Large Hardon Collider

[Chun Liroy]

[Shiroikage]

Interesting papers are still generally terrible to actually read.

[Mizango]

Oh god, I saw this a few mins ago lol. Check the photo.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45590

[Mizango]

Figured id share with you guys first

[Woozie]

lol, nice.

[Mizango]

lol I know right. I like the comments at the bottom, most nerds apparently lack a sense of humor

[Chun Liroy]

Cool pic i found on imgur, I'm sure Miz will enjoy.

[Mizango]

That is pretty neat. Reminds me of studying about the genetic effects of turning on and off different genes in embryonic skates and rays back when I was a Junior at USC. Hadnt thought about that since then, funny how just seeing a picture can trigger memories.

[Chun Liroy]

Actually, that reminds me, I know there was research going on proving the link between dinosaurs/reptiles and birds, wherein they observed the teeth and scales of embryonic chickens (at least that's what I remember). Were they ever able to produce a living chicken with those traits before?

[Woozie]

I was just telling my godson last night about how chickens have teeth and stuff when they're developing. I know almost nothing about that though. I just saw the picture once and thought it was cool.

[foopy]

i posted these over in the RIT, but it's getting buried.

i really wanted you guys to see these, so please forgive me for reposting it here.

Spoiler: show

[Woozie]

LOL I wish that was one long picture so I could post it on my friend's facebooks. Those are hilarious.

[foopy]

i'm positive that they (wooz, miz, kaylia, etc) will get a huge kick out of it.

they will be so happy, that after they win nobel prizes, they will remember this dump and send me money.

what i said when i posted it over in RIT. i'll be monitering nobel prize recipients. please request they list your BG handle.

[Eliseos]

The alphabet one is so true. In my electrodynamics class we went through the entire alphabet one day listing a variable for each. Every single letter had something

[Ferion]

So I've decided that I want to take up studying physics kind of as hobby (as nerdy as that sounds) after taking a very basic intro Cosmology class this semester. I eventually want to get more into astrophysics since being in the class has kind of made me very interested in astronomy. I know you don't really need to know physics to get into star gazing, but I think it would be kind of cool to understand how the things I'm looking at work. However, I haven't taken anything science related (besides intro classes) since senior year of high school so I figured I'd should start off with the basics (classical mechanics, etc.). I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions on where to start or of any good websites or books to start looking over? Most of the stuff I've been able to find is either way too simple or starts of with very little basic explanations so I get lost quickly.

[Kaylia]

Feynman lecture if you want a book maybe? I'm sure you can find them at your school library
There is also many free lecture on youtube and iTunes, and following one would be a great place to start.


To be sincere, without exams and deadlines to push you in the back, I'm not sure how it is possible to have enough motivation to study sciences though.

[Chun Liroy]

Feynman lecture if you want a book maybe? I'm sure you can find them at your school library
There is also many free lecture on youtube and iTunes, and following one would be a great place to start.


To be sincere, without exams and deadlines to push you in the back, I'm not sure how it is possible to have enough motivation to study sciences.

If you find it interesting enough, you will. There's a lot of biology related things that are extremely interesting to me so I have no problem reading about things online for hours.

[Kaylia]

If you find it interesting enough, you will. There's a lot of biology related things that are extremely interesting to me so I have no problem reading about things online for hours.

Trying to make sense out of the mathematics to understand physics requires lot of endurance and patience. While there is a candy at the very end, it's not always something one would consider interesting because the process can take a long time compared to other sciences.

Solving problem is fun, learning is fun, but sitting in front of the same two pages for 1 week and half is depressing. This situation is fairly common when you learn physics, and you need a drive other than "sciences is interesting" to keep pushing forward.

[Ferion]

I definitely get what you're saying Kaylia. I'm not looking to study physics enough to claim I have a degree in the subject or anything like that, just have a decent understanding. And I'm not exactly opposed to trying to make sense out of mathematics as I've been doing that for the past four years in college haha. But thanks for the advice, I'll probably try to find some lecture series on youtube since I haven't really looked there yet.

[Kaylia]

Well, it depend of our definition of "decent understanding"! If you want to solve problems, doing exercices and derivating every equations is the way to go. Starting with mechanics would be the best since it's the most intuitive and probably the easiest branch (at least compared to fluid, EM, relativity, QM). It's however very boring in the sense that after hundred of hours, you will realise that all there is to it is Newton's three postulates. Actually, it's the same in everywhere. 95% of the physics is in the first couple of pages, then you reformulate it over and over to obtains equation that are usable.


If you simply want to understand the general concept behind the most important branches of physics, there is many great books that vulgarize it without resorting to mathematics. It's usually the part people enjoy, and might be what you're looking for.