UW Update Tuesday 5/20/15 {Cosmic Background Seminar}

1.     UW Update Tuesday 5/20/15 {Cosmic Background Seminar}

(I'm adopting Monica's convention of tagging each day with a significant happening, idea, or piece of context in the title)

a.     Apologies for the brief silence! Last night I spent nearly 5 hours coding up a system that could represent and manipulate cards from the game Set, so that I could test my conjectures about probabilities and the maximum number of cards I could put together without forming a set. Well, I spent like 3 hours coding, and the remaining time trying to piece together my shattered conjectures. So I was disinclined to spend any more time typing away before I went to bed.

b.     Anyway, today we learned about the milling machine. Today, we did fairly basic stuff (how to calibrate, how to cut a perfectly 3D-rectangular piece of aluminum).

c.      Then I went to the HUB and grabbed lunch. Read a little Anna Karenina, then found Brandon. We chatted for a while about the Pokemon regionals he had competed in over the weekend, and about the Pokemon game and community in general. Pretty neat stuff—lots of similarities to the chess community, but with more prize funding J

d.     Back at Haggett, I did some physics hw before yielding to the beautiful weather and heading out to Denny for basketball. It took way too long for me to get into a game (I read a bit, played some one-on one, people arrived and beat me at shoot-to-play, then I finally got a game).

e.     Ran to Glee Club dripping sweat J

f.      Returned to dorm, showered. Grabbed a quick slice of pizza on the way to a physics talk Garcia had recommended. It was super interesting. On the 50^th anniversary of both the UW Astronomy Department and the discovery of cosmic background radiation, the astronomy people had invited Dr. Peebles, the distinguished octogenarian emeritus “Einstein Professor of Science” at Princeton, to speak on the developments in understanding the history of the universe through cosmic background radiation that he lived through and in many cases pioneered. It was refreshing to get a birds-eye view of an entire field, because the lunchboxes and colloquia are often really specialized and focused. I was realigned with the perception of the majesty and grand narrative of physics J

g.     Walked to the 8 with Eric from lab, talking about the everywhere-expanding 4-dimensional hypersphere universe posited to explain how all parts of the universe appear to be moving away from us (I’m not super sure if this is standard or necessary, but I’m sure I’ll learn more about it).

h.     Ate dinner in the lounge reading Karenina. Did more physics hw. Eventually got a Rick’s milkshake and ate it while listening to This American Life and wandering through campus. Finished physics hw and linear hw, talked with Xin for a bit, wrote this log, and went to bed.