tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51505396964638678602024-03-13T07:21:40.357-04:00Simple Harmonics, Transmitted ReflectionsAbbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-88736660111605710272012-12-19T02:11:00.002-05:002014-02-19T02:57:40.505-05:00An Introduction to Petrophysics and the Science of Finding Oil<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I am starting this post while out in the oilfield. This is not as
strange as it sounds; I work in the oil industry! In this post I'd like to introduce you to petrophysics, one of the scientific disciplines within the oil industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope by the end of the post you will have a
better understanding of some of the science that goes into finding oil.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Before I was recruited into the oil industry, I didn’t know much
(anything?) about oil production, and I had no idea these types of jobs even
existed. Coming into the industry, I was amazed by how many
people and how much time, money, and advanced science it takes to drill a well.
Even after being in the industry for three years now, I am no less amazed than
I was at the beginning. I am learning new things constantly, and there is STILL
so much to learn!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I will introduce you to petrophysics in the context of exploration. Many oil companies have exploration teams that try to find and develop new oil accumulations that no one else has found/produced
yet. Before petrophysics even comes into play, geological work is crucial for being
able to identify areas that may have potential as oilfields. (I still have a
lot to learn about this part of the process, so I won’t be elaborating on it at
the moment.) Once the geologists identify a potential target, the team must
justify pursuing the target by gathering any available data that may support
the claims that the target will produce oil economically. The company won’t
want to spend money on something that has a low chance of actually making a
profit, just as you wouldn’t buy a stock that was unlikely to give you a good
return on your investment. Some of this available data may include <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">well logs.</i> The team's petrophysicist would be the one to analyze these logs.</span><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Well
logging</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> refers to recording information about the
characteristics of the rocks and fluids under the earth’s surface. After an oil
well is drilled, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">logging tools</i> are
lowered into the well to acquire this information and send it back up to the
surface. Since we can’t see down into the ground, we have to rely on this type
of secondhand information to figure out where the oil is and how much there is
(or to figure out that there is actually none at all). We can infer the
presence of oil and the feasibility of producing it by looking at a combination
of different rock and fluid properties. The basic properties I'll cover here are natural
radioactivity, resistivity, porosity, density, and permeability. I’ll explain
how each property contributes to our understanding of whether or not there is
easily producible oil in the well or the surrounding area.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Let’s start with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">natural radioactivity</i></b>. This data
helps us determine the difference between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sand</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shale</i>. For now I’ll focus on
conventional sandstone reservoirs. It is easier to produce oil out of sands
than out of shales; shales make up much of the new “unconventional” exploration
that you may have heard of. Think of sandstone as something similar to beach
sand compacted into a hard rock, and think of shale as something more like a
condensed and hardened mud. So, if we are looking for a conventional sandstone
reservoir, we need to be able to tell the difference between these two. This is
where radioactivity comes in. The naturally radioactive elements are mostly
concentrated in shale and not in sand, so if we see low radioactivity, we can
infer that the tool is likely responding to a sand. We measure this with a tool
that counts <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gamma rays</i></b>, a type of energy that radioactive elements emit
when they decay. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Now that we have identified a sandstone, we next try to identify if
it is filled with oil or water. We do this by measuring the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">resistivity</i></b>.
Resistivity is the opposite of conductivity, and conductivity is a measure of a
material’s ability to allow electricity to flow through it. The water deep
underground usually has other materials dissolved in it (e.g. salt), creating
ions – particles or atoms that have an electric charge. These ions are free to
move around, and if they are somehow stimulated to move in one direction, an
electric current is born. So, the water in the ground is able to conduct
electricity and therefore has a LOW resistivity. (There are a few exceptions to
this, including that some oilfields are not deep enough underground to
encounter the saltier water. In shallow fields, the water may not have as many
ions and may be more resistive than the deeper water. This makes analysis even
harder.) On the other hand, oil does not dissolve things the way water does, so
it doesn’t have any free ions floating about, and the oil molecules themselves
are not charged either. There are no free charges in oil that can move around
to create a current, so oil cannot conduct electricity and therefore has a HIGH
resistivity. We use resistivity information to figure out whether the fluid in
the ground is water or oil. If it’s water, we have to go back and figure out
why there isn’t oil where we thought there would be. If it’s oil, we look at
other properties to decide whether or not we should try to produce it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Next is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">porosity</i></b>. Unfortunately, oil doesn’t exist in large lakes within
cavernous spaces underground; it would be much easier to produce it if this
were the case! Instead it is trapped in the microscopic spaces, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pores</i>, between the grains of the rock. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Porosity </i>is the fraction of the rock
that these pores occupy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The pores are filled with fluid (oil or water) or gas. Even if this
fluid is oil, there won’t be a large amount of oil to produce if there isn’t
much space in the rock to begin with. It’s not only about the mere presence of
oil but also about the amount of oil that can be recovered – the total amount
of return on the investment. In the diagram below, the brown squares represent solid
rock grains, and the blue squares represent the pores, which could be filled
with oil or water. You can see that 5 squares out of 25 squares are blue, which
means that the pores make up 1/5 (or 20%) of the total area (or volume, in the three dimensions of a real piece of rock). So, this rock has <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">20% porosity</i>. This also means that the
other 80% is solid rock, so Volume of rock = 1 – porosity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">One of the ways to calculate porosity is by first looking at the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">density</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>This is the same “density” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you probably learned about in school at some
point. Density is the weight of a material in a given volume. Imagine that you
have a pair of dice. You already know that the two dice are the same size and
shape. Now imagine that they are made of two different materials (with
different densities). The die made of the higher density material will be the
heavier one. For oilfield applications, there is a tool that measures the total
density of the rock-plus-fluid underground. Water and oil have similar known
densities, and different types of rock have known densities as well. So, if you
have the total density measured by the tool, and you already know the density
of the rock (assuming you know what kind of rock is down there) and the density
of the fluid, you can figure out how much fluid there is, i.e. the porosity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">We also need to worry about the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">permeability</i></b>, which is a
measure of how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">connected</i> the pores
are. If the pores are all connected, the oil will be able to flow out of the
reservoir easily. If the pores are not connected, the oil will be trapped in
the rock and will have no path to flow out. So even if the porosity is high,
there’s no guarantee that the pores are well-connected or that the oil will
actually flow. Below are examples of "rock" with similar porosities but different
permeabilities. Again, the brown represents rock grains and the blue represents
fluid-filled space between the grains. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oRYNHu-0KVw/UNFeOTKR7zI/AAAAAAAAAKU/_oqJvzdyQ9I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-12-18+at+10.25.49+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oRYNHu-0KVw/UNFeOTKR7zI/AAAAAAAAAKU/_oqJvzdyQ9I/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-12-18+at+10.25.49+PM.png" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This rock has no permeability - the fluid is stuck in its original location and has no path to flow.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zFrMdnW_sWo/UNFeQXPh33I/AAAAAAAAAKg/hDWZiCh7V6A/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-12-18+at+10.26.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zFrMdnW_sWo/UNFeQXPh33I/AAAAAAAAAKg/hDWZiCh7V6A/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-12-18+at+10.26.03+PM.png" height="320" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This rock has low permeability - there are connections between the pores, but they are small. The fluid will probably flow, but it will not flow easily or efficiently.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qRfCmzxDCRg/UNFeRA0oWyI/AAAAAAAAAKo/Qbu_dIVjFeE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-12-18+at+10.26.24+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qRfCmzxDCRg/UNFeRA0oWyI/AAAAAAAAAKo/Qbu_dIVjFeE/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-12-18+at+10.26.24+PM.png" height="320" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This rock has high permeability - the connections between the pores (called the <i>pore throats</i>) are large and will allow the fluid to flow quickly and easily.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Permeability is one of the hardest properties to measure. There are some tools that try to estimate or calculate it, but it is better to do some tests on a sample of the actual rock (more on this below). </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">So, now we know the basic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">petrophysical
parameters </i>of the reservoir. We know if it is a sandstone, we know if it is
