A Less-Seen View of Complex Numbers

This post is a little different from the last one, only because it's more about mathematics than physics. It's based on thoughts I have been having about complex numbers and how they relate to 2-dimensional vectors. Follow the jump to see more.

An Ode to Johnson Noise

This idea for a post has been percolating for a while. I feel like now I am finally ready to share it.
Last semester, in the class 8.13 — Experimental Physics I, one of the experiments that I did was investigating the phenomena of Johnson noise and shot noise and using thes to find, respectively, the Boltzmann constant and electron charge. The other experiments that I did were investigating properties of hydrogen-like atoms through spectroscopy, and determining the speed and decay times of cosmic-ray muons. By far the best and worst experience was with Johnson noise. Follow the jump to read on.

Featured Comments: Week of 2013 February 10

There was one post this past week that got a handful of comments, so I will repost all of those.

Review: Chakra 2013.02 "Benz"

Reader Mechatotoro had this to say: "Very useful review, thanks. I am also tempted to install Chakra..."
Commenter crabdog shared, "Had a bit of a play with it on a virtual machine. It looks pretty cool but would take something even better to make me change from my Netrunner KDE installation which I am still loving."
An anonymous reader said, "Looks like this is the best release the chakra team ever had".
Another anonymous commenter had this bit of support: "Thank you, great rewiev, keep tracking Chakra :)"

Thanks to all those people for commenting on that post. This coming week, I intend to start a long-term review of Chakra, though that of course won't finish for a few weeks. Until then, I may or may not have other distribution reviews out. However, I do intend to post a bit more about physics- and school-related stuff, and that will pick up this week. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Chakra 2013.02 "Benz"

Main Screen + KDE Kickoff

It's been a while since I looked at Chakra, so I was thinking now might be a good time to do that. Plus, KDE 4.10 just came out with a whole bunch of new features and fixes, so I wanted to check that out too. So this is the subject of today's review.

I've tried Chakra a number of times before. It was originally derived from Arch, but since a couple years ago it has been developed in a fully independent manner. It uses a "semi-rolling" release model, in which applications like Mozilla Firefox and other front-end features like KDE are updated on a rolling basis, while core system components are held to be more stable.

I tried this (64-bit version, as there is no 32-bit edition anymore) on a live USB system made through the "dd" command; due to Chakra now using the GFXBoot tool for booting, neither MultiSystem nor UnetBootin worked, and I didn't have any other data on this USB drive, so I was OK with using that tool. This review almost didn't happen because right after the boot menu, the message "invalid or corrupt kernel image" would come up. I decided to give this one last shot by downloading the ISO file again and trying again, and it worked! Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Sixth Semester at College

Today is the first day of my sixth semester at college. I'll be taking 8.06 — Quantum Physics III, 8.14 — Experimental Physics II (also known colloquially as "J-Lab"), and 14.03 — Microeconomic Theory & Public Policy. I feel like taking three classes apart from J-Lab was too much last semester, so taking two this semester should make my schedule feel a lot more sane and manageable. Plus, now I have a handle on what J-Lab expects, so striving to meet that should be easier now. Finally, I did this because my UROP sort of fell to the wayside last semester, and I don't want that to happen this semester, so now I should be able to spend more time on both classes and that. Hopefully this semester will be a good one; good luck to all my fellow classmates out there!

Reflection: 2013 IAP

This IAP was a ton of fun, and I was also able to get quite a bit done. The highlight was in my UROP, which is a continuation of what I was doing in the past semester. In late November, there was a power outage that reintroduced a previously-fixed bug into the computing cluster that I used, which caused various issues for my photonic crystal calculations. After trying several different workarounds, it wasn't until two weeks ago that I figured out how to properly route around the issue; when that happened, I was quite happy to have sensible, working flux spectrum calculations. Some people from the main UROP office also came to chat with me about what I am doing for my UROP, which was cool. At the same time, I was able to start wrapping up my project from the 2011 fall semester by creating more proper figures for the work I did then.
On the side, I worked on a video for the MIT-K12 initiative, which is a partnership between MIT and the Khan Academy. I was able to create a video about friction aimed at middle school students, and I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. It should become official in a few weeks, at which point I will have either an update to this post or a separate follow-up post to include links to that and the result of the UROP chat (whenever that gets finalized).
I was also able to start typesetting lecture notes for 8.04 — Quantum Physics I for use by MIT OCW. I'm working with two other friends on that as well to get it done more efficiently.
The last week of IAP was particularly hectic. Along with the UROP chat, I was able to participate at the Diversity Summit as part of a panel of students with disabilities. Also, I helped to organize the SPS and UWIP joint Physics Lightning Lectures event.
There were a few things I was not able to do, but those can be done later, and I am glad that I gave myself enough time to rest and take life at a more relaxed pace compared to that of the semester. That said, this blog will likely reenter a sort of hibernation once the semester starts next Tuesday (and another post on that will likely occur on Monday or Tuesday of this coming week). Anyway, for this weekend, I am just going to relax and enjoy the large televised football game tomorrow!

