February 2006 Archives
Because it just works! I'm making this global climate model, and by simply multiplying the solar constant by 1 minus albedo to calculate heat absorbtion, using the Stefan-Boltzmann Law to compute heat radiation, and figuring the temperature by average internal energy of an ideal gas, one can predict the steady-state atmospheric temperature of the earth to surprising accuracy. It's pretty much the most simplistic model imaginable, but it almost works.
Yesterday, I was cranking through an absolutely miserable integral to find an electric field, when I suddenly realized that I have spent the better part of the last year and a half of my physics education solely learning electricity and magnetism. I think that it's time to move on to a new topic. I'm getting really bored of integrating electric fields and Biot-Savart over and over and over again. Dan Szymkowiak and I were having a conversation about the difference between quantum mechanics and quantum field theory (of which I'm still not certain) at the tournament yesterday. While my mathematical skills are still too weak to approach quantum mechanics, I think learning it will be my next pet project. Meanwhile, I continue to plod through the tedium of the homework problems in Griffiths's "Introduction to Electrodynamics."
I just returned from the speech and debate tournament at Mt. Hood Community College, where we all crushed the competition yet again. For the past three years, we have placed 2nd at this tournament behind a certain, pesky University High School from Spokane, Washington. This year the curse undid itself: we finally finished 1st overall, edging out University by a narrow 6-point margin. In particular, the Kadish-Anderson chimera continued its unstoppable streak, winning six rounds straight. We have now won sixteen consecutive rounds and have placed 1st in three consecutive tournaments. Actually, we technically tied for 1st place with none other than B. Ford and K.P. Colin rightly concluded that it was silly to run a final round between two teams from the same school, so we split the honor and called it good. Apparently we have earned somewhat of a reputation among the debaters in the state. One opponent was heard stating, "Wilson?? Argh, I hate Wilson." Another said, "Oh man. Wilson-KA?? They always rape us."
Speaking of debate prowess, Jordan and Mackenzie--two freshmen--won second in novice public debate at their first tournament ever. Kibe and I placed 2nd and 1st respectively in extemporaneous speaking. Although our success was primarily due to the fact that the Westview nazis weren't at the tournament, we are beginning to fulfill my aspirations of creating an extemp dynasty. While we won too many awards for me to fully remember, I do want to mention that B. Ford truly showed her brilliance today. She won the award for earning the most sweepstakes points for any team. She tied with us for first in debate (which she has never seriously done before), won first in dual (which she memorized last Friday in a period of two hours), and second in after-dinner speaking (which she wrote and memorized sometime this week). Not too shabby.
I'm basically a complete, sleep-deprived, nervous train wreck.
I have had an ongoing debate with my dad about the value of deterministic modeling of complex systems, like populations and economies, for example. After spending a couple hours playing with the Lotka-Volterra differential equations (for predator-prey interactions) and recently learning the specific factors and Heckscher-Ohlin models of international trade, I am becoming more and more convinced that it is all pretty worthless. All of these models are fun and interesting in the abstract sense, but their accuracy isn't a whole lot better than the flip of a coin. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to determine the actual effect of individual parameters on the system as a whole, even with techniques such as multiple regression. I think I'll stick to things that are easier to succeed at.
Well, I'm back. I can't see straight, and I haven't slept in about 21 hours, but I'm back, and that is what matters. Jonathan Kadish and I just cleaned up public debate for the second week in a row, by winning 1st place out of 24 teams at the Silverton HS tournament. We're now on a 10 round winning streak. I won some other stuff, Jon won some other stuff, and other people won yet more. Things are looking a bit better than they did a month or so ago.
I just saw "Rolling Family" at the Portland International Film Festival, and it was quite top notch: sort of a humorous satire on family dysfunctionality. An Argentinian family essentially goes on a road trip through the entire country to get to a relative's wedding in an obscure small town. The family is literally bursting at the seams, with everyone alternately attacking and having affairs with everyone else. It sounds like a moderately sappy plot, but it is actually an exceptional film. After Alison and I went to that, we took the streetcar from downtown to Northwest, where we saw a brief improv show and drank some tea. I seem to have met my superior; not only is she vastly more intelligent than me, but she has no known imperfections. She's going to Stanford, does independent research on neurotoxins at OHSU, is fluent/proficient in at least four languages, and the list goes on. Actually, she does have one imperfection (although it's terribly harsh to call it that): she can't drive. That is a long and hilarious story that I will save for another time. It's 1:10 AM. I have to get up at 5 AM. Oh my god.
