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Jun. 16th, 2004 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meanfreepathI hardly ever update LJ this frequently, but it's just that these video files take FOREVER to be saved, frame-by-frame, as TIFF files, using Adobe Premiere. Each data run takes something like 35 minutes, and then it takes a fairly long time to upload all those humongous files to the UNIX server that has all the analysis code. I want to get all the data files from the last few days of camera testing off the digital VCR and onto the UNIX server. If nothing else, I could do some work on the stuff at home by SSH-ing into the server. But if I'm coming home for a few days to take a break from Iowa, I'm not sure I should be trying to do research at home.
Perhaps I'll go home around dinnertime and get Anna Karenina. At least I'd be able to do some reading while these files save and upload.
I'm finding that experiment is, in general, a lot harder than I'd thought it would be. Even an experiment that sounds very simple, like testing these cameras, took several days to set up. And we're hitting more glitches with data analysis, what with files so huge that they just make software crash. I've talked with people who spend weeks or months setting up an experiment for which the data collection takes perhaps a day or two. Doing research like this is nothing like labs.
I always thought that if I were a physicist, I would do experiment. I figured that not being a math genius, I had little business trying to do (analytical) theory, and I didn't think I'd enjoy spending all my time coding for simulations. Maybe I should consider working with a theorist or simulator, perhaps Amy, for my thesis work. We'll see how the rest of the summer goes and what I feel about experimental physics after that.
What groups would I want to be in for my thesis work at Swat? I just don't think that the tree code galaxy collision simulations that Dan Reiganum has been working on for the past two summers with John are all that interesting. Some of John's theoretical work in the foundations of quantum mechanics might be interesting, but they seem to have little connection to actual experimental physics or the "real world". I mean that even if there's some groundbreaking discovery there about what measurement is, for instance, it probably won't have a whole lot of impact on other physicists. This is in contrast to the theorists who work on plasma, or condensed matter, whose theories can be tested by experiment.
I already said I'd consider working with Amy's positronium stuff. Who's left in terms of experimentalists? There's Frank, Carl, Catherine, Peter, and of course Doc. It seems that Frank never gets anything substantial done and so I probably wouldn't want to work with him. Doc is a great guy to work with, but I'm not sure if I'll want to stick with plasma physics. I don't really know anything about Carl, so we'll wait until after Physics 112. I'd be comfortable working with either Catherine or Peter. Peter is an especially well-respected experimentalist, so I'd learn a lot from him. I think, also, that with pretty much all the faculty at Swat, I'd avoid the interpersonal problems I've had here in Iowa. So it would probably boil down to Doc, Amy, Peter, Carl, or Catherine. If Paul Bloom sticks around, there is no way I'll get myself to do high-energy physics. I do not want to be just a cog in a group of hundreds of physicists, or as one of the REU students put it in the introductory paper we all had to write, "the water boy."
Obviously this isn't a decision I have to make for a while. Hopefully Premiere should be finishing up saving those files and I can go on to the next data set.
Perhaps I'll go home around dinnertime and get Anna Karenina. At least I'd be able to do some reading while these files save and upload.
I'm finding that experiment is, in general, a lot harder than I'd thought it would be. Even an experiment that sounds very simple, like testing these cameras, took several days to set up. And we're hitting more glitches with data analysis, what with files so huge that they just make software crash. I've talked with people who spend weeks or months setting up an experiment for which the data collection takes perhaps a day or two. Doing research like this is nothing like labs.
I always thought that if I were a physicist, I would do experiment. I figured that not being a math genius, I had little business trying to do (analytical) theory, and I didn't think I'd enjoy spending all my time coding for simulations. Maybe I should consider working with a theorist or simulator, perhaps Amy, for my thesis work. We'll see how the rest of the summer goes and what I feel about experimental physics after that.
What groups would I want to be in for my thesis work at Swat? I just don't think that the tree code galaxy collision simulations that Dan Reiganum has been working on for the past two summers with John are all that interesting. Some of John's theoretical work in the foundations of quantum mechanics might be interesting, but they seem to have little connection to actual experimental physics or the "real world". I mean that even if there's some groundbreaking discovery there about what measurement is, for instance, it probably won't have a whole lot of impact on other physicists. This is in contrast to the theorists who work on plasma, or condensed matter, whose theories can be tested by experiment.
I already said I'd consider working with Amy's positronium stuff. Who's left in terms of experimentalists? There's Frank, Carl, Catherine, Peter, and of course Doc. It seems that Frank never gets anything substantial done and so I probably wouldn't want to work with him. Doc is a great guy to work with, but I'm not sure if I'll want to stick with plasma physics. I don't really know anything about Carl, so we'll wait until after Physics 112. I'd be comfortable working with either Catherine or Peter. Peter is an especially well-respected experimentalist, so I'd learn a lot from him. I think, also, that with pretty much all the faculty at Swat, I'd avoid the interpersonal problems I've had here in Iowa. So it would probably boil down to Doc, Amy, Peter, Carl, or Catherine. If Paul Bloom sticks around, there is no way I'll get myself to do high-energy physics. I do not want to be just a cog in a group of hundreds of physicists, or as one of the REU students put it in the introductory paper we all had to write, "the water boy."
Obviously this isn't a decision I have to make for a while. Hopefully Premiere should be finishing up saving those files and I can go on to the next data set.
