carburetors is perfectly rational; somebody understands them, and if I really wanted to I’m sure I could understand them too. For I have confidence, grounded in the study of physics, that the world is rationally intelligible, and this, to me, is the most important—and most profoundly liberating—idea in human experience. The universe is comprehensible..."
     
    "A colleague of mine in Chemistry likes to boast that ‘‘anyone can teach; the important thing is to attract good researchers.’’ I think it’s exactly the reverse: competent research physicists are a dime a dozen, but good teachers are few and far between. Please don’t misunderstand: I’ve got nothing against research—I do a certain amount of it myself, and I think it goes hand in hand with good teaching. But I regard myself as a professional teacher, and an amateur researcher, whereas most physicists are professional researchers but amateur teachers, and it shows. In my opinion by far the most effective thing we can do to improve the quality of physics instruction—much more important than modifications in teaching technique—is to hire, honor, and promote good teachers."
     
    There are many more wonderful quotes, but I don't remember them/don't have the sources on me. Perhaps I'll add to this in another blog entry.
     

  3. Akano

    Physics Jokes!

    By Akano,

    In no particular order, some fun physics jokes. Ready? GO!
    My friend was trying to talk to me about atoms, but I got Bohr'd.
    Did you hear that Albert Einstein developed a theory about space? It was about time, too.
    Never trust an atom; they make up everything.
    The oddly pleasant feeling of looking down on a physicist as they finish the last of their drink. The strange charm of a top-down bottoms-up.
    Why does hamburger have less energy than steak? It's in the ground state.
    Why are physics books always unhappy? Because they're full of problems.
    Neutrinos make the worst friends; they rarely interact with anyone.
    In a quantum finish!

  4. Akano

    Allons-y!

    By Akano,

    So, I may have just finished watching all six series of Doctor Who available on Netflix.
     
    And I'm quite glad I did. Awesome show. David Tennant is best pony Doctor.
     
    I want a sonic screwdriver.
     

  5. Akano
    This is one that I didn't really know much about until recently, so I thought I'd share it. Today's equation is known as the Virial theorem,
     



     
    or, in component form,
     



     
    The word "virial" comes from the Latin vis, which means "force" or "energy," and looking at the equation, it makes sense why it's called that. Here the big Σ means sum, the "k" index denotes the kth particle of a system of N particles, V is the potential energy function affecting the kth particle, T is the potential energy of all the particles in the system, and rk is the position of the kth particle. This essentially relates the kinetic energy of all the particles to the positions and forces exerted on each particle (since -grad V is the force when energy is conserved, which is an assumption we are making). The brackets 〈 〉 denote that we're taking an average, so 〈T〉 is the average kinetic energy, etc.
     
    Now, you may be thinking, "okay, that's a cute equation, I guess, but I don't see how it's particularly useful." Okay, here's where the usefulness comes in. Let's say I want to know the mass of some distant galaxy, but I don't have a good galaxy-weighing device on hand. We know that the gravitational potential energy of an object is given by
     



     
    where m is the mass of the star, M is the mass of the center of the galaxy, and r is the distance from the center of the galaxy. Taking the distance r and multiplying by the gradient of the potential yields...the potential again, with a negative sign out front. So, for gravity,
     



     
    Plugging this into the Virial theorem above and noting that 2T = mv^2 (where v is speed), we get that, for an object in the gravitational pull of an object of mass M,
     



     
    Thus, we have at our disposal a way of measuring the mass of something like a galaxy by measuring only the speeds of stars and their distance away from the center. That's pretty incredible.
     
    This actually is one of the ways scientists support the idea that there is dark matter in the universe; the Virial theorem gives an average of what speeds the stars in our galaxy should have based on their distance away from the center of the Milky Way, but what we actually observe is startlingly different. Thus, we can conclude that something is wrong with our knowledge of how gravity within a galaxy works. Based on this and other observations, the idea that there's extra stuff that can't be seen that adds to the gravitational force of a galaxy seems to be a reasonable idea.
     
    In my research on diatomic hydrogen (H2), the Virial theorem is used in a different capacity. When figuring out the potential energy of an electron (or two) around the two positively charged protons, the virial has the Coulomb force term (which is just -V, just like gravity) and an additional term that pops up from assuming that the electrons are keeping the protons at equilibrium. I won't go too much into the physics, but the final product is
     



     
    where E, T, and V are the total energy, kinetic energy, and potential energy of the electron(s), respectively, and R is the distance between the nuclei. This tells us something useful about the energy of the electrons; more specifically, it tells us about how the energy changes as you move the nuclei farther apart or closer together. In other words, since E = T + V,
     
     



     
    which is very useful when constructing potential energy curves for hydrogen.
     
