Cold Dark Matter

I was reading Science magazine from a couple weeks ago and came across this quote form an astronomer studying Cold Dark Matter.  Dark matter is something that is supposed to reconcile the fact that the Universe is expanding faster than predicted by general relativity.  Nobody is smart enough to come up with a better theory for gravitation, so instead they created something propelling the Universe outward, and called it "Dark Matter."

Anyway, here's the interesting quote: "I have a huge investment in cold dark matter = my whole career and something like 300 papers- but it could be wrong." ... If you've written 300 papers on one topic, and it's still controversial and up for debate, then what exactly HAS he written? I submit that he's doing science wrong. 

Isaac Newton hardly ever published anything I discovered... perhaps the opposite extreme.  But, when he did publish something it was profound, and clearly sparked new ideas and debates.  Perhaps scientists should "write" less and "say" more...

Popular Science

I was watching this video on Gamma-ray bursts, which is pretty interesting. 

Anyway, I think as far as astronomy is concerned, most people are interested in it, even if it is in a passive sense.  If a new discovery is found in astronomy, people might listen as least on their news broadcast, or bring it up in light conversation.  It's interesting, easy to make accessible to the masses, and it helps us understand our place in the world.

Compare our interest in astronomy to that of high-energy physics.  People sort of try to understand it.  When the LHC makes an announcement we sort of listen.  Yet, we canned the Superconducting Super Collider, a physics experiment with energies about double the energies the LHC could possibly create.  I suppose you can by your kid a telescope from the toy store reasonably cheap, but you can't buy them a toy particle accelerator.  I suppose astronomy is easily accessible in that respect.  We can all look up at night and look at the stars.  We can't observe particle collisions on a whim... and particle physics is really hard.  Most particle physicists don't even understand it.

Anyway. if the SSC got the green-light, we would probably have answered the question of the Higgs Boson ten years ago, and would already be pursuing newer avenues of high-energy physics.  Not to say we would be researching warp-drive or anything like that, but practically speaking high energy physics would be Done (the standard model explains literally everything), or we are wrong in some weird way and we need to think harder about it.... Either way, it would be interesting to know.  I would love to live in a world where, at the most fundamental level we could say, "we've finally figured it out".  Chaos, naturally rules everything, and we can't possibly understand complex systems, but the underlying principles are there, and we understand it.... or not...

Instead, we shit-canned the SSC, and diverted the finding to the International Space Station, a laboratory that literally does nothing... but it's in space, and that's cool...

Loud music

Today was a nice day, so the spouse and I were driving around with the windows down.  And, then these stupid kids with there over-loud music start doing there thing.  Every red stoplight there'd be some asshole with his music blaring down at me.  The music itself was terrible, but even good music at that level would be bad.  I don't get it.  And yesterday, when I was at the used bookstore, there was some high-age school kid with music blaring through his earphones.  Why?

I sort of have a sound-track, myself, while doing my thing; music I remember in my head or though earphones at REASONABLE volumes.... I feel like it's my own personal "soundtrack."  I don't really want other people to know what I'm listening to, no do I want to hear what some asshole I've never met has on his soundtrack.

Plus, I like at be aware of the environment I'm in.  Sometimes, I like to listen to the sounds of cars while the window is down, or the wind or what-ever.  It almost feels like people with their music turn up so loud are trying to tune-out reality... A sort of half-assed form of suicide...

Drinking

I really shouldn't drink anymore.  The aspirin is already tying up my liver, and the day after I drink I have an extreme difficulty communicating.  I like alcohol, but perhaps we need to part ways.

sumpin sumpin....

I got drunk tonight, wrote a Monte Carlo integration program in Java for shits, and now I'm watching The Marx Brothers "A Night at the Opera" which is pretty funny...