filled with oil or water, and we know how much fluid the rock holds. However, for
all but the most established and most perfect reservoirs, things are not as
straightforward as this idealistic case, and a much more detailed analysis
needs to be performed. This is true of the recently targeted “unconventional”
reservoirs that you may be hearing a lot about these days. As part of this
necessary advanced analysis, there are tools that can tell us about the mineral
composition of the rock, the amount of fluid that’s free to flow versus the
amount that is “stuck” in the rock, the mechanical properties of the rock (how
the rock will deform and/or break), the way the different layers of rock are
arranged, and the direction of the forces and stresses at work underground. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In addition to these advanced logging techniques, it is important
to<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">core</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>the reservoir. This means that we put a
tool into the well that takes physical samples of the rock and brings them back
up to the surface. Then we can do tests on the samples in a lab and verify some
of the things we have inferred from the logs – or learn things that are
different from what we originally inferred! In that case we have to
re-interpret the data to make sense of everything.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">All of these data-gathering and analysis techniques are important
to finding oil and to optimizing production of the oil. We want to produce the
oil in the most efficient and economic way possible, and we can do so by understanding exactly
how the reservoir is arranged and how it acts. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">As I mentioned earlier, there is so much science and engineering
that goes into producing oil. This just barely scratches the surface! I hope it
has given you an understanding of some of the science, and I hope you will be
interested in learning more! Please let me know if parts of this are unclear, and I will write some follow-up explanations.</span></div>
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Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-53397455087922694572011-06-14T15:21:00.004-04:002011-06-17T05:39:17.658-04:00Physics and Food - Part 2I've been baking a lot lately, as usual. The other day I made something called Slices of Sin, a chocolate dessert that my mom used to make. It's hard to describe, but it's kind of similar to a very very thick mousse or a cakey fudge. It is baked in a glass loaf pan lined with foil. The recipe says to put the loaf pan directly into a larger pan filled with cool water after taking it out of the oven. I followed these directions, and after letting it sit in the water for a few minutes, I decided to check on it and maybe change the water; I figured that the water would have gotten hot by that point, and I wanted to replace it with cool water again. But when I felt the water, it was still cool, and so was the loaf pan! I realized that this is because water has a high <span style="font-style: italic;">specific heat capacity</span>.<br /><br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">specific heat capacity</span> of a material is the amount of heat it takes to raise the temperature of one gram of that material by one degree Celcius. In other words it's a measure of how much heat something can absorb before actually getting hotter. So, when I say that water has a high specific heat capacity, I mean that you can put a lot of heat into it without it getting much hotter. That's why the pool is still cold at the beginning of the summer! The sun starts putting heat into it, but the temperature doesn't change much. Heat capacity also has to do with why you would choose to sit on a plastic bench instead of a metal one after both of them have been in the sun. You intuitively know that the metal one will be hotter; it's because metals have low specific heat capacity and therefore get hot even with a small heat input.<br /><br />Let's address temperature itself first. Temperature can be described as a measure of the amount of kinetic energy in a substance, or how much the molecules are moving around. These molecules can move in different ways: the whole molecule can move, the whole molecule can rotate, or the molecule can vibrate (along the connections or <span style="font-style: italic;">bonds</span> between the atoms that make up the molecule). As you put heat into the substance, the heat gets divided up between these different "modes" of movement, and the temperature is a reflection of the average movement within the substance. However, some substances have more modes than others. For example, if a substance were to consist of single atoms not connected to one another, there would be no opportunity for vibration, as vibration only happens along bonds (like a spring with a ball on each end). In a minute I'll mention another important characteristic that supplies more modes, but for now, consider two substances, one of which has more modes than the other. If you put the same amount of heat into each one, what happens? In each case, the heat will be divided up between the modes. But in the substance that has more modes, the heat will be divided into more portions, and therefore each portion will be smaller. So, the resulting average motion (averaged across more modes), will be smaller than the average motion in the substance with fewer modes. This will result in a smaller temperature increase in the substance with more modes. Let me reiterate that by "modes" I mean the different types of motion that may be available within a substance (translational, rotational, vibrational).<br /><br />Now let's talk about the structure of water. A molecule of water has one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, and it is a bent molecule, as shown below.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BrIp_45tnPs/TfnYnBnEX6I/AAAAAAAAAIc/cZPfe6aDp0k/s1600/H2O-Color.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 170px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BrIp_45tnPs/TfnYnBnEX6I/AAAAAAAAAIc/cZPfe6aDp0k/s320/H2O-Color.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618760175080202146" border="0" /></a><br />As you can see, the hydrogens are bound to the oxygen, but what you can't see from my simple little image is that the oxygen also has some <span style="font-style: italic;">free electrons</span>, or electrons that aren't part of a bond with another atom. The electrons and the two bonds can't be too close to one another, so the electrons hang out on one side of the oxygen, and the hydrogens hang out on the other. This is what causes the bent shape. Electrons have a negative charge, so the water molecule is negative on the free electron side and positive on the hydrogen side. This allows it to loosely bond with itself. The negative part of one water molecule is weakly attracted to the positive part of another water molecule in what is called <span style="font-style: italic;">hydrogen bonding. </span>This extra bond is another mode that can absorb heat! Therefore, any heat that is put in will be divided up into more portions than it would be in other materials because of this extra place it can be stored. So, hydrogen bonding plays an important role in water's high specific heat capacity.<br /><br />The other contributing factor is not quite as exciting. Some other substances have similar properties, but water is one of the most effective by <span style="font-style: italic;">weight. </span>The water molecule is small and light, so more of them can fit into, say, one gram. This packs even more of each mode into a given weight. Some of the things I've read use this fact to support a claim that water's high specific heat capacity is nothing special. But the truth remains that water's specific heat capacity IS high, which I think is pretty remarkable no matter what.<br /><br />Let's also briefly consider the cooling of water. It's just the opposite of what I explained above. A lot of heat will have to leave the water before it actually gets cooler. That's why the pool stays warm at night long after the air cools off!<br /><br />To summarize, water is one of the best materials at absorbing large amounts of heat but undergoing only a small increase in temperature. This is due to both the hydrogen bonding that takes place and the low weight of the water molecule. Water's high specific heat capacity is one of the many unique properties that make it a useful and interesting material!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-13035975716140625402010-05-28T12:55:00.004-04:002011-03-16T19:20:07.292-04:00The Rear-View MirrorAh the rear-view mirror... such an unassuming but useful object.<br /><br />I have recently been using the night position a lot, due to the fact that I am driving on sparsely travelled roads in the middle of the Kern County oilfields. We usually travel slower than many cars on the road because our truck (the "logger" not the pickup) is large and sometimes a bit unwieldy. I drive behind the logger in my pickup. This means that people end up following me way too closely on the two-lane roads before getting the opportunity to pass! So at night, flipping the rear-view mirror really comes in handy when these bright lights are right behind me.<br /><br />I used not to understand how this worked, but it is a simple principle. The mirror has two layers. The outer layer is mostly transparent but partially reflective. The inner layer is reflective and is pointed toward your eyes in the day position. In the bright light of the day, it reflects like a normal mirror, because the outer layer lets most of the light through. The outer layer is set at an angle to the inner layer, the same angle that the mirror rotates when you flip it. In the night position, the light from the car behind you gets mostly transmitted through the outer layer to the inner layer and is reflected away from you toward the ceiling. But because the outer layer is slightly reflective, it reflects just a little of the light back to your eyes, making it much easier to see in front of you but still keep tabs on what's behind you.<br /><br />If you flip the mirror during the day, you'll notice that all you get is a reflection of the ceiling. This reflection is so bright that it obscures any dimmer reflection coming from the outer layer.<br /><br />This is the same principle used for two-way mirrors. The two-way mirror both transmits and reflects light. The room on one side is kept very bright, so the people in this room only see the light being reflected from the mirror, which obscures anything being transmitted from the other side. The other side is kept dark so that the people on this side can see the light being transmitted through the mirror without it being obscured by any reflections. <br /><br />So next time you're driving at night, take a second to appreciate your rear-view mirror!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-8542259477865878102010-05-28T12:35:00.000-04:002010-05-28T15:34:46.739-04:00Welcoming a new addition to my family of Apple productsI am currently writing from a coffeeshop in San Francisco. I have quite a few days off/vacation days, so I drove up here to visit a college friend. I am also writing from my new iPad!! I really like it so far. There are a few things about it that are not ideal, but I still have my old laptop too. Using the iPad all the time makes me think about the physics of touchscreens, so I will give a very brief explanation here. Circuits and E&M were not my strongest parts of physics, so it really will be brief.