    On a slightly related note, our lab's paper got published! Akano is now a for reals, published scientist! 8D
     

  6. Akano

    Blog Statistics

    By Akano,

    I have absolutely no life to the point that I just spent the better part of my afternoon going back through my blog posts and recording the view count, reply count, and word count of all 185 entries I've made prior to this one. These are the results of my labor:
     
    All time averages:
    Views: 57.4 ± 45.8
    Replies: 2.2 ± 2.6 (LOL)
    Word Count: 176 ± 242 (BIGGER LOL)
     
    Post-server upgrade averages:
    Views: 79.9 ± 42.6
    Replies: 2.58 ± 3.01 (LOL again)
    Word Count: 198 ± 292 (BIGGER LOL again)
     
    Largest stats:
    Views: 266 (courtesy of "Ask Akano" blog entry; Fort Legoredo review got 265, a close second)
    Replies: 24 (again, "Ask Akano")
    Word Count: 1711 (Vampyre Castle review)
     
    Here are the graphs for each stat.
     
    What I learned from this experience:
    Before the server upgrade, I made a lot of posts about how I'm a terrible blogger.
    Among my most viewed posts were my set reviews.
    My old text color is more painful to view since the background is now completely white.
    Most of my blog posts have fewer than 50 words.
    Most of my blog posts get zero replies.
    Post-server upgrade, most of my entries get between 60-90 views. Pre-upgrade, they got between 10-20 views.
    This is my 186th post.
    I hope this was informative. I know I learned quite a bit from the experience.
     

  7. Akano

    I Caught Some Shinies!

    By Akano,

    Over the past week I caught a shiny Remoraid (evolved it and gave it to Tekulo), shiny Octillery, and shiny Clauncher (traded from Tekulo's X version).
     
    I have become a consecutive fishing master! I want to get a shiny Corsola next.
     
    Also, I had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving with my family and our friends. Tomorrow I head back to my apartment, and then Monday is school as usual.
     

  8. Akano
    So, I've been doing various things in the world of Pokémon recently. I obtained a Squirtle on Wonder Trade (that was awesome), a Froakie from Spain, various forms of Vivillon, a Riolu from Japan (リオル), and a Rotom (8D) from Japan (ロトム). I'm hoping to try the Masuda method to get a shiny Riolu, because shiny Lucario is awesome (and yellow).
     
    Also, I caught a shiny Ditto in Pokémon Village. Luckiest chain ever (I definitely did not get a chain of 40...).
     

  9. Akano

    Visiting KK

    By Akano,

    So, it's currently my fall break, and I decided the best way to spend that time would be to visit my brother, KopakaKurahk. I arrived Saturday evening and enjoyed a fun day yesterday of meeting people at his grad school, checking out his lab, and enjoying some relaxation (also watching JonTron and MentalFloss and discussing physics and geology).
     
    Good times.
     
    EDIT: Also, apparently this is my 200th entry! This is a milestone for some reason!
     

  10. Akano

    Recent updates

    By Akano,

    Due to the combination of the servers being taken offline and me being in school, it's been a while since my last entry. I managed to find most of my entries from Google's cache (Aug 26 - now), so they've been posted as though I had posted them on their original entry days, but the comments have disappeared into the aether.
     
    On a more jubilant note, I've been playing Pokémon Y and Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies recently (this is in no way like Tekulo's recent entry). I'm on the first part of case three of the latter, and I have to say that case two was very enjoyable. The twist was really good, and all the crazy weirdness of the people in that case now makes sense (it kind of reminds me of Turnabout Big Top from Justice for All).
     
    In Pokémon Y, I have gotten through Victory Road and am now ready to face the Pokémon League:
     







    Also, I think it's fantastic that I can customize my character with a yellow hoodie and well-matching fedora.
     



     
    My party currently consists of Keaton (Delphox), Anubis (Lucario), Lapras, Sylveon, Snorlax, and my HM user (a linear combination of Machoke, Talonflame, Pansage in near equal probability). I absolutely love the fact that the Fennekin family is based on mages, and Sylveon is absolutely fantastic. Since evolving it, I don't think I've had it faint once.
     

  11. Akano
    ...and I'm not enjoying it as much as I hoped to...
     
    *avoids all the random objects being thrown at him in disagreement*
     
    Let me explain.
     
