Sunday, September 25, 2011

Black Holes, Warped Space, and Magnetic Fields- space.com

Author: Charles Q. Choi, Space.com contributor
 Date Written:  March 24, 2011
 Title: Famous black Hole Sheds New Light on Warped Space, Magnetic Fields
 Subject Area:   Black Holes, Astroph.
 Source Website: http://www.space.com/11222-black-holes-cygnus-warped-space.html
 ---Summary---

Polarized light reveals evidence of strong magnetic fields near black holes, which have been theorized but not seen.  Emission from the first discovered black hole, Cygnus X-1 includes thermal emisson from the 120 million degree C corona as well as another source, identified in this article as synchrotron radiation. Synchrotron radiation is produced by strong magnetic fields. Polarized light is light which vibrates in one direction...

 ---My Reaction---

This 'sheds some light' on how polarimetry is used, although I did not investigate closely why exactly polarimetry showed this vs. a CCD.




 ---Questions---

What does it mean for light ot vibrate in one direction?

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Vneutr=2.9980e+08?

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110922/full/news.2011.554.html

3 sigma is 99%, correct? So 6 sigma is pretty confident in statistic speak

This guy left a comment about his paper postulating some particles that could travel faster than the speed of light, but I am sure he is not the only one

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9505117

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

mathematical statistics textbook

http://books.google.com.nf/books?id=ZvPKTemPsY4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=mathematical+statistics+wackerly&hl=en&ei=UNp4TtLNG-iIsQLXvp2sDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

hiding text, paragraphs, sections with open office; code folding with vim

Good link for hiding text or paragraphs in open office, see specifically the sample text the guy wrote up, about 3/5 the way down the page.

http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19331&start=0


To be able to hide a section of text,

1. Create a variable, 'variable',
ctrl-f2
variables>set variable
insert variable name, and value
for example, variable name=Show, value=1

2. Create a section

highlight a section of text, by dragging your mouse over the text
insert> Section...
click on the hide option
In the with condition box, write

Show EQ "0"


Then, if you set the variable Show to 0 later on, it will hide that section



Also, code folding in vim, if it ever seems useful

http://smartic.us/2009/04/06/code-folding-in-vim/


Here is a tutorial for sections in open office, they weren't quite working how I wanted them to
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOoAuthors_User_Manual/Writer_Guide/Using_sections_for_page_layout#Introduction_to_sections

Saturday, September 3, 2011

psychology book

Here is a link to a psychology book Natalie showed me, which seems to shed reality on the true behavior of humans in comparison to how humans perceive themselves. It definitely is interesting to see some insight into 'the reality' of human behavior, but obviously with a paper that is trying to show 'the reality', I have to be skeptical. But the papers I have read so far have been pretty interesting.
        One talks about how people to tend to form groups and discriminate naturally rather than be accepting of others, referencing a study in which two groups of boys were staying in a state park in Oklahoma and allowed to do what they wanted. A critical part of the study was that each group did not know the existence of the other and that they were nearby. Within days, both groups established leaders, and when the groups learned of each others exsitence, they turned on each other, in a way similar to Lord of the Flies, as Natalie mentioned. This is kind of intense.
          Also, there is a paper on how buttons that we press in our daily lives may not actually perform the action we think they do, such as the close-door button on elevators, which by law do not work. This shows that we are conidtioned to believe that our action of pressing the button made the door shut, even though it did not. They said this was no different than a mouse pressing a lever to get cheese.
            Finally, there was a paper on the backfire effect, in which people, with a certain belief, when presented with contradictory evidence to there belief, start to believe even more strongly in their belief. The paper points out the effect of the internet, which I read to say that  the availability of information with the internet has allowed people to become stronger in there biases, rather than made it so people get the real information. This is interesting becaause it seems that people would want to accept the truth, but human nature may not work that way. This seems like it could be a true effect.