<br /><br />From what I have read, the iPhone and iPad use something called capacitive sensing. In the screen there is a layer of conductive material covered by a layer of insulating material. A voltage is applied to the conductive material, creating a static electric field inside the insulating material. When you touch the screen with your finger, your body's ability to conduct electricity will change this electric field. This is why touching the screen with your fingernail or a stylus doesn't work. They are not conductive and therefore cannot alter the field that has been created in the screen. The iPhone and iPad screens are broken up into a grid that can sense touches at multiple points. The changes in the electric fields can be processed to figure out exactly where you are touching and what motions you are making with your fingers.<br /><br />Thank you Apple for making such good use of this technology!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-80447620797317363032010-04-04T03:10:00.000-04:002010-04-04T06:12:14.043-04:00Physics and Food - Two of my favorite things!After an extremely long break from writing, I am finally back. I've been busy with work, and when I'm not working, I'm "busy" recharging from my days on duty. Christine mentioned recently in her blog that she doesn't know how people with "real lives" have time to blog. I guess I'd qualify as one of these people, and she is absolutely right that blogging is hard to fit in to "real life" sometimes!<br /><br />One day recently when I wasn't out on a job, I had some of the other engineers over for dinner. I made my family's favorite pasta sauce with angel hair pasta, and I made creme brulee for dessert. While I was waiting for the water to boil for the pasta, my friend Will and I were discussing the physics of boiling water.<br /><br />For water to boil, the liquid on the bottom of the pot must get hot enough to change into gas and form a bubble, and this bubble must stay hot enough to float to the surface of the water without popping under the pressure on its way up and without cooling down enough to turn back into liquid. This means that the pressure inside the little air bubble has to balance the pressure of the surrounding water, which depends upon the pressure being put <span style="font-style: italic;">on </span>the surface of the water. And the temperature of <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> of the water has to be high enough to keep the bubble from cooling down, (not <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">just</span></span> the water on the bottom).<br /><br />I hope some of you will remember the ideal gas law from high school chemistry or physics:<br /><br />PV = nRT<br /><br />where P is the pressure of the gas, V is the volume, n is the number of moles (related to the number of grams of the substance), R is a known constant, and T is the temperature. Technically this equation only applies to gases that are under perfect conditions, but we can approximate our boiling water situation to one that can be explained by it for simplicity.<br /><br />The question that Will and I were discussing is whether or not putting the lid on the pot helps the water to boil faster. You probably realize that putting the lid on will keep more heat in that would otherwise escape into the air, right? But does putting the lid on also increase the pressure on the top of the water? If this were the case, looking at the ideal gas law, the increase in pressure and temperature would balance out, meaning that the water would not boil any faster<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span></span> However, putting the lid on <span style="font-style: italic;">does not </span>increase the pressure because the lid does not seal tightly enough; air can still escape fairly easily. So the answer: putting the lid on the pot does help the water to boil faster because it traps the heat but doesn't increase the pressure.<br /><br />As I was writing this, I wondered to myself: if the temperature of the water and the water vapor is increasing, why does this not in turn increase the pressure anyway? I think the answer to this is that the lid will still allow the <span style="font-style: italic;">volume</span> to increase instead of the pressure. The water vapor will transfer its heat back to the water, increasing the temperature even further, but it is still allowed to escape from under the lid.<br /><br />Once water comes to a boil, the temperature of the water will not increase any further. All of the heat coming from the stove will go into converting the liquid into gas. This means that whatever you're cooking in the water can't get any hotter than 212 degrees Fahrenheit, the boiling point of water. Now a pressure cooker is a different story. The lid on a pressure cooker seals tightly and keeps the vapor from escaping. This increases the pressure on the surface of the water, so it has to get even hotter before those bubbles on the bottom can form and rise. This means that the boiling point of the water is higher in a pressure cooker, so whatever you're cooking can be cooked at a higher temperature.<br /><br />What about a double boiler, what's the purpose of that? A double boiler consists of two pots; the first is filled part way with water and sits on the stove, and the second sits on top of the first. The water should not be high enough to touch the top pot. The water is brought to a boil. Whatever you're cooking in the top pot is heated indirectly by the steam from the boiling water. This is a way of cooking the food more slowly and evenly. It's used to do things like melt chocolate; doing this in a pot sitting directly on the burner can heat the chocolate too fast, causing it to burn. It's also used to make custards and sauces for the same reason. I actually used mine recently to make the custard for a banana pudding.<br /><br />It's interesting to write about the connections between two of my favorite things. Maybe I'll write some other physics of cooking posts soon. As always, let me know if there's anything specific you'd like me to write about, food related or not!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-60795718792813125092009-07-25T20:21:00.003-04:002009-07-25T21:33:13.452-04:00California, Here I AmI have finally arrived in Bakersfield!<br /><br />My friend Beth flew into Tulsa to keep me company on my trip. We left last Saturday and spent Saturday night in Albuquerque. The drive went pretty smoothly except that somehow I almost ran out of gas on the highway. I think I had a few gallons left, but the empty light was on, and we were somewhere out in the middle of no where desert (Texas I think) with no civilization in sight. I had enough gas when we passed the last gas station that I didn't even think to fill up again, but apparently they are really spaced out. When the empty light came on I started freaking out, and Beth suggested turning off the AC to make the gas last longer... not the most comfortable thing to do in the middle of the desert. We told my GPS to look for a gas station, and luckily it said there was one coming up in a few miles. We made it! It was a tiny place, but it did the job. Also there was a Dairy Queen next door, and we figured we each deserved a blizzard after that ordeal.<br /><br />The only unplanned thing that happened on Sunday was the traffic at the Hoover Dam, which is right on the way into Las Vegas. We stopped to take a few pictures and then just kept creeping along in the traffic. The dam was really interesting though. I wish we'd had time to go on a tour. I'd love to go back sometime. We were going to stay in Vegas on Sunday night and continue to Bakersfield on Monday, but we decided to stay an extra night in Vegas. It was my first time there, and it was a lot of fun. We wanted to stay at the Luxor, but we didn't reserve a room ahead of time, and they were booked by the time we got there. So were Excalibur and Mandalay Bay, and we were eventually told that it was because of a huge conference going on. We finally found a room at the MGM Grand. Once we got settled in our room, we met an old friend of mine for dinner at the Paris buffet. On Monday we walked from the MGM (almost at the end of the strip) all the way to the Stratosphere (the other end of the strip). It was so hot, so we stopped in a lot of the casinos along the way. Strangely enough, I think we had the most fun at Circus Circus in the "AdventureDome," basically a huge enclosure with rides and carnival games. We also shopped for quite a while. I wanted to look for some nice sunglasses because it's really hard to find ones that actually fit my face, so I knew I'd be struggling to find a pair whenever my current ones get lost or broken. I decided I wanted a pair of designer sunglasses, so we went around to all the designer stores trying on different pairs. I ended up going back to the very first pair I had tried on - black Armani sunglasses with a GA on each side at the hinge. I love them!! My first real designer item and my only splurge in Vegas. Then we decided to eat a late lunch at the Bellagio buffet, which was amazing. I highly recommend it. There was a lot of seafood, really good meat, a lot of interesting condiments (I tried apple dill mayo and spicy mango ketchup), and a huge dessert selection. Beth and I got seven desserts to share. Each portion is pretty small... we <span style="font-style: italic;">almost</span> finished them. That night we were planning on riding the roller coaster at New York, New York, but it started raining! I didn't know it ever rained that hard in Vegas. So that was unlucky. We went back to the MGM and looked for a blackjack table with a low minimum, but there was nothing open. We checked Excalibur too; same story there. We finally found a $5 table at the Tropicana. I put down $60 and lost it all, unfortunately. First time playing though! It was really fun. But I'm glad I limited myself. I really wanted to see a Cirque du Soliel show, but non of them were playing on Monday nights. I'll just have to go back!!<br /><br />On Tuesday morning we started driving toward Bakersfield. When we got here, I got settled in my temporary apartment and then went into the shop to meet my manager. I also met some of the other engineers, and everyone seems really nice. My manager gave me time off until this Tuesday, but I ended up going in yesterday to get some paperwork out of the way, and I'll also go in for a little while on Monday to do a commentary drive with the driving guy.<br /><br />Since I arrived I have been searching for an apartment and shopping for furniture. I finally found an apartment close to work in a new gated complex. I will be the first person to live in my apartment. It is a two-bedroom (I don't think a one-bedroom has enough storage space for all my stuff) with a small but cozy kitchen and a nice master bedroom with a huge walk-in closet. I have spent about 10 hours shopping for furniture so far. Yesterday I finally decided on a sofa, coffee table (plus end tables), lamps, chair, dining set, and mattress. I move into the apartment on August 1st, and a lot of the furniture will arrive the 2nd, so I'll try to post a picture as soon as everything gets there. But I'm worried that I won't have time to get fully situated for a while because my work schedule might be pretty hectic.<br /><br />I still have a lot to do, but I'm well on my way to getting comfortable here. I hope I'll like it. It's really hot here, but at least it's not as humid as Tulsa.<br /><br />Come visit me!!