I think disease is pretty rad. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, prions and parasites are all very interesting to me, but I know very little about them. what field of science focuses on disease the most. I'm only in high school so my options are limited but its best to start sooner rather than later.
Biology --> Microbiology. I share the same interests and I've currently chosen to investigate tooth paste and their effect on the bacteria culture in the mouth for my grand extended essay.
I can't wait until I start doing the experiment next week, it'll be interesting to see the results.
I want to be like [URL="http://www.commontales.com/portrait/307/ira_m_cohen/"]my grandpa[/URL]
well I'm looking forward to my first year quantum/special relativity/electromagnetism exam tomorrow, it's gonna be awfully tricky but I feel I've revised and done enough examples for it
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZJ7Y6kE-_E[/media]
after the AP physics exam, we had some bullshit just-for-fun projects to fill the remainder of the school year
this is what my group did
I'm gonna start slowly putting together a library of good physics reference books. I feel like it's a good idea for mah learnins. Here are the ones I plan on getting and the ones I have so far:
[B]Classical Mechanics:[/B]
-Mechanics - Symon
-Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems - Thornton, Marion (OWN)
-Classical Mechanics - Goldstein
[B]Electrodynamics:[/B]
-Introduction to Electrodynamics - Griffiths (OWN)
-Classical Electrodynamics - Jackson
-Electromagnetic Fields - Wangsness
[B]Quantum Mechanics:[/B]
-Introduction to Quantum Mechanics - Griffiths (OWN)
-Principles of Quantum Mechanics - Shankar
-Modern Quantum Mechanics - Sakurai
-Quantum Mechanics - Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu, Laloe
[B]General Relativity:[/B]
-Spacetime and Geometry - Carroll (OWN)
-General Relativity - Wald
-Gravitation - Misner, Thorne, Wheeler
[B]Thermodynamics:[/B]
-Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics - Reif
-Thermal Physics - Kittel
[B]Mathematical Methods:[/B]
-Mathematical Methods for Physicists - Arfken, Weber
-Mathematical Methods for Students of Physics and Related Fields - Hassani
-Mathematical Physics - Hassani
-Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences - Boas
A lot of these I used to own and sold back when I was young and naive and didn't realize that almost any textbook is worth keeping over the tiny amount you get selling it back at the bookstore, or have had from the library for a long period of time and can vouch for their usefulness. (Goldstein, Shankar, and Wald are amaaaaazing textbooks, fantastic references for what they cover)
[editline]30th May 2012[/editline]
Seriously, if you are learning quantum mechanics, GET SHANKAR.
[editline]30th May 2012[/editline]
That list will hopefully get extended to include books on more specialized topics like QFT once I develop the background in them to understand and need them and to determine what is a decent reference.
So!
Artificial Intelligence, anyone? :D
Specifically symbolic AI. One that operates on terms like "There exists at least one X where every human that eats X gets happy" and "I have 45% certainty that this is the case"
A common sense knowledge base would technically contain the facts that, when linked together, are enough to solve any every-day task, but the instruments of logic we currently have (e.g. back-chaining, induction, those other ten things I forgot) do not have any good way for working with that many propositions at once. Moreover, solving a certain kind of problem once (figuring out a solution) does not make solving similar problems any faster. So what can we do?
I bet we can create a symbolic strong AI if we just work out how generalization and analogy work in human mind. Then we can teach the robot a few algorithms for simple tasks (yes, hard-code a few solutions in) it could use analogy to solve a similar task on it's own. Or, by observing dozens of ways to solve related tasks, it could generalize and learn how to arrive at a solution instantly, when an arbitrarily similar situation happens again.
Thoughts?
On the topic of quantum mechanics, can anyone explain what intrinsic angular momentum and spin actually is?
I've found that interference patterns from a Fabry-Perot interferometer make for pretty good wallpapers. This is the sodium doublet: [img_thumb]http://filesmelt.com/dl/NaSpectrum.png[/img_thumb]
I finally finished my Physics Higher. It was revised for this year, adding stuff like general relativity and expanding on subatomic particles.
It's probably the best subject I took for my final year of High School.
Unfortunately that is where my education in Physics ends.
I finished Honors Chemistry with a 99% on the final, now I'm heading into AP Chem next year.
