UW Update Thursday 4/30/15

1.     UW Update Thursday 4/30/15

a.     Physics tutorial.

b.     Machine shop. We all got some practice, but there were too many people in the shop and too few machines—we almost needed to split the class, but that would require more instructor time.

c.      Walked to Homo Mysterious. The discussion was more lively today than it had been. Interesting discussion on how the arts fit into an evolutionary framework. Are they adaptive, and if so, adaptive for individuals or only for groups (group selection is fraught with problems)? A by-product of other adaptive traits?

d.     Ate lunch with Chase, then retraced my steps to the physics complex for “Physicists Outside”, a hopefully recurring SPS event. Played Frisbee (just 3-frisbee, 8-person catch) with the SPS folks for nearly an hour. Fun stuff.

e.     Ran across campus to the CENPA physics labs, where Garcia explained his research and led a troupe of 123Bers through his lab. It was neat! Very fundamental particle physics requiring very sensitive apparatus to do; apparently if his group determines with sufficient confidence that neutrons sometimes decay to a combination of left-handed and right-handed particles, versus a left-handed electron and left-handed antineutrino, he could win the Nobel Prize(!) But that’s the Holy Grail. A particle is left-handed if its spin is counter-clockwise looking from a point it has passed through (its angular momentum defined by the right-hand rule is opposite to its momentum and so its direction of motion), and right handed if its spin is clockwise looking from a point it has passed through. The experimentally founded premise of the Standard Model that only left-handed particles are produced by neutron decay is in itself very odd (why should the universe prefer clockwise over counterclockwise?)

f.      Returned to dorm, refreshed the 2104 House Room Selection page for the nth time. Only this time, there was a room available! (I have a room in the 2104 House, but Brandon and Xin do not.) I freaked out, knocked on Xin’s door, called Xin, called Brandon, texted Brandon, finally got ahold of Brandon, and was incredibly relieved when Brandon was able to claim the room. One more to go!

g.     Checked email, went to Glee Club.

h.     Grabbed quick dinner, sat in on Honors Hearth where students were questioning the Honors Program Director and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Interesting to hear their life stories and self-job-descriptions. Maddie and Rachel from CSE 311 (and the dorm room next to mine, where Rachel is always visiting Maddie) invited me to sit with them, which was cool—usually they keep to themselves.

i.       Left Honors Hearth, went to Film Club. Watched this narrative that started out as a slice of life, a black man, his girlfriend, and their daughter struggling to pay the rent, interacting with friends and family—fairly compelling, seems earnest and accurate. Then suddenly, the protagonist gets into a fight on a train with a nemesis from his time in jail, gets arrested by police, talks back to the officers, and gets shot. Very abruptly, we learn that the movie had been following real people, and this was a real shooting. Very effective!

j.       Returned to Haggett, did more CSE, grabbed half a scoop of Rick’s with Xin and went on a walk. Xin is really quite philosophical when he wants to be/he’s not too caught up in moment-to-moment thoughts about coursework, and we talked about some weird existentialist stuff he read.

k.     Back to Haggett again, more CSE, checked my email, wrote this log, and went to sleep.