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-61518335378610989562009-07-25T20:15:00.000-04:002009-07-25T21:34:55.713-04:00Skidding and SpinningBefore leaving Tulsa I had to complete Schlumberger's Light Vehicle Training (LVT). Most of this was kind of boring: sitting in the classroom or doing commentary drives. For a commentary drive, you drive around town and tell the driving instructor whatever you see going on around you and why you are driving the way you are driving. You're supposed to be showing that you are using the techniques taught in class and that you are a safe, defensive driver. For example, "There's some oncoming traffic so the right lane is safest at the moment, I see a red signal light up ahead, I'm checking my mirrors before braking to make sure no one is following too closely... light is green, I'm scanning the intersection before proceeding, I'm leaving a safe follwing distance in front of me" and so on, as a fairly constant stream of speaking. Actually, after doing it for a while it feels weird to not talk when the instructor says you can rest your voice. But anyway, there was actually an exciting part to the driver training. It was called Advanced Skill Maneuvers, where we learned to avoid head-on collisions and control skids. The training center has a driving course with a big pad that's covered in something that makes the surface really slippery when it gets wet. We each got in a pick-up specially rigged for this, and we got to feel what it's like to go into a rear wheel skid and a front wheel skid. On the rear wheel skid, the instructor said to cut the wheel hard to the side to make the truck spin around. It was actually a little scary even in that controled environment, but it was really cool. Then on the next pass we had to control the skid by gently steering in the direction of the skid to keep the vehicle facing forward. It was good practice because although I've driven in the snow, I've never been in a skid that serious. The Schlumberger trucks normally have antilock brakes, but they were disabled on these trucks so that the wheels would lock up for the skidding. We also learned how to avoid a head-on collision in a non-ABS truck, where steering and braking have to be separate actions. We were taught to brake hard, then turn the wheel quickly while letting up on the brake. We drove through a course where something would pop up in the road for us to avoid. It was really fun, and definitely a good thing to be comfortable with, although I'm still not sure if I'd be able to do it in a panic situation.<br /><br />Overall, LVT was pretty fun, and it was especially nice to not have homework! It was a relaxing end to my time in Tulsa. The only bad thing is that my roommate Carla had to leave early because she dislocated her elbow and couldn't do the driving! So the apartment was a little lonely for a few days. But we all promised to meet up again at some point, so hopefully it won't be too long before I see her.Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-72048618555109575082009-04-06T02:03:00.003-04:002009-04-06T23:02:12.195-04:00Tulsa Training<div>I have barely even had time to think in these past few weeks, much less post!!<br /><br />I am currently in Tulsa, OK, training for my job. I was supposed to be in Bakersfield, CA, by now for some on-the-job training. I was going to come back to Tulsa for school/training in a few months, but my segment's schedule got changed so that we are doing our "on-the-job" training AND school here, although we won't actually be going out on real jobs. I think we'll be here for another 14 weeks or so. Right now we're still living in a hotel because they haven't had room to move us into the apartments. I guess the late schedule change meant that they had to put us where ever they could find room on short notice.<br /><br />I am really enjoying it so far. It's certainly not easy, but I like what we're learning, and I like the people. Our first class ended on Friday, and we start the next (harder) class tomorrow. Let me see if I can explain what my job will actually be. First of all, Schlumberger is an oilfield <span style="font-style: italic;">services</span> company; they don't actually own any oil. So the oil companies are out clients. I am in the Wireline segment of Schlumberger, and we come in to the life of an oil well right after it has been drilled. Wireline lowers tools into the well and collects data from them (this is called <span style="font-style: italic;">logging</span> a well) to help the client make decisions about how to produce the oil . This might sound straightforward, but there is a lot that goes into this process. In the last few weeks we've been doing a lot of classroom work. We learned about some of the different tools and how they work (physics!), and we learned the basics of the software that we'll be using to prepare the data for our clients. It's completely different from any other software we've ever used, so it took some time to figure it out. We've also had a little bit of practice out in the field, although just at the training rigs and not actually at a real site. But it was still really cool. We worked in groups of five under the supervision of an instructor, and we practiced connecting all the tools, lowering them into the well on the cable, controlling them from a truck on the surface, and monitoring the data being sent back from them. Then we went inside to put all the data together in a package for the "client" (our instructors). The whole process took about seven or eight hours, but I'm sure it will be quicker once we practice more and get down the rhythm of what we're doing.<br /><br />I haven't had much time to explore Tulsa, but it seems cooler than I thought it would. Some of us have been to a country bar called Caravan a couple times, where there's a big dance floor and line dancing. We've been out to dinner a lot because we don't have kitchens at the Best Western, and a few of us walked along the river yesterday, which was nice. The weather has been weird, but I guess I'm used to that from Ithaca. Since I've been here we've had a few hot days (in the 80s), a day with about six inches of snow, a few heavy thunderstorms, a tornado watch, and pretty much everything in between. I'm hoping it will get warmer soon and stay that way.<br /><br />I really miss my friends, but I've definitely found people here who I get along with really well. The sad part is that we'll all be going our separate ways after training is over (though that is still a few months away). The company is huge, with locations all over the world, but I do have a feeling that, just like the rest of the world, it is small in a way. I'll probably end up working with some of these people at some point because we will likely be advancing in the company at a similar rate. Good thing I like them!<br /><br />I need to get some sleep for the first day of my next class tomorrow! I got 10 hours of sleep last night, but I still don't think I'm caught up, and this week will be just as bad as the last few!<br /></div>Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-62327732547265905002009-03-10T01:48:00.000-04:002009-03-10T01:51:20.088-04:00Day One at Schlumberger!As most of you know, I am in Houston for orientation/training for my new job as a field engineer with Schlumberger, an oilfield services company (pronounced shlum-ber-zhay). Today was my first day! It was long, but I am really excited about the job. There are about 45 of us here for the training (10 females). Most everyone seems nice so far, and I've already started to get to know some people, especially people who will be working in my segment of the company, even though they won't necessarily be in my location. Today we got laptops and steel toe boots, and we got fitted for our two pairs of blue Schlumberger coveralls.<br /><br />I'll write more later about what my job will be, but right now I am so tired and have to get some sleep for another long day tomorrow!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-51147150726471550482009-03-10T01:36:00.002-04:002009-03-10T01:53:04.615-04:00Blacksburg to Houston: Day ThreeThe morning of Day Three was fairly relaxed. I woke up earlyish again and spent some time filling out forms for work. Vincent and friends were enjoying the porch as I packed up my car.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX9DT01_XI/AAAAAAAAAHU/xJx13CrvxL4/s1600-h/DSCN2679.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX9DT01_XI/AAAAAAAAAHU/xJx13CrvxL4/s320/DSCN2679.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311429568856718706" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX64Rj_6ZI/AAAAAAAAAHM/KDu0QQ27oC8/s1600-h/DSCN2680.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 237px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX64Rj_6ZI/AAAAAAAAAHM/KDu0QQ27oC8/s320/DSCN2680.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311427180247378322" border="0" /></a><br />The sun can be both a curse and a blessing when driving west. It made driving in the evening really frustrating at times, but it gave me a lot of opportunities for good pictures!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX64KjBGNI/AAAAAAAAAHE/_-QrP2t8C40/s1600-h/DSCN2697.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 217px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX64KjBGNI/AAAAAAAAAHE/_-QrP2t8C40/s320/DSCN2697.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311427178364213458" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX64L6j18I/AAAAAAAAAG8/r0fNCxrZ4XA/s1600-h/DSCN2698.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 169px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX64L6j18I/AAAAAAAAAG8/r0fNCxrZ4XA/s320/DSCN2698.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311427178731395010" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbYAFjeVW-I/AAAAAAAAAHc/s2B0wT1Lc_4/s1600-h/DSCN2702.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 299px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbYAFjeVW-I/AAAAAAAAAHc/s2B0wT1Lc_4/s320/DSCN2702.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311432905951894498" border="0" /></a><br />I finally made it to Houston after another long day. Driving in/around Houston was a little scary - I don't like big city driving! The picture below is of my stuffed cat named Peaches sitting on my hotel room (king size!) bed. We all get our own rooms, which is really nice. I took Peaches with me on my trips to Europe when I was younger, and for some reason we have pictures of me and Peaches at various places, mostly when waiting at a train station or something like that. So I decided to take a picture of her here too!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX621wlC8I/AAAAAAAAAGs/o1iKVMjZSVU/s1600-h/DSCN2704.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX621wlC8I/AAAAAAAAAGs/o1iKVMjZSVU/s320/DSCN2704.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311427155604081602" border="0" /></a><br />I stayed up way too late finishing things for my first day that ended up not even mattering, but that's okay. I got some sleep and got up on time in the morning!<br /><br />So ends my trip from Blacksburg to Houston. But the traveling is not over yet!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-11982124571621207352009-03-10T01:15:00.001-04:002009-03-10T01:17:19.616-04:00Blacksburg to Houston: Day TwoOn Day Two I got up early (for me), and had a wonderful breakfast with my hosts: bacon, eggs, toast with fig and ginger preserves, and chocolate bread that my mom and I made as a gift for them. Their daughter and her two little girls came over for a while, which was so nice because I had never met the granddaughters before.