[QUOTE=Jo The Shmo;36136703][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZJ7Y6kE-_E[/media]
after the AP physics exam, we had some bullshit just-for-fun projects to fill the remainder of the school year
this is what my group did[/QUOTE]
Oh man what's that song after the Apollo 13 theme between 1:17 and 1:51. It's on the edge of my tongue but I can't for the life of me remember which.
What is astrophysics like?
[QUOTE=Flubadoo;36158572]What is astrophysics like?[/QUOTE]
THC and math.
What's the current limitation that stops us from making nanites?
[QUOTE=Nikita;36158652]What's the current limitation that stops us from making nanites?[/QUOTE]
define: nanite ?
[QUOTE=mike;36159751]define: nanite ?[/QUOTE]
Nano-robots that can do things like kill/hamper tumours, facilitate drugs and target them at specific internal body areas etc.
Basically cell robots.
[QUOTE=Cree8ive;36161390]Nano-robots that can do things like kill/hamper tumours, facilitate drugs and target them at specific internal body areas etc.
Basically cell robots.[/QUOTE]
too small to build.
[QUOTE=mac338;36158419]Oh man what's that song after the Apollo 13 theme between 1:17 and 1:51. It's on the edge of my tongue but I can't for the life of me remember which.[/QUOTE]
its the song they play on the recruitment ads for the US army
[QUOTE=Jo The Shmo;36169896]its the song they play on the recruitment ads for the US army[/QUOTE]
Thanks a fuckton!
[QUOTE=Cree8ive;36161390]Nano-robots that can do things like kill/hamper tumours, facilitate drugs and target them at specific internal body areas etc.
Basically cell robots.[/QUOTE]
Well, there's already research into the use of targetting systems like antibodies and attaching them to drug carriers such as liposomes but they seem like a pain to make.
Overall the greatest challenge right now in the development of nanites I think is the funding, like in most other fields of Science and technology.
I think people have a schewed idea of what a nanite should be. Rather than a tiny robot, a more realistic approach would be to modify bacterium or viruses to do a certain job or even be able to build one up from scratch.
[QUOTE=Nikita;36158652]What's the current limitation that stops us from making nanites?[/QUOTE]
if you're talking about nano-robots, one of the main problems is that as you scale things down, viscous forces become increasingly dominant, so in the nanoworld van der Waals forces would basically make them stick together and be useless. that's my explanation of it anyway
For a community that seems to love science and yell at any popsci article in the news sections this thread is awfully quiet.
I've been working on my lab report, after it getting denied because of lack of error values and lack of showing how the error calculation equation it is acquired. I have to say that MS Words sucks at writing equations. Gotta fix some Latex editor.
[editline]9th June 2012[/editline]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_of_uncertainty[/url]
[editline]9th June 2012[/editline]
You know I thought it would be so much harder than expected.
In the end the error is simply the partial derivative of the constant which was 1/t.
df/dt = -1/t^2
which gives the error of f
df = -dt/t^2 = |dt/t^2|
So now I know the error of the absorption coefficient for lead after getting beamed by some gamma radiation from cesium :)
Aww damn. In [I]Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell[/I], Zee explains that the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is like a double slit experiment with an infinite number of screens and an infinite number of slits.
mind blown
[QUOTE=Swebonny;36253872]For a community that seems to love science and yell at any popsci article in the news sections this thread is awfully quiet.
I've been working on my lab report, after it getting denied because of lack of error values and lack of showing how the error calculation equation it is acquired. I have to say that MS Words sucks at writing equations. Gotta fix some Latex editor.
[editline]9th June 2012[/editline]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_of_uncertainty[/url]
[editline]9th June 2012[/editline]
You know I thought it would be so much harder than expected.
In the end the error is simply the partial derivative of the constant which was 1/t.
df/dt = -1/t^2
which gives the error of f
df = -dt/t^2 = |dt/t^2|
So now I know the error of the absorption coefficient for lead after getting beamed by some gamma radiation from cesium :)[/QUOTE]
some of the error propagation spreadsheets i built in excel for my lab work last year were just huge, it's such a pain
why dont we get an muller yoghurt and use that they have bacteria in them dont they; forget andriods and use yoghurt
Why are quantum physicists so poor at sex? Because when they find the position, they can't find the momentum, and when they have the momentum, they can't find the position.
I don't get why people look for evidence of life in martian rocks on Earth, surely it would all be completely destroyed by the meteor impacts that send the rocks out to space in the first place?
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