The error estimate is way off.  ...  I'm drunk, so fuck it.This is a crappy way to do integrals, but it is cheap and quick (relatively speaking).  During the Manhattan Project (back when computers where people rather than machines... and women, too, even though in today's society women hate math and prefer barbie dolls thanks for shitty advertizements and gender roles based on capitalist shit), this was how you did numerical integration.

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Random;
/**
 *
 * @author discordantmind
 */
public class MonteCarloIntegration {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        /* Create program to calculate Monte Carlo Integration
         * The integrand is a separate method called 'integrand'
         */
        // create random points for integration, and sort from highest to lowest
        int numberPoints = 20; // how many points along curve should be evaluated
        int endPoint = 2;
        double[] xposition = new double[numberPoints];
        Random xGen = new Random();
        for(int i=1 ; i < (numberPoints - 1); i++) {
            xposition[i] = endPoint * xGen.nextDouble();
         //   System.out.println(xposition[i]);
        } 
        xposition[0] = 0.;
        xposition[numberPoints - 1] = 2.;


        Arrays.sort(xposition); 
        
        // check to see if points are sort-of evenly spread out
        for (double dd : xposition){
            System.out.println(dd);
        }
        
        //Create new random number generators for x and y coordinates 
        Random xtestpoint = new Random();
        Random ytestpoint = new Random();
        
        // starting stuff for Monte Carlo shit
        double testx;
        double testy;
        double interval;
        int below;
        double testintegral;
        double area = 0; // initialize integral
        int numberRandom = 100; // number of random points for MC
        double error = 0; // initialize error counter thingy
        double rho; // density of points below curve
        /* BEGIN MONTE CARLO SHIT */
        for(int i=0; i < (xposition.length - 1); i++) {
            // Taking care of end points
            interval = xposition[i+1] - xposition[i];
            below = 0;
            for(int j=0; j<numberRandom; j++) {
                testx = xposition[i] + interval * xtestpoint.nextDouble();
                testy = 2.0 * ytestpoint.nextDouble();
                testintegral = integrand(testx);
                if(testy <= testintegral) {
                    below++;
                }
            }
            rho = below/ (double) (numberRandom);
            area += interval * 2.0 * rho;
            error += interval * 2.0 * Math.sqrt((rho - Math.pow(rho,2))/numberRandom);
        }
        System.out.println("Error estimate is " + error);
        System.out.println("Integral from 0 to "+ endPoint + " is: " + area);


    }
    public static double integrand(double x) {
        // plug in whatever function you want to integrate here as 'func'
        double func = Math.sqrt(4. - Math.pow(x,2)); 
        return func;
    }
}

I can't really drink hard liquor anymore.  I'm still taking aspirin therapy, which means I can't drink to heavily or I could hemorrhage into my brain.  But, the doctor said I can stop taking Plavix, which is nice...

Mental Lists

I maintain a few lists of things in my head, for whatever reason.  I add to them from time to time.  Here are a few.

1. List of actors/actresses/celebrities that I hate.
2. List of politicians that I hate.
3. List of people who will be among the first against the wall when the Revolution comes (includes some members from list #1 or #2).
4. Movies that I like even though they are crap.
5. Movies that I secretly enjoy, though I won't confess it to people
6. Movies that I should appreciate even though I don't (also kept secret).
7. List of lists to keep in my head.... (oddly enough, this doesn't fall into a recursion)

Pi Day

Today is Pi Day.  March 14, is 3/14..... 3.14... Which is similar to pi.  Actually, pi keeps going past 3.14, it doesn't repeat and doesn't stop.  So, you could say that it isn't really a "Day" for Pi, since pi doesn't stop at 3.14.  You could take it out to 3.14159, take the 159/100 as a fraction of a day and say that tomorrow has a "Pi hour" from 3 to 4 in the morning.  Or a "Pi instant" at 3:49am... of course, pi keeps repeating, so there's no point is celebrating the infinitely short duration that would correspond to pi.  Just celebrate the whole day like a bunch of cretins ;)