<br /><br />It was sunny and warm as I got ready to leave their house in Birmingham:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq9f-_4yI/AAAAAAAAAF0/jXII4XeXtgE/s1600-h/DSCN2661.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq9f-_4yI/AAAAAAAAAF0/jXII4XeXtgE/s320/DSCN2661.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311409677832020770" border="0" /></a><br />I saw a billboard along the way for a cute-looking store called Wisteria Cottage, but I didn't see the exit number. I stopped to get gas a little while later, and lo and behold, there was Wisteria Cottage!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq94xDsII/AAAAAAAAAF8/1vrsfKis4o8/s1600-h/DSCN2663.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq94xDsII/AAAAAAAAAF8/1vrsfKis4o8/s320/DSCN2663.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311409684484436098" border="0" /></a>So I went inside. It was nice, and I actually bought a couple small things. The woman who helped me recommended going to the place next door too. She called it a candy store, but it is mainly a pecan place.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq-DzZvLI/AAAAAAAAAGE/u0lp7bs3lHE/s1600-h/DSCN2664.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq-DzZvLI/AAAAAAAAAGE/u0lp7bs3lHE/s320/DSCN2664.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311409687447059634" border="0" /></a><br />I got some honey glazed pecans, chocolate covered pecans, and pecan brittle (don't worry, I'll have help eating them!). Then I saw the ice cream and realized that I needed some because the south is hot!!<br /><br />I saw some neat things while driving, including the bridge below. It's interesting how a lot of the highway has to be raised above the ground in Mississippi and Louisiana because of all the water/marsh. It makes for some cool long bridges.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq-TqTfRI/AAAAAAAAAGM/qbPrYzpSvmw/s1600-h/DSCN2668.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 220px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq-TqTfRI/AAAAAAAAAGM/qbPrYzpSvmw/s320/DSCN2668.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311409691703868690" border="0" /></a><br />Here's some nice sunset pictures from the end of Day Two. Almost to Biloxi!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq-t-qD_I/AAAAAAAAAGU/QgPvjlDXjC4/s1600-h/DSCN2674.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbXq-t-qD_I/AAAAAAAAAGU/QgPvjlDXjC4/s320/DSCN2674.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311409698768556018" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX2JCwqvnI/AAAAAAAAAGk/2zHUwNl6_qQ/s1600-h/DSCN2677.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbX2JCwqvnI/AAAAAAAAAGk/2zHUwNl6_qQ/s320/DSCN2677.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311421970773622386" border="0" /></a><br />I conveniently planned to stay with Vincent (a friend from middle/high school) in Biloxi. With the help of my GPS, I easily found his house. We went out for dinner then went to see a play that two of his friends were in. Day Two was much less driving than Day One, but I was still exhausted!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-3398417200350993122009-03-07T01:03:00.003-05:002009-03-09T23:40:51.197-04:00Blacksburg to Houston: Day OneToday was the first day of my eventually-cross-country move! My Honda Pilot is really coming in handy. I had to pack for the next six months. The car is pretty full because I'm bringing all my (warm weather) clothes, maybe a few too many pairs of shoes, and all the other random stuff I think I might need. My car is big enough, so why not?! I feel sorry for the people who are flying.<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>I started out from home this morning and drove to Birmingham, AL. It took longer than expected because I got stuck in traffic near Chattanooga for at least an hour and a half. I wish I were doing this trip over more days (and with a friend) so that I'd have more time to stop at random places. My one spontaneous stop of the day was in Tennessee where I saw a sign for "Cheese Farm and Store" or something like that. And I love cheese. So I had to stop. It was a cute little place, seemingly in the middle of no where (which I guess makes sense... that's where the cows are!). There were lots of free samples, and the two women working in the shop were really friendly. There were big windows in the store, looking into where the cheese-making actually occurs, but nothing was happening while I was there. I ended up getting three cheeses: sharp white cheddar, colby, and buttermilk. The buttermilk cheese was so good (yes of course I sampled it) - mild with a slightly creamier feel than cheddar, though not <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">actually</span> creamy. </div><div><br /></div><div>I finally got to Birmingham around 8:30 pm (central time). I'm staying with some family friends. They were our neighbors in Blacksburg when I was growing up, and they have always been so good to me and my parents. They moved to Birmingham a few years ago to be closer to family, and we miss them a lot on our street. I'm glad they are conveniently right on my route! They served me a delicious dinner and have been wonderful hosts. </div><div><br /></div><div>Tomorrow I will be driving to Biloxi, MS, and staying with a high school friend there. I love knowing people all over the place! </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Things I learned about Tennessee today:</div><div>1. It is bigger than it looks </div><div>2. It has lots of pine trees</div><div>3. It has many towns whose names are normally associated with another state or country (Philadelphia, Athens, Charleston, Cleveland)</div><div>4. The Chattanooga area is really pretty!!<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Here are some pictures from today!</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbIK-8Q2FHI/AAAAAAAAAFU/O2dQ6DUO2xY/s320/DSCN2651.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310318987068183666" border="0" /><div style="text-align: center;">Cheese!</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><br /><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbIK_q1nvFI/AAAAAAAAAFc/EHD6pLz6NOY/s320/DSCN2652.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310318999570463826" border="0" /><div style="text-align: center;">Cheese-making</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbIK_xqoONI/AAAAAAAAAFk/AnC97B4KPQY/s320/DSCN2654.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310319001403406546" border="0" /><div style="text-align: center;">View from the cheese shop</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SbILAU-RaEI/AAAAAAAAAFs/0OHfdCboEwU/s320/DSCN2660.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310319010881038402" border="0" /><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">Pretty mountains, ugly traffic jam</div><br /></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-27833463486437211022009-02-23T03:34:00.000-05:002009-02-23T03:35:53.140-05:00Why do white clothes glow under blacklight?I haven't posted in a month! I'm sorry for the hiatus. I wish I could say that I've been getting ready for my big move, but I still haven't done much. I have a week longer than I thought I would though, so I have a little time yet. I'll be leaving on March 6th now.<br /><br />I recently went to a show with a few friends. While the bands were playing, most of the normal lighting was replaced by blacklight, so our white clothes were glowing, including Katie's skirt:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SaHczn5JXMI/AAAAAAAAAFM/ehhT-dW7S9g/s1600-h/DSCN2574.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SaHczn5JXMI/AAAAAAAAAFM/ehhT-dW7S9g/s320/DSCN2574.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305764615459265730" border="0" /></a><br />She asked me why white clothes glow under blacklight and said that I should write about it here, so that's what I'll do.<br /><br />Let's review some basic physics/chemistry first. Electrons in an atom have some base amount of energy. An electron can gain energy from some outside source (e.g. light or electricity), putting it momentarily into a higher energy state. The electron can then lose this energy by emitting light - more specifically, by emitting a photon (light particle) that has this exact amount of energy. This energy corresponds to some wavelength of light. This is, for example, how a neon sign works. The electrons in the neon gas are excited into a higher energy state by electricity, then they lose the energy and "fall back down" to their lower energy by emitting light (predominantly orange light in neon's case).<br /><br />As I mentioned above, an electron can be excited by light as well as electricity. When an atom absorbs a photon, the energy of the photon gets transferred to the electron. The electron can then lose the energy by re-emitting a photon of the same energy. In other words, <span style="font-style: italic;">the incoming photon and re-emitted photon have the same energy.</span><br /><br />And now I can confuse you and tell you that this is not always the case. In an atom, these electron transitions are the main way for energy to be gained and lost, but in a <span style="font-style: italic;">molecule</span> there are other ways. A molecule consists of multiple atoms and the bonds between them. When a molecule gains energy, the increase in energy can still manifest itself in electron transitions OR in rotations of the molecule OR in vibrations of the bonds between the atoms. This means that when a molecule absorbs a photon, not all the energy has to go into one type of motion - for example, vibrations and an electron transition can both occur on the absorption of a photon. The vibrations of the molecule can die out quickly (mainly because it runs into the other molecules around it), but the excited electron still has to fall back down. But since some of the energy has already been vibrated away, the <span style="font-style: italic;">re-emitted photon will have</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">less energy than the incoming photon, </span>which<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></span>corresponds to a longer wavelength of light. (For example, a molecule might absorb blue light but emit green light.) This process is called <span style="font-weight: bold;">fluorescence</span> when the absorbed light is in the visible or ultraviolet (UV) range.<br /><br />Back to the question at hand: Why do white clothes glow in blacklight? Blacklight is mainly just UV radiation. If you've been to a natural history museum, you may have seen certain minerals glowing under blacklight in an otherwise dark case. The glowing clothing is the same thing... but why just white? White cloth and paper are actually treated with a special substance (an <span style="font-weight: bold;">optical brightener</span>) to make them look even whiter. The brightener absorbs UV radiation and re-emits blue light, which balances/hides any yellow or brown tones in the cloth or paper. This is not obvious under normal lighting because the cloth is <span style="font-style: italic;">mostly</span> reflecting visible light; the optical brightener is just a small enhancement. But when there is little visible light and an abundance of UV radiation, the brightener has a lot to absorb (and not much to reflect), and the re-emitted blue light is very obvious. This blue light is the glow!<br /><br />You may have also noticed that teeth glow under blacklight too, but they glow a slightly different color. This is not because of any sort of brightener. The chemical makeup of teeth simply causes them to fluoresce greenish under UV radiation.