So, it has been a while since I last wrote on my blog, and I honestly don't know where I was going with the last entry, so I am going to go with something different. I was sitting there thinking about a question that has puzzled me, and pretty much every other physicist on the planet. Why is it that we understand gravity so poorly? Essentially, all we know about it is its low energy approximation. It has the same basic mathematical structure of electroweak and strong nuclear theory and yet for some reason we can't truly understand it. There are of course two fundamental possibilities 1. that gravity is a unique force which is non quantum and unrelated to the others 2. we have missed a subtle aspect of the nature of gravity or the mathematical formulation of its theory.
When you consider QFT, it is almost trivial after the fact to quantize E&M, and strong and weak theories are inherently quantum. In the published version of his lecture notes, Feynman laid forth and early attempt at quantization of general relativity by guessing at a gauge and showing that it had the right mathematical and physical attributes of a quantum theory of gravity... namely that it produced a massless spin 2 particle. That theory of course was plagued by divergences which made it intractable. Now, that could mean something in and of itself since the only way that we can cope with the divergences in our other theories is by renormalization. This could be telling us that we are going about things in the wrong way and that a nonperturbative framework is the only alternative. Be that as it may, a more fundamental problem is the interpretation of GR. In the classic interpretation, we think of gravitation as a continuous distortion (for lack of a better word) of the fabric of space-time. This is clearly not consistent with our particle exchange understanding of electro weak and strong theories. In addition, there is also the philosophical argument that one can't have a Universe that is only part quantum. At any rate, if we assume that there exists some gauge for gravitation G(x), then we can write out our field theoretic equation G(X) + A(x) + B(x) + G(x)... of course ignoring the interaction terms and indices for nonspatial DoF. That kind of equation of course begs out for unification in that it ought to represent modes of a higher order function F(x) whose low energy approximation (i.e. series) gives us the three forces that we know and love so well.
It makes one think that maybe we might not be so off with renormalization since only those gauges which are renormalizeable to all order of magnitude are physically achievable... sort of like a rationality clause on nature. Modern theory has of course gotten away from the gauge view of the forces and opted for a different approach. What if we had a theory which produced particles of exactly the right helicity and mass, then we could correlate those particles with the massive and massless particles that we know and love so well. There is of course the presupposition (correct as far as we can tell) that a particle of mass m, spin s etc will behave the way it would in QFT. Superstring theory is an interesting example in that it gave us all the right particles, but unfortunately in it's original formulation in the 80s (the full history of string theory is something we can get into another time) had the same problem of divergences that the gauge theories had in addition to the fact that it allowed for more than has been observed in the universe.
It seems that SR and GR are simultaneously a blessing and a curse since they have allowed for the understanding of electroweak and strong forces while confusing the picture for gravitation. Maybe we can get into some of the technical details of the quantization of gravity over Christmas break... that would be a nice exercise in understanding exactly what our problem is. Alright, time to go...

So, I finished my surgery rotation last week, and now I am on to pediatrics. It is a world of difference as far as workload and interactions go. In surgery, things are always on the go, but pediatrics is a lot more laid back. We get in around 8 (where we had to be in by 4-4:30 on surgery), and we get out around noon or two (vs. 6-8 on surgery), and best of all, there is no overnight call. I can totally see why people would want to do pediatrics... you get to have a life. At any rate, I can sum it all up with the word "happy." As far as the patient go, I really prefer kids to adults because the things that happen to them are for the most part not their fault. They didn't smoke or drink for 30 years, they didn't get behind the wheel drunk, they didn't do any of the infinite stupid things that adults do to themselves to end up in the Hospital.
On a different note, I was thinking about how the acquisition of technology has affected humans in general. I have long held the view that technology is something that should come in small measured doses. The rapid accumulation of scientific understanding coupled with rapidly advancing technical abilities showed itself to be a particularly bad combination at the beginning of the last century. Once you have made an atomic bomb, that is a kind of threshold that you can't go back to. It is not a value judgment on the US, or Russia since the US did it (you are about to see my optimistic nature) to counter the threat from Japan and Germany. Russia did it to maintain the balance of power with America. The question isn't whether or not it should have been done, the question is how did it come to the point where such a thing was possible. There have been leaders for centuries who have conquered Eurasia and Africa... what makes this so different. The problem was that the second world war had the very unfortunate temporal correlation with the development of quantum theory (not nuclear theory mind you... just quantum theory). In fact, there was almost no understanding of nuclear phenomena at the time, aside from its existence. The majority of the work involved basic thermodynamics. Once the structure of the atom was out of the bag, it was really only a matter of money (plus the observation of uranium decay) before someone made a bomb. Well, I got a little side tracked on this one, so I shall finish it next time.