People typically hold a stigma against blogs on the pretense that they consist primarily of moody, adolescent rantings, with little real value. Although my blogging arguably still characterizable as "adolescent ranting," at least it has been coated in a generous layer of "Adamness". This entry may be a bit like the stereotype though.
This is all because today sucked--severely. Firstly, I went to sleep at 2 AM last night because I had a bunch of homework, and I couldn't really think of what to write for my essay in my problem set. We were supposed to respond to one of four articles, commenting on the "persuasiveness" of the arguments, somehow without summarizing them at all. I thought that I would sleep on it and finish it in Fisher's class in the morning. Unfortunately, Fisher had a ton of homework for me to grade, and it was initially unclear how to grade it. Things weren't so bad for the next few hours although I felt bad that my essay ended up being such garbage. So I carted myself off to Reed and turned in my problem set, only to receive solutions and learn that I seriously messed up one of the problems. This wouldn't be so bad if I didn't already know that my essay was crap and if there weren't a mere four questions in the problem set to begin with. The only saving grace is that Reed rarely reveals grades to students, so I only have the deal with the scathing criticism of my professor, not a number to make me feel even worse. Being wrong is perhaps the only thing I hate more than I love being right. I can't stand it! As we were discussing the readings, I realized that economic models (especially ones dealing with international trade) are utterly worthless. Their accuracy is frequently about 50/50 depending on how you make your calculations. The only truly successful model (in my very inexpert opinion) is the Ricardian model, which is only correct because it essentially makes only one prediction--a prediction that is obvious by common sense anyway.
After feeling idiotic, I missed my trumpet lesson because the bus was late, and proceeded to go to Mock Trial. I went early so I could do some work, and suprise, suprise, I ran into Tom Hall. Tom Hall was in an even more despondant mood than usual, having decided that he had wasted the last four years of his life, etc., etc. Once in Mock Trial, I did all my direct examinations for the defense well enough, but the rest of the top team and I had to make the collective decision of whether we wanted to kick one of our members off the team. We decided to do so, and it was terribly uncomfortable. The person wasn't there, but we all felt terrible about it. Luckily we elected Kibe to be the replacement for the evicted team member, and he should be stellar.
After all this unpleasantness, I rode with Beth to take Kim home after Mock Trial, at around 8 PM. Kim's domestic situation is somewhat complicated and unfortunate, and she was recently emancipated. Until she heads off to the University of Chicago next year, she's living with an extraordinarily wealthy family at the very top of the West Hills. She claimed to live above Council Crest, but I don't think that's actually possible, since Council Crest is the highest point in the West Hills. Needless to say, the radio tower is basically in her back yard, so that gives you a clue. No matter how you slice it, she lives on Bourgeois Hill. Anyway, Beth and I were winding down Bourgeois Hill to our homes in the land of the Southwest Portland proleteriat, bemoaning our bad situation in mock trial and how our mutual nonconfrontational personalities make life terribly uncomfortable sometimes. Sometimes being like Jonathan Kadish does have its advantages. A classic response of a nonconfrontational person in an uncomfortable situation is to attempt to create humor. We were discussing this when suddenly she said, "What is worse than an apple with worm in it?" I had no idea. "The Holocaust," she replied. It's very true indeed. So keep things in perspective. It was about the only good thing I heard all day.
The latest development is even more bad news. I had bought tickets to go to "Rolling Family," an Argentinian film, at the International Film Festival for tomorrow. A friend and I were planning on going alone. Not only did all of my transportation plans cave in (it's difficult since I can't drive, you know), but it turns out that Profe and Señora are both going with some students. While I love my Spanish teachers, I sense a large potential for disastrous embarrassment.
It's a bit late, and I'm extraordinarily incoherent. Here's my best. Jonathan Kadish and I somehow combined our wits today to rise above 46 other teams in public debate, over six rounds, to come out first place. It was extremely satisfying to have such a smashing performance in a tournament in which Ian and Mr. Kadish did not make semifinals last year. I also took a respectable third place out of 30-40 entrants in radio commentary, and a mediocre fifth in a field of about 30 in US extemporaneous speaking. Others did well, but particularly Carolyn, who took first in novice Lincoln-Douglas debate, and who was the second-best speaker in that field. Afterward, I had a lengthy drive back to Portland, followed by an absolutely, positively, indisputably lovely couple of hours at Coffee Time on NW 21st. That's probably the simplest way to describe it--no explanation necessary.
You would feel like shooting yourself too if you had just derived by hand the line element, gradient, divergence, curl, and Laplacian in spherical and parabolic coordinates. Our physics professor has this annoying habit of giving us ridiculously tedious problems, which basically take hours of brute force algebra and simple calculus to complete.