<br /><br />Katie, I hope this helps! Keep the questions coming!<br /><br />I usually like to find better sources than wikipedia, but it has some good information in its "fluorescence" article.Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-29330750523934168362009-01-23T02:03:00.007-05:002009-01-23T02:17:24.876-05:00Inauguration DayMy trip to DC for the inauguration was absolutely wonderful! I got to spend time with some of my closest friends, eat good food, drink good drinks, and witness a huge moment in history. On inauguration day I tried to take at least one picture every hour near the :44 of the hour (of course because Obama is the 44th president) to chronicle my day. I slacked after the inauguration was over because the day got much less exciting, but I think I got some good pictures from earlier. This was my day:<br /><br />My two friends and I got up around 4:00 a.m. Yes, I got up that early! I don't think I got more than maybe two hours of sleep because Leana and I couldn't fall asleep and stayed up talking instead! But we still managed to drag ourselves out of bed. We got up so early because we decided to volunteer with Julie. We were supposed to meet on the mall at 4:45 a.m. We decided to take the metro because it was still so early, and it was cold enough that we didn't want to walk all the way. We were a little bit late and ended up walking to the metro around 4:44.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXfn1YVRQrI/AAAAAAAAADU/4MJx2Rm4cQ8/s1600-h/DSCN2438.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXfn1YVRQrI/AAAAAAAAADU/4MJx2Rm4cQ8/s400/DSCN2438.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293954791248052914" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Julie and Leana walking to the metro, around 4:44 a.m.<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">We thought things would be fairly deserted, but we were wrong. The metro was already crowded, and it took us at least 15 minutes to get out of our destination station after getting off the train. Everyone had to be funneled through the metrocard readers, which caused a big backup. When we finally got out, we started wandering toward the location where we were supposed to meet our team leader for volunteering. It was cold and dark, but the streets were already full of life, and it was exciting to be out.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXfqiOb0JZI/AAAAAAAAADc/fYCAMsYQbuU/s1600-h/DSCN2440.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXfqiOb0JZI/AAAAAAAAADc/fYCAMsYQbuU/s400/DSCN2440.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293957760708519314" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Bright capitol, lots of people, around 5:44 a.m.<br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXfqiawiB5I/AAAAAAAAADk/wSBR8usC1n8/s1600-h/DSCN2442.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXfqiawiB5I/AAAAAAAAADk/wSBR8usC1n8/s400/DSCN2442.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293957764016637842" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Red-hatted volunteers gathering (unfortunately not our group), around 5:44 a.m.</span><br /></div><br />Even when we made it to our location on the mall, we still had to wander through the groups of volunteers to find our leader. I stopped to take a picture of the lights and the Washington Monument.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXfs9RNK8nI/AAAAAAAAADs/Ia9yytPiwXM/s1600-h/DSCN2445.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXfs9RNK8nI/AAAAAAAAADs/Ia9yytPiwXM/s400/DSCN2445.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293960424332128882" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Washington Monument, illuminated, a little after 5:44 a.m.<br /></span></div><br />We finally found our group, and we moved to 14th Street near Independence Avenue. We were supposed to be welcoming people, directing them toward the mall, etc., but very few people were actually walking down our street. I think there were too many volunteers to begin with, probably because so many people wanted to be involved. We stood around a lot, but we got cold, so we ran and danced some. It warmed us up, and it hopefully also entertained the people waiting in their cars in traffic on our road (I think I heard that they were government employees waiting to park somewhere nearby). This was the view from where we were stationed:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf12ZxvPuI/AAAAAAAAAD0/ejwvDGA2P0Y/s1600-h/DSCN2447.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf12ZxvPuI/AAAAAAAAAD0/ejwvDGA2P0Y/s400/DSCN2447.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293970201978552034" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">14th Street near Independence Ave., tip of the monument, exactly 6:44 a.m.<br /></span></div></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Around 7:30 a.m. we started to get hungry (all we had was oatmeal at 4:00), and we had also seen some volunteers with cups of hot chocolate, which sounded like the perfect buffer for the cold. We left to get the hot chocolate, and we decided that we didn't really want to go back to volunteering because we weren't doing anything in the first place. We waited in line for food at a tent near the Museum of American History.</span><br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf5X_N7czI/AAAAAAAAAEE/L-2h2920mlA/s1600-h/DSCN2458.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf5X_N7czI/AAAAAAAAAEE/L-2h2920mlA/s400/DSCN2458.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293974077499470642" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Waiting for food in front of the Museum of American History, around 7:44 a.m.<br /></span></div></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf5Xe73eUI/AAAAAAAAAD8/n5YBvyrVFAA/s1600-h/DSCN2459.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf5Xe73eUI/AAAAAAAAAD8/n5YBvyrVFAA/s400/DSCN2459.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293974068833777986" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Sunrise while waiting in line for food, around 7:44 a.m.<br />(Amazing because I'm almost never up early enough to see the sun rise)<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;">I got a hot chocolate and a pulled pork sandwich, which was actually very tasty (not what I expected from the food tents). We saw a crowd of people waiting outside the museum, so we joined them hoping that the museum was opening at 8:00 and that we might be able to warm up in there. It did in fact open at 8:00, so we went in, sat down and rested for a bit, then looked at a few exhibits, including one on past first ladies' inaugural dresses.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf9rNCeMsI/AAAAAAAAAEM/-qDWXQAuru8/s1600-h/DSCN2460.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf9rNCeMsI/AAAAAAAAAEM/-qDWXQAuru8/s400/DSCN2460.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293978805673538242" border="0" /></a><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf9rZOcaKI/AAAAAAAAAEU/V4SWNrkvdO4/s1600-h/DSCN2461.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXf9rZOcaKI/AAAAAAAAAEU/V4SWNrkvdO4/s400/DSCN2461.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293978808944978082" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Mamie Eisenhower's ball gown and shoes, Museum of American History, around 8:44 a.m.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;">We also went through the Abraham Lincoln exhibit, and I took my next picture overlooking the lobby while waiting for Julie to finish the exhibit.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXjnYxPUo1I/AAAAAAAAAEc/0AVDKZti9v4/s1600-h/DSCN2465.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXjnYxPUo1I/AAAAAAAAAEc/0AVDKZti9v4/s400/DSCN2465.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294235774694499154" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Main lobby of the Museum of American History, around 9:44 a.m.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A little after 10:00, we decided we should go get a spot on the mall near one of the big TV screens. It was of course very crowded already, but we managed to squeeze in pretty close to a screen. We were on the mall across the street from the Washington Monument. This is what our view looked like (or rather, what a taller person's view would have looked like - I had to hold my camera up pretty high to capture the crowd).<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlCqrUOGVI/AAAAAAAAAEk/BVtDLZt7sB0/s1600-h/DSCN2468.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlCqrUOGVI/AAAAAAAAAEk/BVtDLZt7sB0/s400/DSCN2468.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294336137900202322" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">The view from our spot on the mall, around 10:44 a.m.<br /></span></div><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">We were there for a while...<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlHoaL5UxI/AAAAAAAAAE0/Qck1PwwfupI/s1600-h/snipers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 397px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlHoaL5UxI/AAAAAAAAAE0/Qck1PwwfupI/s400/snipers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294341596500284178" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Sniper on the roof of the Museum of American History, around 11:44 a.m.<br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlHofOugrI/AAAAAAAAAEs/n84e1gcQIgU/s1600-h/DSCN2470.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlHofOugrI/AAAAAAAAAEs/n84e1gcQIgU/s400/DSCN2470.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294341597854335666" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Obama, around 11:44 a.m.<br /></span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />The ceremony was exciting, and Obama's speech was great, though it was too idealistic; but I guess there's no other way to be at your inauguration. We also went to the opening ceremony/concert on Sunday, and I enjoyed Obama's address during that too. When speaking about everyone working together, he included "gay and straight," which made me really happy as a strong supporter of gay rights. I was hoping he would include something similar in his inauguration speech. </span><span style="font-size:100%;">The closest he got was talking about equal rights for everyone, which I guess is good enough for me right now - there wasn't time to address every specific issue! Afterward we started making our way toward the edge of the mall... or at least we tried. We moved in one direction with the rest of the crowd, then people ahead of us started turning around. That side of the mall was closed off because it was close to the parade route, so we had to go all the way to the other side. I think the exit could have been planned better, although I'm sure it's nearly impossible to plan for that many people. We were stuck in that crowd for over an hour (I think... I lost track though), from the time we started trying to get out to the time we actually got off the mall and broke free from the crowd. It was so crowded and slow-moving that my friend commented, "Why don't people just break down the barriers? What could they really do to us anyway?" People actually started chanting "Let us out! Let us out!" at one point. Luckily everyone was generally in high spirits, so no one charged the barriers or anything, though I'm sure many were thinking it. Here's the exiting crowd.<br /><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlk_K9HX8I/AAAAAAAAAE8/dfs_dUJnZws/s1600-h/DSCN2473.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlk_K9HX8I/AAAAAAAAAE8/dfs_dUJnZws/s400/DSCN2473.