so, I am on my surgery rotation right now... you know, I never thought that I would see so many feet chopped off in so short a time frame. It is amazing how quickly you can cut a human foot off... I have seen it done in under 15 seconds. It is really quite disturbing. At any rate, I am working at the VA (veteran's affairs) hospital in Dallas. It is quite a unique experience... for the most part the people are really cool. The patients on the other hand are a completely different story. Let's put it this way... even if you are a vet, the only reason you would go to the VA is if you can't afford insurance to go to a real hospital, which means that we get a lot of homeless diabetics with hypertension and a fun grab bag of other misc chronic diseases. At any rate, it is needless to say that noone ever gets cured of anything when they check into the hotel VA... at best they get a couple of bandaids and stitches to hold their rotting bodies together a couple of more months. Alright, I have to get up early... later

Alright, so we have been having a hell of a time getting the alarm functional in this house I just moved into. Normally that would not be such a big deal, except for the fact that we are living in the middle of the ghetto. Luckily, we have the ugliest (from the outside) house on the block, which is in and of itself a good theft deterrent. At any rate, I am really sick of tech support moronic. They must pick like the dumbest people in the company, hand them a users manual and phone, and wish them luck. I have never dealt with so much double talk and illogical reasoning in my life. That, and everything in this house is ghetto, the wiring looks like it was done by a 2 year old, and to make things worse, they didn't use any type of coding scheme to make it intelligible. Well, I need to go study now... I am sure I will have plenty more to say about this house next weekend when I get a chance to do some more work on it.

So, I am working at a private family practice clinic right now, and I have to tell you, it has been quite an eye opener. I realized that this whole medicine thing is just a racket... as far as I can tell, it is about 90% money and 9.99999 % politics/power. If you look at the way the system works right now, pretty much everyone in America gives a big chunk of money to the insurance companies. Now, they use that money to pay the doctors. Well, they are greedy and want to keep as much of the money as they can for themselves... on the other end of that rope are the greedy doctors who want that money for themselves. As if that weren't bad enough... lawyers have figured out what's going on here, and now they want a piece of the action... and who can blame them. We are talking about probably the largest chuck of money on the planet, and it is up for grabs. I used to think that doctors were some how the "better" people and they were just getting screwed by the evil insurance companies and lawyers... clearly I was wrong. Now, this might be an over generalization since I am sure not all doctors are pure greed, and there are in fact legitimate lawsuits out there. But when you talk about the vast majority of people and situations... it's all about politics/greed/power (as if those were three separate things)
Alright... time for bed

Well, it has been a long time since I last posted. I figure it is about time for me to start this shit up again. I am currently in the middle of my Family Practice rotation. All that means is that I do whatever your family doc does when you go bitch to him about your headache, or when you think a mole is skin cancer. At any rate, I have to drive 1hr each way to get to this place which sucks ass since most other people in my class get to stay near campus... speaking of which, I am going to be late if I don't get out of here soon...later

Well, it has been a long time since I last posted to the blog. Between then and now, I had all of my final exams for 2nd year. It feels really good to be done, but I am studying more now than I did for those exams since I have to take USMLE Step I in four weeks. Step I is the first part of the licensing process for doctors. I don't really know what to expect, so I am just going to study as much as I can and hope for the best. Alright, I am going to go study now...

the caption says it all

It doesn't get any better than this...
BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- A 73-year-old man who used an air raid siren to stun his wife into submission has had it confiscated by German police.
"My wife never lets me get a word in edgeways," the man identified as Vladimir R. told Mannheim police.
"So I crank up the siren and let it rip for a few minutes. It works every time. Afterwards, it's real quiet again."
A police spokesman said neighbors had complained at the noise from the 220-volt rooftop device, believed to be an old-fashioned air raid siren.
Rosina, Vladimir's wife of 32 years, said she sometimes had to yell to get his attention. "My husband is a stubborn mule so I have to get loud."

