Posted by Sunny Kalara | 3 Comments

Recession is so deep, even Pi is suffering – Pi almost down to e

I wasn’t too sure about the Citibank stocks, but I thought I could count on the universal constants to stay unchanged during these trying times.

I figured I might not have cake, but at least I’ll have Pi.

Yesterday I was measuring the circumference of a circle and it seemed a little smaller than what I expected it to be. I checked and double checked and couldn’t figure out what the problem was.

And then it hit me; I checked Google/Physics and I was shocked to see that the value of Pi, which people have memorized up to 10,000 digits, has gone down to almost e.

Is nothing sacred anymore? If we are not careful, the value of Pi will go down to as low asphi, the golden ratio, and things will just spiral down from there.

We might need a $100B stimulus package to prop up the value of Pi.

Please leave a comment if you have noticed any unusual changes in the physical constants or your experiments due to recession.

Talk Like a Physicist

Posted by Sunny Kalara | 2 Comments

Thursday Threads : Cornell Schrodinger’s cat

Schrodinger’s cat refuses to die!

I like this one better:

Source Talk Like a Physicist

Posted by Sunny Kalara | 1 Comment

Differences between how a theorist and an experimentalist solve a problem

The Problem:

Source : Brightly Wounded

Talk Like a Physicist

Posted by Sunny Kalara | 0 Comments

When Physicists dress like a Pirate

Yup, its pi-rate for sure!

Source Brightly wound

Talk Like a Physicist

Posted by Sunny Kalara | 10 Comments

Gamers are taking over the word “Physics” and I hate it – last warning to Gamers

Gamers (video game coders and players) are taking over the word “Physics” and I absolutely hate it!

I did a simple search for “car physics” on Google and 25% of the links on the first page are for coding the games and how to render the cars within the game!

For gamers to claim that what they are doing is physics is like the Italian plumber Mario to claim that he is the smartest cosmologist or most experienced astronaut ever because in Super Mario Galaxy , he traveled to seven different galaxies.

For gamers to claim that what they are doing is physics is like Salvador Dali to claim that his painting of warped clocks is same as warped space time of general relativity!

I know, some of you are going to point me to the definition of physics “the science of matter and energy and their interactions” and argue that “hey, the gamers are doing the same thing – they are implementing the relationship between the matter and energy and their interaction”; and of course you will be completely wrong.

Read the definition of Physics again – it is the science of matter and energy and their interactions. To decipher this definition, you need to understand what “science” is; and science is “the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.” So Physics is “The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of matter and energy and their interactions”. Now tell me, if you think gamers are using the word physics in the same way.

Gamers take the crib sheet that physicists gave them and try to code it on the silicon chip or in the software. They might be doing the science of computer programming, but they are not doing science of matter and energy and their interactions!

I have a great deal of respect for their skill – I enjoy playing Grand Theft Auto, and Spores and Sims and Mario on Wii – and more power to them -but it is not the same as doing “physics”!

Major hardware developers are on the band wagon too: nVIDIA – Physics Graphic Cards; and cute ones like PhysX graphic cards – as if we wouldn’t notice. Reminds me of the Microsoft’s “The Intenet” on a disc; compare that to the nVidia or ATI “physics cards”.

 

Wow, all of Physics, on a chip with a little fan! how nice!

So call it something else – call it gPhysics, Gasics, Ghysics, iZysics, McPhysics, or something. Leave the word Physics alone.

I am warning you… if you continue to use the word Physics for some silly graphic tricks, we will have no choice but to withhold the laws of physics from you guys, like we do with cartoonists and for fine folks that draw anime.

Trust me, you don’t want a mob of angry physicists on your tail… we have black holes and all your bases are belong to us.

Talk Like a Physicist

Posted by Sunny Kalara | 0 Comments

Physics Related Facebook status messages: Part II

Some more physics related Facebook status messages

• Sunny is so cool, he is measured in Kelvins.
• Sunny can see past the event horizon.
• Sunny is defying the uncertainty principle.
• Sunny is made up entirely of dark matter.
• Sunny is blue shifted.
• Sunny is circumpolar.
• Sunny is gravitational lensing
• Sunny is a part of Proton Proton chain responsible for the fusion on the Sun.
• Sunny is a supernova remnant
• Sunny is emanating Hawking radiation
• Sunny is made entirely out of strange quarks – that explains a lot!
• Sunny is cursed with non-zero vacuum energy
• Sunny is a boson.
• Sunny is in a phase lock with a wine glass.
• Sunny’s time arrow points in random direction – I’ll see you yesterday, may be.
• Sunny lives in a quantum constrained system
• Sunny is your long lost supersymmetric partner.
• Sunny is using gravitational lens to warm up earth.
• Sunny is a part of a binary blackhole system.
• Sunny thrives on curved space time.
• Sunny is a pseudo random number generator.
• Sunny is not the problem, he is not the solution – he is the math between the problem and the solution.
• Sunny might not be omnipotent, but under the right circumstances he is nilpotent.
• Sunny doesn’t follow gravity; gravity follows him.

 

Here are the status messages from the first list of physicist’s facebook status messages:

* Sunny feels the chill from the the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) being cooled to 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F) – colder than deep space. Where did I put my space heater?
* Sunny feels like he’s diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
* Sunny exists purely as a probability density function; he can be at more than one places at the same time.
* Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.
* Sunny is still searching for Higgs.
* I abhor M theory with every fiber of my being.
* almost finished with the paper, I just has to dot my “i” and cross my “h”.
* Sunny has learned not to store plutonium in a tupperwear container.
* is pondering, if Schroedinger’s Cat walks into a forest, and no one is around to observe it, is he really in the forest?
* Wanted, dead AND alive, Schrödinger’s Cat.

Talk Like a Physicist