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294373873385955266" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">The crowd in front of us trying to get off the mall, around 12:44 p.m.<br /></span></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlk_fO18WI/AAAAAAAAAFE/IOc2pkB8Jzs/s1600-h/DSCN2477.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SXlk_fO18WI/AAAAAAAAAFE/IOc2pkB8Jzs/s400/DSCN2477.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294373878829019490" border="0" /></a> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:78%;">The crowd behind us trying to get off the mall, around 12:44 p.m. </span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">That brings me to the end of my hourly pictures. After getting off the mall, we went back to my friend's apartment and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. I napped for maybe an hour and a half, then I ended up going out that night to celebrate (getting back around 2:00 a.m., LONG day), but otherwise we watched the rest of the inauguration festivities on TV. So that was my day! It was hectic and tiring, but it was worth it. I'm not sure if I'd do it again any time soon, but I really enjoyed myself, and I'm so glad I got to experience all of this!<br /></div> </div> </div></div><br /></div></div>Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-53886298801806030902009-01-13T21:06:00.000-05:002009-01-13T21:07:40.212-05:00Miracle duck!This duck walks on water!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SW1Bwo-ph2I/AAAAAAAAADE/7HeE6w_weBs/s1600-h/DSCN2382.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SW1Bwo-ph2I/AAAAAAAAADE/7HeE6w_weBs/s400/DSCN2382.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290957441119913826" border="0" /></a><br />Okay not really. It's been cold enough here to freeze the little pond near my neighborhood, but during the day today, the sun melted the top in some places. Cool effect though, don't you think?Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-44287152636006397262009-01-12T01:53:00.002-05:002009-01-12T02:10:04.777-05:00The physics behind the nameAs promised, I want to explain the name of this blog. Tonight I am being a complete dork (as if I were ever anything else) and writing about physics while watching Star Wars on TV. Ahh, this is the life!<br /><br />Let's start with "Simple Harmonics." First of all, it's musical! But mathematically, which is what I'll focus on here, a simple harmonic is the same thing as a sine or cosine wave. These are important in many areas of physics. Those of you who took intro mechanics learned about simple harmonic motion. This could, for example, be the up-and-down bouncing motion of a ball hanging from the end of a spring. When you graph the motion of the ball, with time on the horizontal axis and the vertical position of the ball on the vertical axis, you get a sine wave. I spent way too much time making an animation of this using Mathematica. I know I could have gotten one from another website, but I wanted to do it myself. I finally got it to look right, and I was so proud of it, but now it won't upload! So I'll keep trying to figure that out.<br /><br />Simple harmonics are also important in electromagnetism. All types of light waves can be expressed as some combination of sine and cosine waves.<br /><br />And finally, they show up in my favorite area of physics, quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics deals with phenomena that other areas of physics can't explain. You probably learned at one point that light can act like both a wave and a particle. This is true not only for light but for everything else too! Quantum mechanics deals with this wave nature of other particles (such as electrons). It also explains the strange fact that the energies of these particles are only observed at certain quantities - a particle's energy jumps from one discrete value to another instead of increasing/decreasing smoothly through all values. The vehicle for this explanation comes in the form of the Schroedinger Equation, which is to quantum mechanics what Newton's F=ma is to classical mechanics. It is a way of predicting the behavior of a particle. But unlike Newton's law, which predicts behavior with certainty, the Schroedinger Equation deals with the <span style="font-style: italic;">probability</span> that a particle will be at a certain position at a certain time.<br /><br />Simple harmonics are the solutions to a basic quantum mechanics problem called the infinite square well. Imagine a particle, let's say an electron, that can only move along a line (i.e. in only one dimension) and that is in between two infinitely thick walls so that it can never escape. According to classical mechanics, it would just bounce back and forth between the walls. It would be able to move at any constant speed (which means it could have any amount of energy), and it would spend an equal amount of time at all points between the walls. But according to quantum mechanics, the particle does not have an equal probability of being at all locations, nor can it have any amount of energy. Solving the Schroedinger equation for this situation gives a set of simple harmonics, where the horizontal axis is the distance between the two walls. The vertical axis corresponds to the probability that the particle will be at each position between the walls. (Technically, the vertical axis of the <span style="font-style: italic;">square</span> of the simple harmonic is the probability.) I called it a "set of simple harmonics" because there are many ways a sine wave can fit between the two walls. If the wavelength is shorter, more peaks of the wave will fit between the walls. These different configurations correspond to the allowed discrete energies of the particle. Below you will see the simple harmonics corresponding to the five lowest energies of a particle confined between walls at x=0 and x=10.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrqrlmqrsI/AAAAAAAAAC8/0l79VnYzFXQ/s1600-h/ISW1fixedrange.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrqrlmqrsI/AAAAAAAAAC8/0l79VnYzFXQ/s320/ISW1fixedrange.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290298746849636034" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrGfQDiByI/AAAAAAAAABs/Pv8yX3zbOGg/s1600-h/ISW2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrGfQDiByI/AAAAAAAAABs/Pv8yX3zbOGg/s320/ISW2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290258952488093474" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrGfQeaoKI/AAAAAAAAAB0/Jt2M4OK8YyU/s1600-h/ISW3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrGfQeaoKI/AAAAAAAAAB0/Jt2M4OK8YyU/s320/ISW3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290258952600854690" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrGfsPEDkI/AAAAAAAAAB8/sYzDhmmecuc/s1600-h/ISW4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrGfsPEDkI/AAAAAAAAAB8/sYzDhmmecuc/s320/ISW4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290258960052653634" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrGf6EZ4WI/AAAAAAAAACE/s7bsqKbBvQY/s1600-h/ISW5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrGf6EZ4WI/AAAAAAAAACE/s7bsqKbBvQY/s320/ISW5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290258963766042978" border="0" /></a>As I mentioned above, probabilities are actually calculated from the squares of these graphs. The squares of the above graphs look like this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrJ7_BcGsI/AAAAAAAAACs/VeAI1gaid8Q/s1600-h/ISWprob1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrJ7_BcGsI/AAAAAAAAACs/VeAI1gaid8Q/s320/ISWprob1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290262744667003586" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrLWUZ8t6I/AAAAAAAAAC0/EgXi_r_T4lo/s1600-h/ISWprob2bold.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrLWUZ8t6I/AAAAAAAAAC0/EgXi_r_T4lo/s320/ISWprob2bold.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290264296595175330" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrJ7-F9KqI/AAAAAAAAACc/e9ksi_1imJ8/s1600-h/ISWprob3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrJ7-F9KqI/AAAAAAAAACc/e9ksi_1imJ8/s320/ISWprob3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290262744417512098" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrJ7lufgnI/AAAAAAAAACU/9WJ_L0dNex4/s1600-h/ISWprob4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrJ7lufgnI/AAAAAAAAACU/9WJ_L0dNex4/s320/ISWprob4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290262737876648562" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrJ7ly6XNI/AAAAAAAAACM/TOrreKMhat0/s1600-h/ISWprob5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 177px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWrJ7ly6XNI/AAAAAAAAACM/TOrreKMhat0/s320/ISWprob5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290262737895185618" border="0" /></a><br />Let's look specifically at the second graph above (in bold). It's telling us that a particle confined between x=0 and x=10 and in the second lowest allowed energy will most likely be found at x=2.5 or x=7.5. It also says that the particle will <span style="font-style: italic;">never</span> be found at x=5! If it can be found on either side of x=5, how does it not pass through that point? The answer: I have no idea! In general, it is because particles are not just particles; they are particles that <span style="font-style: italic;">also act like waves.</span> But I've never been able to find a more specific explanation. I'm not sure if there <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> one yet. Quantum mechanics is very strange. It exhibits phenomena that we know to be true but that we still don't understand.<br /><br />Hopefully this has given you an idea of what quantum mechanics is and why simple harmonics are important to the basic calculations of the infinite square well. If you think this all seems crazy and counterintuitive... good! It is certainly very different from what we experience and what we know about the motion of everyday objects. We know it's there, but we don't see it because it happens on such a small scale.<br /><br />Well that should do it for simple harmonics. Now on to "transmitted reflections."<br /><br />Transmitted reflections is a contradiction. In optics, they are opposites. The light that doesn't get reflected from a surface gets transmitted through the surface. But the phrase also reminds me of something called Frustrated Total Internal Reflection. Regular total internal reflection occurs when light traveling inside a substance completely reflects off the inside of the substance. This is, for example, responsible for the sparkliness of a diamond ring. Diamonds are cut so that the light that goes into the top of the diamond doesn't come out the bottom - it reflects within the diamond and comes back out the top, making the diamond look brighter. Now imagine this happening in a simple block of glass. If a beam of light traveling through the glass hits the side of the glass at the correct angle, it will completely reflect, and no light will leave the glass. However, something does leave the glass - it's called an evanescent wave. It decays very quickly (exponentially, in fact), and it doesn't carry any light or energy. Normally it has no effect on anything. But something interesting happens if you put a second glass block close to the first one, with just a small gap of air in between. Because the light doesn't escape the first block into the air, it seems like no light should make it to the second block. But the evanescent wave is still present in the air gap between the blocks, and the interaction between this wave and the second block disturbs (or <span style="font-style: italic;">frustrates</span>) the electric field in such a way that some of the light passes from the first block through the air gap to the second block. This is Frustrated Total Internal Reflection, and it's probably the closest thing to a "transmitted reflection" because the light transmitted to the second block should have been a reflection and would have been if not for this bizarre interaction.