Here is my favorite quote from Rumsfeld "Going to war without France is like going to play golf without an accordian."

One of my previous posts dealt with the optimization of multivariable functions. I was applying it to social economics, but this is actually a problem that I have spent a great deal of time thinking about in its more general context since it is at the very heart of modern science and engineering. The reason that one cares so much about the extrema of a functions is because those states usually represent stable configurations of the system. This is of course most readily apparent in chemistry and physics since the extrema of the energy correlate with the structure of atoms and molecules. Let's say that we have a function F of N continuous variables. How can we find the extrema of such a function? When one is talking about single variable analytic functions, the answer is simply to set the derivative of that function equal to zero and solve. That is of course not possible in multivariable functions (except for the case of separable functions which I talked about in my previous post), and that is what leads us to optimization theory.
The first thought that might come to one's mind is that you can just evaluate the function at every point in its space and simply pick out the point that has the greatest of least value. This is called complete enumeration, and it is the most computationally intensive alternative... so much so that it is never done except for very limited cases of very few variable with defined constraints on the values that those variables can take.
The next approach that comes to mind is to start at a point and follow the gradients around that point. If you let such a simulation run long enough, the hope is that it will eventually happen upon the extrema and get stuck there. One way to think of this is a bowling ball being rolled around in the Grand Canyon. The ball will follow the potential gradients around it until it gets to the lowest point accessible to it. This is not a bad method except for the fact that it is notorious for missing extrema. Obviously if you start the simulation at one point, and the true extrema is separated from that point by a massive potential barrier, then you will never find that point. This brings up a recurring point in these methods, which is that one never has a guarantee of finding anything, since that would require complete enumeration. Still, the gradient method is very useful in situations where you want to investigate a specific region of the space to determine what the extrema in that region is.
Alright, I have to go to class now... more on this later

So, I was at the gas station, and I was talking to some construction workers there, and one of them put it best..."f&*% France F#$% Germany F*^@ Russia and F(*$ China. I don't understand how anyone will still be able to oppose the war after watching the video of the people in Basra and Baghdad taking to the streets and cheering for the U.S. troops. That is the most solid indicator that this is something that they have wanted for some time. The blood of some innocent Iraqis may be on our hands, but that blood pales in comparison to the blood on the old Iraqi leadership's hands. As for all the rest of the Arabs who are watching is disbelief and disgust as the Iraqis celebrate, the only reason I can see for that is that they have never tasted freedom. The Iranian government must be shaking in their boots at this very moment.

So, I was looking at some of the old pictures I have on my computer, and I found this one. I am posting this for all those people who are against the war and think that we don't have a right to free the people of Iraq. This is possibly one of the bravest men in history, and a testament to man's desire to be free.
For those who were too young to remember this, it is Tiananmen Square, 1989.

What I don't understand is what it means to be under "friendly fire." Call me silly, but if someone is firing a gun at me, that is the definition of unfriendly.

You know who is my favorite personality of the war... Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi information minister. He is like a two year old who just learned how to say no. We need to hire this guy to work for us. I can just see him on Wolf Blitzer...

Blitzer : "So Mr. al-Sahaf, corporations are reporting record losses and analysts are saying that we are headed to the worst recession ever."
al-Sahaf : "No, that is not true, the accountants are imperialist war-mongers who will be destroyed."
Blitzer : "I have heard rumors that many of the major financial institutions are on the verge of collapse."
al-Sahaf : "No, that is not true, you are an imperialist war-monger who will be destroyed."

I bet if someone were to go interview this guy when he is in prison after the war, he would still deny everything. It is a good thing that we get unbiased reporting that is free of the kind of propaganda that could mask the complexities and devastation of war.

