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Jan. 7th, 2009 01:04 amThe 48 hour QFT final begins at noon tomorrow. I have been preparing intensely since Hogmanay, and a little while home before that; I don't know whether whatever understanding I've managed to attain is actual or merely superficial, but at the very least I don't think I'm hopelessly confused the way I had been before Christmas. The physics and philosophy behind, and mathematical procedures for, canceling the UV and IR divergences that arise at 1-loop in QED and scalar field theories no longer seem to be an impenetrable fog of mathematical hocus-pocus, at least. There are plenty of things I don't totally understand, and I really hope we don't get anything really exotic (like detailed calculations involving fields of spin higher than 1).
I also have my laptop back, which I'm particularly glad about since I found out today that we're allowed to use Mathematica on the exam. I don't want to go into the details, but I'm a little frustrated with the service I got at the Apple Store on Boylston Street downtown. I was set to pick it up last night, but when I went in and we tried to boot up the laptop, it promptly kernel-panicked again. They've now put in a new fan, keyboard/trackpad, and AirPort card, which according to the panic log triggered the kernel panic in the store. I'm just glad that this is (hopefully) over with, and moreover I like the feel of the new keyboard a lot more than what I had before.
Finally, as much of an ordeal as the QFT final is likely to be, I am just grateful to not be a G1. A lot of them apparently have 120 hours of essentially continuous exams this week: a 24-hour in stat mech which finished this afternoon, and then back-to-back 48's in E/M and quantum. The 24 + 48 with a day in between to write a paper was bad enough my first year; I don't know how I'd ever get through that kind of physics ultramarathon.
I also have my laptop back, which I'm particularly glad about since I found out today that we're allowed to use Mathematica on the exam. I don't want to go into the details, but I'm a little frustrated with the service I got at the Apple Store on Boylston Street downtown. I was set to pick it up last night, but when I went in and we tried to boot up the laptop, it promptly kernel-panicked again. They've now put in a new fan, keyboard/trackpad, and AirPort card, which according to the panic log triggered the kernel panic in the store. I'm just glad that this is (hopefully) over with, and moreover I like the feel of the new keyboard a lot more than what I had before.
Finally, as much of an ordeal as the QFT final is likely to be, I am just grateful to not be a G1. A lot of them apparently have 120 hours of essentially continuous exams this week: a 24-hour in stat mech which finished this afternoon, and then back-to-back 48's in E/M and quantum. The 24 + 48 with a day in between to write a paper was bad enough my first year; I don't know how I'd ever get through that kind of physics ultramarathon.