    I'm currently rescuing the maidens in the Dark World. I'm making the assumption that you're supposed to rescue them in numerical order, but I think they can be saved in (almost) any order. I've rescued two of them, with the third lying in the Dark World equivalent of the Lost Woods (the Skeleton Forest, I think?). Anyway, it took me forever to figure out how to get over there, since no obvious path showed itself on my map.
     
    This game needs a guide. A Navi, Tatl, Ezlo, Midna, or King of Red Lions. Someone who knows the world and can help you get to where you need to go. I've been to the fortune teller in the game to figure out where to go, but he only gives you names, not directions, which makes it frustrating when I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off all over Hyrule trying to figure out where to go next.
     
    Perhaps it will grow on me, but right now I'm longing for Minish Cap and its wonderful gameplay...
     

  12. Akano
    KK and I had an awesome time. I'll have pics posted later, so for now I'll just use a few words to describe my experience:
     
    There were so many AMAZING creations, from a 7 foot long Serenity to some awesome Egyptian temple structures to Erebor from The Hobbit, and that doesn't even scratch the surface of the tip of the iceberg. The BIONICLE creations were really neat, and I enjoyed stopping by those tables. Speaking of, I have now officially met the following BZPeople (yes, that's what I call us/you/whatever) IN PERSON:
    Sumiki a.k.a. Cap'n Subnuki a.k.a. Hat Man
    Black Six a.k.a. Andrew a.k.a. you all know who he is
    The Architect a.k.a. Blog Lurker
    Xaeraz a.k.a. Xaeraz
    Aanchir a.k.a. He who draws Andrew Francis characters
    BZPeople whom I saw but did not actually meet (sorry, I'll try harder next time not to be overwhelmed with ALL THE AWESOME and stop to talk to people more).
    Makaru
    Avohkah Tamer
    Bionicle Raptor (related: I also forgot to buy a BZPower shirt. )
    Possibly others whose appearances I don't know and thus would not recognize them.
    All in all, it was an awesome afternoon well spent. I'll have some pictures up some time later this week, including my haul (not too substantial, but pretty cool).
     

  15. Akano

    My D&D Characters

    By Akano,

    So, recently I told you all that my brother, KK, has come to stay with me this summer and that we've started a Dungeons and Dragons campaign in the land of Hyrule, set some 50 years or so after the events of Majora's Mask. We recently just dealt with some undead necromancy in the Kakariko graveyard and are waiting for orders from the King of Hyrule on where our party will travel for our next mission. KK has also gotten me into the wonderful webcomic The Order of the Stick, which lampshades and parodies the Dungeons & Dragons universe and gameplay. I have since made my player characters in the style of OotS's comic design and wish to share them with you, my lovely reader.
     
    Atlov
     
     



    Atlov is a Hylian wizard who specializes in the Storm Domain (bonus points to those who figure out where his name comes from). He aspires to use his wizard talents as a servant of the Royal Family of Hyrule.
    Stats
    Lawful Good, Level 2 Wizard, 12 HP, AC 12
    Str: 10
    Dex: 14
    Con: 15
    Int: 16
    Wis: 14
    Cha: 13
     
    I'm planning to take a level in Cleric with Atlov after I get my level 2 Wizard spells, since it will give him a nice diversity and allow him to heal himself in battle. He currently worships Nayru, but I think that will change, a) because the Hyrule campaign thingy we're basing our game on doesn't give Nayru many good Cleric domains, and b) because while Nayru is the goddess of wisdom, it may make more sense to worship Hylia (since he wants to serve the Royal Family) or not have a preferred deity (since he may feel that they're all equally important).
     
    Ralu
     
     




    Ralu is a Zora bard from Zora's Domain. He enjoys traversing Hyrule and gathering new stories to tell through the soothing tones of his fish bone guitar. The diplomat of the group, since his Charisma is out the wazoo.
    Stats
    Chaotic Good, Level 2 Bard, 15 HP, AC 13
    Str: 11
    Dex: 11
    Con: 16
    Int: 15
    Wis: 9
    Cha: 16
     
    Zoras get a penalty to strength, and I rolled a bad Wisdom score, but fortunately he doesn't need it too badly. Ralu worships Farore, since he's Chaotic rather than Lawful (otherwise I would have had him worship Nayru). I haven't developed his character too much yet, so we'll see where I take him during our journey.
     