Well, I was thinking about the last post a little more, and it occurred to me that I left out a very important limiting case. If the variables which make up the function being optimized are orthogonal, then we should get an interesting result. What this simplification amounts to is a function F which spans an N dimensional space (each dimension of the space representing an individual). It is trivial to prove in this case that the maxima of the overall function F would be obtained by maximizing each individual function f(x). I'll put an abbreviate proof here.

if F(x1,x2,...xN) = f(x1) + f(x2) +...f(xN)
then d[F]/dx1 = d[f(x1)]/dx1 and the same for all other variables
the extrema of the individual variables xi are dependant on the first derivative with respect to that variable
Since the extrema of F is dependant on the sum of all those individual derivatives, then clearly the maxima of F is achieved by maximizing each individual f

The only problem here is the income of one individual is in fact dependant on a great many things including the incomes of others in his profession, and the value placed on that persons work, which is inevitably dependant on the willingness to pay on the part of other members of society, which is in turn dependant on their incomes... you can see where this is going. This problem is clearly more complicated than I have made it out to be since the entire field of Game Theory is based on solving less complicated problems. Since I haven't read any recent literature on the status of Game Theory, I will not even try to bs my way through it. So, at least we have quasi dealt with one important objection to my previous post. I can clearly only address mathematical objections to the post since this is a topic which is at its heart a mathematical problem, which unfortunately evokes emotions in those who object to it.

So, I was reading an article about how unemployment has risen lately, and it got me thinking about the capitalist system. People have this notion that it is possible for us to get rid of the lower socioeconomic class and that all people can live comfortable lives. I am not completely convinced that that is true. In mathematics there is the same problem when considering optimization theory for multivariable systems. In order to achieve a absolute maximum for the function f(x1,x2..xN), it is not in general necessary to maximize each individual variable. An example of this is the problem of sphere packing, where one considers the optimal arrangement of spheres in a given volume and attempts to find the way to pack them so as to fit the most spheres in that given volume. This is a yet unsolved problem, but some very elegant recent work has shown that if you divide the volume up into smaller volumes and consider the packing of these individual volumes, and interesting relation is achieved. It is found that one does not have to optimize the filling of each individual volume, so if you can fit 18 spheres in one volume but only 16 in the adjacent volume, that does not automatically eliminate that arrangement from consideration. It turns out that optimizing the average filling of the smaller volumes is the determining factor for finding the absolute maxima for the function.
The problem is that I am not sure anyone understands what exactly is being maximized by the current capitalist system. Most certainly we are not optimizing the monetary status of each individual member of society. If that were our goal, then we would be part of a socialist society where everyone makes the same amount of money since in that case each variable is equivalent x1=x2=xN, and we have a single variable function. I guess what I am trying to say is that it may in fact be necessary to have some people living in poverty in order to facilitate others living extravagant lifestyles. I am not assigning a qualitative assessment for this situation, just noting that it is likely a mathematical inevitability.

You know what sucks... listening to yourself on a recording. So, I bought an electric guitar a week and a half ago just to mess around with. I decided to record myself and see what I sound like. The results were less than stellar.
Knockin on Heavens Door

So, as one might ascertain from my previous post, I have had phlebotomy clinic this week, which means I have to go to the hospital at 5am and draw blood from patients for three hours. So, we are required to wear scrubs (the blue pajama looking things that doctors wear) when we are there. Scrubs are not like normal clothes in that I don't feel the need to wash them regularly. I have been wearing the same pair day in and day out for four days now. I finally decided to wash them. They way I see it, scrubs are a lot like underwear... you can wear them for at least 4 days straight without washing.

There is nothing worse than the look of disappointment/anger in a patients eyes after you dig around in their cubital fossa for an entire minute with an 18 gauge needle only to come out without having drawn a single drop of blood. Without fail, as soon as you pull out, that area begins to bleed profusely onto the bed sheets reminding you that you were right there but still missed.