Featured Comments: Week of 2013 January 13

This past week, there was one post that got a handful of comments, so I will repost most of those.

Review: Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow" GNOME

Reader Brandon clarified, "If you are talking about the google talk video browser plugin, I just tested installing that on my f18 install and the install went fine (haven't tested the plugin itself though). To install it I did: sudo yum --nogpgcheck localinstall google-talkplugin_current_x86_64.rpm".
Commenter crabdog had this to share: "I had a quick look at Fed18 but the lack of codecs, the incredibly boring default appearance and 'clumsy' package management turned me away from it pretty quickly. I went on to try the latest Netrunner and that one took me by surprise. It's gorgeous to look at and is very smooth to use (although the RAM usage is high, like most KDE). I even replaced my trusty AriOs install with it, mainly because I like those extra desktop effects and customization options that come with KDE."
Reader F1L0 added, "Some screenshot of Fedora 18 KDE here: http://linuxscreenshot.netsons.org/fedora-18-kde/".
Commenter ken halloran had this to say: "Fedora 18. I hated it. Gnome 3. Yuk. So buggy, I ran to get the Raid.I'd give more details, but I'd need intense therapy to recover. Bad. Just Bad."

Thanks to all those who commented on that post. This coming week, I'm hoping to have another review out. And as always, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow" GNOME

Although I have reviewed a number of Fedora remixes, I haven't reviewed proper Fedora since the very first review/comparison test I posted on this blog over 3 years ago. There are, however, a few reasons for me to be trying this out today.

GNOME 3/Shell Activities

Fedora is typically more for Linux users with intermediate levels of experience and comfort with Linux, as well as for developers and administrators who want to see what is coming in RHEL/CentOS. That said, it can sometimes make a good consumer-grade desktop distribution as well, as long as it is done right; that's why there are so many remixes of it out there. But that doesn't explain why this review exists. I am trying Fedora today because I have not checked out GNOME 3/Shell in a while. I am also trying it because the Anaconda installer is supposed to have been thoroughly revamped. But mostly, I am trying it out because as a physics student, the codename tickled me enough to give it another look. (For those who don't know, a popular joke about physics problems takes such modeling to its logical extreme by applying it to a cow milking: "Imagine that this cow is spherical and radiates milk isotropically...".)

I tried the live session through a live USB system made with MultiSystem. As the revamped installer is a new feature, I tried the installation as well through a 64-bit Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce live USB system made with MultiSystem as well. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2013 January 6

This past week, there was one post that got two comments, so I will repost both of those.

Preview: Elementary OS 2 "Luna" Beta 1

Reader CruelAngel said, "I belive you can move windows Alt+grab style but instead of Alt you need to press Super. Don't ask me why. (Maybe they wanted to use Super for something too. XD) Also the volume control notifyOSD is from Ubuntu. Their notify OSD has this feature since always."
Commenter crabdog had this to say: "Elementary is shaping up really nicely. I just hope that the release version isn't already obsolete/outdated by the time it arrives."

Thanks to those who commented on that post. Right now, IAP has started (and I will have a post at the end of it reflecting on it, but that won't be for another couple of weeks), so I am more free to post things here. That means that this coming week, there will be another review. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Preview: Elementary OS 2 "Luna" Beta 1

Almost 2 years ago, a bit after its official release, I reviewed Elementary OS 0.1 "Jupiter". There I said that there was a ton of hype surrounding its release, and that I had bought into the hype a little bit. Since then, there has been hype of a few more orders of magnitude surrounding version 2 "Luna", given the higher expectations and greater promises. Even so, there hasn't been an official release yet, so I am reviewing the first official pre-release version possible. I'll probably review the official release when that comes out as well.

Main Screen

Elementary OS was born out of the Elementary project, which started as simply a theming project for GNOME 2 and GTK+ applications. It spawned more sophisticated projects like Nautilus Elementary, and then eventually turned into an OS project. The first version was essentially a lighter, faster, optimized, and prettier-looking but otherwise standard Ubuntu-based GNOME 2 distribution. This second version promises much more. For one, many of the GNOME applications and even the GNOME desktop environment itself have been banished in favor of Elementary-developed applications. For another, many further optimizations and design decisions have been made to make it stand out from the pack.

I tried Elementary OS using a live USB made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what it's like, how it has improved, and whether it is worth the hype. For the record, it didn't work correctly the first time that I tried it, so what follows is the result of the second attempt. Also, be aware that in this review more than in others, the focus will be on the desktop environment and not as much on whether specific applications did or did not work.