  16. Akano

    My First BrickFair

    By Akano,

    So, it looks like both KK and I will be going to BrickFair (so long as we have friends willing to give us rides). So, if you want to meet us, BE THERE! 8D
     
    KK has said Tekulo's rather jealous about our adventure to the fair of bricks. Don't worry, Tekky, I'll be sure to take pictures and hopefully grab some good bricks.
     
    In other news, I've caught up completely with the 900 comics of Order of the Stick, and it's a fantastic series. If anyone out there has a few days to kill, it's a blast to read, check it out.
     
    As for my comics, I should make some new ones, huh? >>;
     

  17. Akano

    Life Updates

    By Akano,

    HI, BZPOWER!
     
    So, in the last few weeks, my family came to visit (including Tekulo and KK) and we spent the latter half of the week seeing sights and enjoying each other's company. My mom won a game of Trivial Pursuit on a category that was supposed to stump her. Story of my Trivial Pursuit life.
     
    When they left, they abandoned KK with me, which has led to me stepping into the nerd realm of playing Dungeons & Dragons. We're doing a campaign in the land of Hyrule with the races of Hyrule being used as analogs of D&D races. We're currently in the Forest Temple seeking an herb to cure the Great Deku Tree's muteness.
     
    I'm also working in a new physics lab where I'm studying the energy states of the hydrogen molecule (H2). I'm thoroughly enjoying it, since I'm learning computational stuffs and learning my way around Linux. (Emacs rules the school.) The program I'm working with is in Fortran, which is my native programming language but was written by someone else with a lot more skill than I possess.
     
    And now I'm shoveling through a LOT of data.
     

  18. Akano

    Origami Shapes!

    By Akano,

    I made a Post-It note dodecahedron:


    It was fun. 8D
     
    For the record: each face is made up of five Post-It notes, each a different color, so that, per face, no color is repeated.
     

  20. Akano
    You may have learned once that classical mechanics all stems from Newton's laws of motion, and while that is true, it is not necessarily the best way to solve a given physical problem. Often when we look at a physical system, we take note of certain physical parameters: energy, momentum, and position. However, these can be more generalized to fit the physical situation in question better. This is where Lagrange comes in; he thought of a new way to formulate mechanics. Instead of looking at the total energy of a system, which is the potential energy plus the kinetic energy, he instead investigated the difference in those two quantities,
     




     
    where T is the kinetic energy and V is the potential energy. Since the kinetic and potential energy, in general, depend on the coordinate position and velocity of the particle in question, as well as time, so too does the Lagrangian. You're probably thinking, "okay, what makes that so great?" Well, if we were to plot the Lagrangian and calculate the area under the curve with respect to time, we get a quantity known as the action of the particle.
     




     
    where t1 and t2 are the starting and ending times of interest. Usually if the motion is periodic, the difference between these times is one period. Now, it turns out that for classical motion, the action is minimized with respect to a change in the path along which the particle moves for the physical path along which the particle actually moves. This sounds bizarre, but what it means is that there is only one path along which the particle can move while keeping the action minimized. Physicists call this the Principle of Least Action; I like to call it "the universe is inherently lazy" rule. When you do the math out, you can calculate an equation related to the Lagrangian for which the action is minimized. We call these the Euler-Lagrange Equations.
     




     
    These are the equations of motion a particle with Lagrangian L in generalized coordinates qi with velocity components denoted by qi with a dot above the q (the dot denotes taking a time derivative, and the time derivative of a coordinate is the velocity in that coordinate's direction). This is one of the advantages of the Lagrangian formulation of mechanics; you can pick any coordinate system that is best-suited for the physical situation. If you have a spherically symmetric problem, you can use spherical coordinates (altitude, longitude, colatitude). If your problem works best on a rectangular grid, use Cartesian coordinates. You don't have to worry about sticking only with Cartesian (rectilinear) coordinates and then converting to something that makes more sense; you can just start out in the right coordinate system from the get go! Now, there are a couple of special attributes to point out here. First, the quantity within the time derivative is a familiar physical quantity, known as the conjugate momenta.
     