Alright, it is about time I got my thoughts on natural selection off my chest. People in general public seem to have varying degrees of misunderstanding of what natural selection means. Most educated people think that intelligence is the ultimate trait which must prevail above all others. This is manifest in the kind of self grandiosing perceptions that educated people have to distinguish themselves from the rapidly breeding lower classes. Other people think that intellect has put us above evolution and that we are not effected by it anymore. Neither of these could be further from the truth. Selection is based on the inherent instability of genetic structure which underlies all life on earth. Most mutations which a individual in a species acquires is a null mutation, in that it does not cause any structural or functional change in the organism. Only rarely does an organism, through the various forms or germline and mitotic mutation, acquire a functionally active mutation. This mutation can either help the organism or hurt the organism. Cystic fibrosis is an example of a single point mutation which is terminal to the organism as a whole and is therefore selected against. On the other hand, if a person were to gain a mutation which increased the enzymatic activity in their skeletal muscles myosin ATPase activity, then that person would be able to run faster and lift more than the rest of the species. So, the question still remains, what traits are in fact selected for? The answer is that it depends on what it is that allows that individual to out reproduce the others in its society. The higher the frequency of a particular set of genes is in a society (i.e. how many direct descendant of that one mutated individual there are), the more we can say that trait has been selected for.
Were does this get us? The problem isn't how to breed a society full of individuals that are genetically pure. Rather, it is important to have as diverse a genome as possible to allow the species to adapt to all possible selective pressures. The idea is that no matter what disease or environmental change comes along, there will be at least a small subset of the population that will be genetically equipped to adapt to that new evolutionary challenge. If a disease comes along that requires the gp120 surface receptor to gain entry to the cells (HIV), then any individual with mutations in that receptor will be selected for (there have been naturally immune individual identified in part of Africa). If we lose our ozone layer and are bombarded with UV radiation, then people with highly active DNA repair mechanisms and high melanocyte activity will win out. One important thing to note is that all these things are only important for the reproductive life of an individual (approx. ages 13 through 35). Once you have reproduced, nature doesn't care what the hell you do just as long as you don't out compete the reproductive members of society for life sustaining resources.
All of this is of course a testament to how well evolution has equiped us for survival since almost all life threatening diseases don't manifest until late in life once an individual has completed reproducing. This of course makes sense since we evolved in the jungles of Africa where the life expectancy is something like 25 years at best. Alright, I have babbled long enough...

I found this quote on the Onion website... it doesn't get much better than this

"I watch Al-Jazeera on satellite but turn the sound off and listen to NPR. I have no idea what the fuck is happening."

So, I am in a dance that the Indian medical students are doing at our schools multicultural show. You never realize how uncoordinated you are until you try to learn new dance steps. I think the only thing saving me is that my partner really knows the dance well, so I just pretty much follow her. It is going to rough though since we are only going to practice one more time before the show due to our impending Pharm exam. I am really glad that no one reads these posts because I didn't really tell anyone that I am doing this dance so I only make a fool of myself in front of my school friends.

Well, after several hours and a s*&^ load of help from Tobin, you can finally leave comments to my posts. Tobin did all the work, and I just did a little reformatting. All you have to do is click on the comment link under each post and a form comes up that lets you tell me what you really think of my rants. Luckily, I can remove comments if they are inappropriate or if I don't like you.

So me and Ethan came up with some new names for the condition of having two X chromosomes.

1. Congenital Estrogen-toxicity induced neuropathy (CETIN Syndrome)
2. Testosterone deficient cortical atrophy (TD CAt)

So, I just found out that my grandfather passed away this morning. He was diagnosed with Acute Erythroblastic Anemia, which is an extraordinarily rare form of acute leukemia, and he was also suffering from left heart failure and renal failure. From what I am told, he suffered greatly these last four months and lost most of his cognitive function due to uremia caused by the renal failure. His passing, though sad, is most likely for the best. I would like to say that I was close to him, but I only remember seeing him once about 7 years ago. Still, those memories are happy ones, and I will miss the only Grandfather I have known. The strange thing is that when I heard the news, the first thought that went through my head was something he said to me when I last saw him. I asked him when he was going to come visit us in America. He promised me that he would come here when I got married. I guess we can't always keep the promises we make no matter how much we want to...either that, or I should have been quicker at finding a woman.
Dad is leaving for India within the week to pay his respects. I managed to get the month of July off from school so I could go see him one last time, but I guess that won't happen. In retrospect, it was wishful (and selfish) thinking on my part to believe that he would have been able to hang in there suffering for another 3 months. Well, there is not really a lot one can do in a situation like this... such is life.