<br /><br />I was determined to find a physics-related name for my blog that could also be otherwise meaningful. Think of "simple harmonics" as the many layers of my thoughts and experiences, the ups and downs of my life, the analytical nature of my mind, and the uncertainties that can result from even a basic problem or event. Think of "transmitted reflections" as my written interpretations of all of these. If not for this blog, they would remain my personal reflections and never be transmitted.<br /><br />I will welcome any questions about the physics in the post!!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-298539553409407312009-01-09T21:56:00.002-05:002009-01-09T22:00:06.710-05:00Monk and PsychInstead of going out tonight as I thought I might (sorry Carly), I will instead be staying home as usual and watching the new episodes of two of my favorite shows. "Monk" and "Psych" are both great shows, and I'm always surprised to hear that a lot of people have never seen them. I keep recommending them to my friends, but I don't know if any of them have watched yet. Although there are, of course, some underlying stories that span the episodes, most (maybe all) episodes can also stand alone, so don't worry about not understanding what's going on. If you know the premise of each show, it will be easy to pick up on who's who and what's happening.<br /><br />Psych is basically the "Scrubs" of the crime show world. Actually someone commented to me that they are pretty much the same show. And although they do have some striking similarities, I disagree with this. Some of the main characters and their relationships are similar, but the situations and style are different enough that one couldn't be substituted for the other. If I had a burning desire to watch Psych, watching Scrubs instead wouldn't really cut it (even though I like Scrubs too). Psych is about a guy who is good at noticing and interpreting details that other people don't notice. He pretends to be psychic, opens a detective agency, and works with the police to solve cases. He and his sidekick are extremely entertaining, but the show does not rely on this alone; the plot is always interesting as well.<br /><br />Monk is a more sophisticated but still amusing crime show about an obsessive-compulsive detective. I didn't start watching from the first season, and I actually still prefer the newer episodes. Monk got a new assistant in season 3, and I like this character/actress much better than the previous one. And Tony Shalhoub's portrayal of Adrian Monk is consistently genius.<br /><br />So if you have nothing better to do on Friday nights, check out Monk and Psych!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-90448488459701598382009-01-09T17:47:00.001-05:002009-01-09T17:49:35.587-05:00WegmansI just enjoyed some yogurt with Wegmans Organic French Vanilla Granola (from the bulk section of course) that was left over from my trip to Ithaca a few months ago (I forgot about it... but it was still crunchy and flavorful after all this time!). I really miss Wegmans, and I'm disappointed that it doesn't exist in California. Here's an interesting <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/01/24/8234048/index.htm">article on Wegmans</a>. It's from 2005, but I'm sure a lot of it still applies. If Wegmans ever goes public, I'll definitely be investing.Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-40378226112753595272009-01-09T03:16:00.000-05:002009-01-09T17:37:26.830-05:00And the planning beginsMost of you know that I won't actually be moving into my own apartment until about six months after I start work (and hopefully I'll be starting in March). I'll be living in some sort of company housing or hotels for my six months of training, which is nice in a way because I won't have to pay any rent, but I'm really looking forward to moving into my own place.<br /><br />Even though my "real" move won't be for a while, I've already had to start planning for it. Today (well technically yesterday) a woman from the moving company came to the house to see how much stuff I'll eventually be moving. Half of my basement is full of stuff, plus I'll be taking a double bed frame and a dresser. I was hoping to go shopping (preferably with someone who owns a pickup truck) for some more furniture so that I wouldn't have to worry about as much when I start trying to furnish my apartment, but now I don't think I should add anything else major, since the moving company will base everything on what I showed this woman.<br /><br />My requirements for an apartment: large kitchen, allows pets, washer/dryer or washer/dryer hookups, stress-free parking, enough storage space for all the random things I've accumulated over the years that I know I'll need as soon as I get rid of so I don't get rid of them.<br /><br />I've been spending some time on Bakersfield's craigslist. Looks like there are lots of apartments and houses being rented right now. I hope it stays that way for a while.Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-44317126872398043472009-01-08T23:45:00.000-05:002009-01-09T17:38:39.121-05:00The Tale of the LogoI'm eventually going to explain the name of this blog, but first I want to explain the origin of and thought behind the logo at the top of the page.<br /><br />It took me almost all day to decide on a name. I had it narrowed down to "Simple Harmonics" or "Transmitted Reflections" but ultimately decided to use both (especially after they were tied 2-2 in a very scientific poll of four friends). Thanks to Katie, Tom, Alex, Lisa, Dave, and John for reading my many options and giving their opinions. Katie had the brilliant idea of making "Transmitted Reflections" look like a reflection of "Simple Harmonics," so I played around in Photoshop, and the result is now under the name!<br /><br />The logo did not start out looking like this. At first I had this:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWbBLiK2MqI/AAAAAAAAABM/uvNI0ZECT4Y/s1600-h/SimpleHarmonicsUpsideDown3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 281px; height: 86px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWbBLiK2MqI/AAAAAAAAABM/uvNI0ZECT4Y/s320/SimpleHarmonicsUpsideDown3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289127216288248482" border="0" /></a>I was happy with it until my physics kicked in and I realized that it wasn't a true representation of a reflection. In this figure, "transmitted reflections" could be a shadow, but it couldn't be a reflection. If "simpleharmonics" is sitting on a flat mirror and you're looking straight at it, its reflection will never look skewed (diagonal/angled) like this; the reflection will always look to be directly below it and straight. This is because reflection only happens in a plane perpendicular to the mirror. The light has to get from the object to your eye, and there's only one plane in which this can happen - the one that includes the object and your eye and is also perpendicular to the mirror, like so:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWbHB0PfuQI/AAAAAAAAABc/ss5JeRSRxSo/s1600-h/planeofreflection.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 206px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWbHB0PfuQI/AAAAAAAAABc/ss5JeRSRxSo/s320/planeofreflection.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289133646410660098" border="0" /></a>This means that the reflection will always be directly between you and the object, which means that it will look like it is directly below the object and never skewed to one side.<br /><br />I was not satisfied with a shadow! I wanted a true reflection because of the blog's name. And I wanted something more interesting than a straight, head-on reflection. I decided that maybe it would be right if I "turned" the words (of course achieved here by squishing the right side to look farther away), like this:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWbBmcmS8iI/AAAAAAAAABU/iZWBdvOhDHQ/s1600-h/simpleharmonicsangle3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 254px; height: 82px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Arj51BtPFgo/SWbBmcmS8iI/AAAAAAAAABU/iZWBdvOhDHQ/s320/simpleharmonicsangle3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289127678649233954" border="0" /></a>I thought it looked better, and I asked my dad what he thought of it to get another opinion. I explained to him that I didn't think the other was physically correct, and I began to wonder if this one even was. We proceeded to lay out my full length mirror and experiment with the writing on the top of a shoe box for at least half an hour. Even though reflection is a fairly straightforward phenomenon compared to the rest of optics, it's actually pretty interesting! We rotated the words all sorts of ways and looked at them from many different angles. We came to the conclusion that this second design was also not physical. Again, it could be a shadow, but not a reflection. This is because of the same reason explained above. You're still seeing "simpleharmonics" in an upright position, it just looks shorter because you're seeing it at an angle. The reflection will show this change, but it still won't look skewed.<br /><br />The solution? The reflection will only look skewed if the words themselves look skewed. One way to achieve this is to rotate the words in two different directions. As we saw above, rotating in only one direction doesn't cause anything to be skewed. But what if we rotate the words like we did above and then <span style="font-weight: bold;">also</span> rotate them <span style="font-weight: bold;">toward</span> the mirror? When they are distorted in two directions like this, the words themselves will look skewed and so will the reflection. Hence the final logo! Both the top and bottom are squished on the right and skewed by the same angle in the same direction. Go find a mirror and try it out. I had to see it to realize what was going on and to figure out how to represent it in two dimension. I'm not sure that this is the only way to achieve skewing, but it is definitely physically correct, unlike the previous designs!<br /><br />I haven't had much experience writing about something related to math/physics for a potential audience of non-physicists, so I'd love to get some feedback on this! Hopefully I'll be able to improve and write about more complicated topics.Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5150539696463867860.post-16005843045143004172009-01-08T03:01:00.000-05:002009-01-09T17:39:08.624-05:00My first post!Welcome to my new blog! I decided I should be doing something with all my extra time, so I'm going to attempt to blog on a somewhat regular basis. Hopefully I'll write some informative posts about physics along with the other possibly mindless posts I might write in the midst of my boredom. I also anticipate having a lot to write about once I start my new job. I don't know much about oil drilling, so I know I'll be learning a lot, and I'm looking forward to writing about my new experiences.<br /><br />The next steps: make this page look more exciting and write about why I chose "Simple Harmonics, Transmitted Reflections" for the name of my blog!Abbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16253841447082994094noreply@blogger.com4