     
    Note that these do not have to have units of linear momentum of [Force × time]. For instance, in spherical coordinates, the conjugate momentum of longitude is the angular momentum in the vertical direction, which has units of action, [Energy × time]. The Euler-Lagrange equations tell us to take the total time derivative of these momenta, i.e. figure out how they change in time. This gives us a sort of conjugate force, since Newton's second law reads that the change in momentum over time is force. The other quantity gives special significance when it equals zero,
     




     
    This is just fancy math language for saying that if one of our generalized coordinates, qi, doesn't appear at all in our Lagrangian, then that quantity's conjugate momentum is conserved, and the coordinate is called "cyclic." In calculating the Kepler problem – the physical situation of two particles orbiting each other (like the Earth around the Sun) – the Lagrangian is
     




     
    Note that the only coordinate that doesn't appear in the Lagrangian is ϕ, the longitude in spherical coordinates. Thus, the conjugate momentum of ϕ, which is the angular momentum pointing from the North pole vertically upwards, is a conserved quantity. This reveals a symmetry in the problem that would not be seen if we used the Lagrangian for the same problem in Cartesian coordinates:
     




     
    That just looks ugly. Note that all three coordinates are present, so there are no cyclic coordinates in this system. In spherical coordinates, however, we see that there is a symmetry to the problem; the symmetry is that the situation is rotationally invariant under rotations about an axis perpendicular to the plane of orbit. No matter what angle you rotate the physical situation by about that axis, the physical situation remains unchanged.
     

  21. Akano

    Special Relativity

    By Akano,

    A particle moving through space at the speed of light (i.e. a "massless" particle) does not experience time, and particles that are at rest travel through time at the speed of light.
     
    So the next time you feel lazy loafing on your couch or computer chair, just remember that you are traveling at light speed, no matter how fast or slowly you move.
     
    This entry brought to you by SCIENCE!
     

  22. Akano

    A True, True Friend

    By Akano,

    Confound these ponies!
     
    They drive me to sing.
     
    I liked the finale, but I kinda wish it were a two-parter. It felt slightly rushed as one episode.
     
    Also, SONG OVERLOAD.
     

  23. Akano
    I am currently unable to upload photos to Brickshelf, and I'm not sure why. I'm trying to upload a .zip file of pics I want to use for a review, but after a long time of "uploading," the folder I attempt to upload to is empty. I tried doing one photo at a time, but that's failing as well.
     
    Anyone else experiencing this?
     

  24. Akano
    I've decided to post this review here, as I'm not sure this fulfills the requirements to actually post this in the LEGO Sets forum.
     
    Presentation
    From the design of the box to the instruction manual, these are the first things you see before building the set.
     

    ]

    It's a polybag. The front features the set's picture and a picture letting you know that the eagle character you get is Ewar. The back is full of legalese, as per usual, and has a cutout option for a free child ticket to LEGOLAND.
     
    Building
    Half the fun is had building the set. How fun is it to build and how easy or challenging is it?
     



    At only 33 pieces, this set does not take long to build.
     



    Set Design
    Now that the set is complete, we can critique how it looks from every angle. New or interesting pieces can also be examined here.
     



    I would first like to point out that this set came with about 10 extra trans-light-blue round tile pieces, which I thought was ridiculous, but I'm not complaining. The vessel is pretty simple in design, but still rather cool in my opinion. It's like someone combined a snowmobile and a jet ski...and made it fly. The really cool thing about this set, though, is Ewar.
     



    First off, Ewar is an anthropomorphic eagle, which ranks up there in awesomeness with anthropomorphic echidnas. He also has a really simple but clever wing-mount that reminds me of the armor of the old Hydronaut figures. This also allows his wings (and those of the other wingèd Chima races) to be poseable, unlike the winged mummy figures from Pharaoh's Quest. I like Ewar's flip face as well; one side has goggles and the other is just his bare face, which has nice detail on it. The design on his torso reminds me a lot of ancient Egypt, and his helmet (head piece?) is really cool as well.
     
    Playability
    The other half of the fun is in playing with the set. How well does the set function and is it enjoyable to play with?
     

    Woohoo! Cowabunga, dude!


    While it is a small set and, thus, is kinda limited on playability by itself, I'm sure that it makes a nice addition to any larger set if you're building some kind of Chima army or need a new high-tech hover vehicle for your utopian LEGO world. Ewar himself is a cool minifig that also allows for some fun play time.
     

    Hey, Einstein, I'm on your side!


    Final Thoughts
    Once it's all said and done, how does the set stack up? Should I get it?



    Alas, jetski-snowmobile, you are the only one who listens to me.


    This set was originally released as a free promotional with a $75 set order from LEGO S@H. It's now on BrickLink for about $5 USD. I don't know if I would personally spend that much money just to get him, but I'm glad I was able to get him through LEGO's promotional. If you're a fan of Chima, go for it.
     
    Pros
    What's to like?
    Ewar is cool
    Lots of extra pieces
    Jetski-snowmobile
    Cons
    What's not to like?
    Small
    It's a cute little set. If you want to see the gallery, go here when public.
     

×
×
  • Create New...