You know what I don't understand...when people go to doctor and get prescribed a medication and then they think their doctor doesn't know what they are doing because the drug has side effects. Here's a little clue...all drugs have side effect. Our physiology has evolved over billions of years to be a precisely balanced and and regulated system. Any time you put in an active substance it is going to interact with every cell in your body. If you are dumb enough to think that herbal remedies are any different, then you deserve to take them. The chemical compounds made by plants are no different than those in drugs. The only reason that you get more side effects with prescription drugs is that they have enough active ingredients to actually do something. I'm not saying that all herbal remedies are useless, but if there is a useful substance in the mix, then it should be extracted, studied and then marketed in its purified form. We need as tight a regulation on herbal products as we do on prescription drugs since they are as potentially harmful as they are beneficial. Right now, manufacturers aren't required to prove that herbal drugs are either safe or effective before making outrageous claims. I think the public would be amazed at how poorly these concoctions stand up to clinical trials, and how little they differ from placebo... I say that with confidence because if they did have substantial activity, then they too would cause substantial side effects. If I had more time I would write you a nearly endless list of "natural" substances that will kill or harm you... you would never dream of taking strychnine just because it is a plant extract. Alright, it's time for some lunch and sedatives for me.

So I was in the elevator yesterday, and as the door was closing someone came rushing towards the door waving their hand. Now clearly they wanted me to hold the door for them so that they could get on. But, in the heat of the moment, I thought they were just waving at me and so I smiled and waved back so as not to be rude, as the door closed in her face. That person must think that I am a complete asshole... looks like Soup just made a new friend.
From this moment forward, I shall refer to the Media as a female entity...how else could one explain the fickle and illogical reporting that is aired these days? One minute they can't get enough of our military strategy and how great our troops are doing. Next thing you know, they are talking about how Bush lied about how long the war was going to take and how poor our plan for war is. It wouldn't be bad if this was a matter of isolated reporters doing this, but it is the entire industry... they stopped being objective so long ago that they don't even remember what the word means. That reminds me... why the f&*^ do actors feel the need to let the world know what their opinion is on social issues? Let's get something straight, they get paid to look pretty... I mean come on, they have drama degrees and bulls@%$ like that. I assure you that I will never willfully ask for the opinion of a semi-retarded doped up piece of eye-candy. If a respected historian/scientist/author/politician is sharing their insight on a particular issue, I will be the first in line to listen to what they have to say. But, the next time that Nichole Kidman gives her opinion on anything besides makeup, I am going to take a short trip off a very tall bridge.

So I was talking to my brother in law the other day and he made a good point about my past. If Sec. Ridge is watching us and looking into our pasts... I am screwed. If degrees in Chemical Engineering and Physics, plus graduate work in theoretical physics don't throw up red flags, then I don't know what would. So, if I don't post anything to this board for more than 7 days please contact your local CIA office to determine which undisclosed location they are violating my civil liberties at. You know, the only thing I have working in my favor is that I am not Muslim... but at least in this day and age that is enough to make me a good guy. God Bless America...someone needs to.

I swear, the harder I work, the less I seem to get done these days... I feel like a hamster on a wheel. Well, what can I say? So, I got the month of July off, which means that I will be able to go to LA for Banga. That should be a good time, though I am not sure about the tab those guys are planning to run up... they plan on spending like $1500 on just cars for the weekend... not to mention the two persidential suites at the hotel... I may have to stay at the Holiday Inn down the street. Alright, it is time for me to go to bed now.

Here is a pic of my new baby...I got it a couple of weeks ago. I used it in the variety show performance, and I absolutely love it. The only problem is that I have no money, so I had to get my parents and sister to pay for it... well, what can you do.

So, I thought it might be nice to watch the Oscars tonight since I don't really have anything to do, and I am tired from my drive back. I went to the Oscar website to see if they have the broadcast available on streaming video. So I go to their live feed, and it turns out that they have a live video feed of the f*&% press area where the winners go to talk after they win their award. How difficult would it have been to just move the camera 100 ft and broadcast the actual program. All I can see is some reporters bald head...I can hear the actual program in the background. What a completely useless thing to broadcast.

So, I am back in Dallas now. My spring break is over now, which kind of sucks since my plan for the break went to complete crap near the end... unfortunately, the plan was well laid out, it's just that unforseen circumstances came up... well such is life. At any rate, the next month and a half are going to suck really bad because I have an exam almost every week or two. Which means that I will be out of touch with the world until mid May. I am really not looking forward to taking the boards in June. That is going to be a real pain in the ass.
You know, one thing I don't understand is why people ever thought that the weapons inspections in Iraq would work. Imagine that you are a parent who thinks that your kid is using drugs and you want to get some proof. The weapons inspections amount to going up to your kid and saying "Hey Johnny, I think you have drugs in your room and at 7pm tomorrow night we are going to come search your desk and closet...then on friday night we will inspect your bed and drawers." Only the most incompetent megalomaniac wouldn't be able to hide weapons from Hans Blix. And then there is the interviewing of scientists... "Oh, and Johnny, we want to talk to some of your dope-head buddies, so give them a call and tell them to come over here so we can ask them specific questions about your drug usage." The whole thing is a damn political joke, and yet people still seemed to care about what they did or didn't find. If you are nieve enough to believe that Saddam is a reasonable man who want anything but the destruction of the US and domination of the entire region, then I am going to hunt you down and give you a severe beating personally.

So, I was watching a streaming video feed from MSNBC...oh my God... how could our military capabilities have advanced so significantly over just 10 years. It is the most well orchestrated and overwhelming thing one can possibly imagine. Every 20 seconds or so you can hear and see explosions coming from all directions. If we keep it up at this pace, Saddam won't even get a chance to use his chemical weapons before our tanks roll into Baghdad.
http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default.asp

Here is a goofy pic of me and Rishi...I am not exactly sure when it was taken.

So I went to a public lecture by Steven Hawkings last friday. I really wish I had gotten a chance to go to his technical talk the previous monday...it would have been a nice opportunity to see some of my old physics acquaintances from UT. At any rate, was funny listening to people after the talk as they were walking to their cars, I guess since that was probably the only exposure to physics they get, they assume that everything he talks about is original stuff. That's wierd since not only did he only talk about recently published work that has been all over the literature, it is all speculative work at that.
He went on for an hour about how great M theory is, but he failed to mention the fact that there is not a single shred of evidence to support the theory, or even to support supersymmetry, which is the cornerstone of the theory. I guess that is how you become famous. What I don't understand is why people feel compelled to go to higher dimensions with modern theories. One of the only things we know for sure is that momentum-energy 4 vector is conserved, and it is only conserved when the dimensionality of the space is exactly 4... well, then in these new theories you lose the one thing that you know for sure to be true. The best answer that I have gotten to this question was a long winded load of *&% from someone in my QFT class a couple of years ago, but he failed to explain the question outside the realm of restricting motion to the standard 3+1 dimensions. Well, that is the same thing that people are trying to do now with M theory. You start off wanting to get Poincare invariance and in the process you end up with additional dimensions, then you spend 20 years trying to figure out how to get rid of all these extra dimensions that you cooked up. I guess I am short changing M theory though since it does contain a spin-2 massless boson as one of the inherent states of the theory... then again string theory had the same thing, but it contained all possible resonance modes and that was a disaster. Oh well, I should go try to make the main page for the site stop sucking...it is nice to have an outlet for my Physics rants though...the half-wits in my med school class wouldn't know a boson from a fermion if it nailed them in the retina (and yes that was in fact a cross over physics/medicince joke).

If you want to see a complete archive of all published physic/math/CS papers for the last decade, you can go to www.arxiv.org this the physics site to end all physics sites, and since everyone posts their publications here first, there is no reason to shell out a couple of hunderd bucks for a Phys Rev subscription

Well, I finally got around to updating the moulik.com website. I don't know that I really like the layout, but it is good enough for now. Since noone really ever goes to the site besides me, it doesn't matter one way or the other. That means that this blog is going to turn into my opportunity to rant about anything and everything that comes to mind. Well, now that Didi is moving back to Houston, I guess I will have to move back there eventually. I think she is going to be taking over the DB clinic some day. That means that I will have to take care of the old people since she is going into pediatrics.

Well, moulik.com now has its own blog... because that's what the world really needs.