Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
April 8, 2009
'cause y'know linkin' is good
emptywheel at firedoglake wants to boycott JP Morgan/Chase/WaMu
- interesting story, JPM is allegedly blocking Chrysler being eaten by Fiat because if Chrysler goes bankrupt JPM both gets something back on their loans, and probably triggers CDS on Chrysler bonds,…
April 8, 2009
The report by Prof. Elizabeth Warren heading the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP loans to large US banks is out.
Report is at cop.senate.gov (151 p. pdf)]
It makes interesting reading.
Section C has a discussion of European handling of the current crisis, with C.1 providing a succinct…
April 8, 2009
final stretch and we contemplate big stellar clusters in small galaxies
in particular, if you plot the observed number of globular clusters as a function of galaxy magnitude you find the specific incidence, the number of globulars per unit light, is high for large ellipticals and small for Milky…
April 7, 2009
a list of recent useful things
profound thought of the day: "it is hard to be sentimental on the 101 (N)"
TIPS tutorial from the Fed
Ethan @ Starts With a Bang - new scibling, cosmology oriented astroblog
Celestia @ shatters.net - free 3-D space visualization tool
one of these days I'll have to…
April 7, 2009
last week of the globs workshop, so the pace is stepped up, with two talks this afternoon
Michele on dynamical evolution (video and podcast)
32k runs, parametric over initial conditions
evolved mass function, primordial binaries, tidal field, variable initial concentration, IMBH presence
Glenn…
April 7, 2009
back from a brief but complex zig zag across the Southland
and we are getting ready to wrap up the globs workshop
if only we could find someone to organise the final thursday dinner...
what all happened:
yesterday Tom did a recap of the 5th UC Irvine Center for Cosmology workshop: Intermediate-…
April 6, 2009
chair of TARP oversight calls for CEOs to be fired
Elizabeth Warren, chief watchdog of America's $700bn (£472bn) bank bailout plan, will this week call for the removal of top executives from Citigroup, AIG and other institutions that have received government funds..."
"The very notion that…
April 4, 2009
Is kale actually, possibly, the healthiest food with least environmental impact for humans?
A wise friend conjectures this may possibly be so.
We must not ever find this out, the potential consequences are too awful to contemplate.
April 3, 2009
was playing at the Soho,
just stone's throw from Arigato Sushi, dontcha know...
they're really quite good, if you like harmony driven funky reggae folk poppy rock...
Anyway, Goodland
got to get some youtube vids out there guys
they were opening for Mama's Cookin'
not bad, not my style though
April 2, 2009
Bob!
We move on to open clusters, in the hope that we may actually understand those, since they are smaller and more tractable for simulations, right?
Right...
Open Clusters
"All you have to do is just go look..."
NGC 3293
Typical densities - few per cubic parsec
velocity dispersion ~ km/sec
core…
April 1, 2009
Finally, robust rumours of a head of NASA candidate
about time, and I for one look forward to our new Cylon Overlords.
April 1, 2009
a second year grad student doing his first observing run somewhere in Europe is reporting a naked eye supernova in the galactic plane in the Sagittarius constellation
twitter feeds from somewhere across the Atlantic say
"wow, it is really bright, and I know it can't be Venus"
01.04.09:
Early…
March 31, 2009
This beautiful tuesday morning, Dave tutors us on relaxation and cluster core collapse.
Then it is party at Alison's place.
But, first, we go through thermodynamics of self-gravitating internally relaxed systems, multiple equilibria and general dimensionless solutions.
Open Cluster M7 (from…
March 31, 2009
Steven Simon from Oxford University gives the Director's Blackboard Talk:
"Interesting and Useful" (video and podcast)
March 30, 2009
"He looks just like you"
"Thank you"
"Soooo cute!"
Huh?
Ok...
so:
my decades long struggle to transcend "cute" and reach some suitably manly adjective has failed,
or
cuteness is not transitive
must achieve zen
March 30, 2009
I was at a local bank this week, depositing a check from a solvent institution but one known to have cash flow issues
it is a large west coast bank, relatively well known including for some recent financial games with the Feds.
This time, the nice lady at the counter asked me if I needed immediate…
March 30, 2009
In the "Little House on the Prairie" series, one of the later books describes the family's move to the Dakota's and the long winter they suffered through.
In The Long Winter, the prairie is hammered by a rapid series of intense blizzards, from October until April - about two per week, according to…
March 30, 2009
Questa confusione non mi piace!
Parli piu silenziosamente, per favore.
Seriamente, ho mal di testa.
Si, si, pero avete considerato i campi magnetici?
Fermate, per favore.
Personalmenta, credo che il cafe espresso e disgustoso!
The Clusters09 Guide to Defusing Italian Discussions in the Morning…
March 30, 2009
The dynamics workshop in back, refreshed and ready to rock with yet more people in place.
This morning Melvyn tutors us on planets.
In globular clusters.
Planets in globulars clusters?!
From the CfA wallpaper collection - very nice images btw
Well, yes, maybe.
Or, more generally planets in very…
March 26, 2009
intense and dense afternoon as we get the current state of the art about neutron star natal kicks, theory and observational constraints
Chevy supernova!
Vicky - on NS-NS constraints (video and podcast)
need >~ 2.1-2.3 solar mass He cores to get to iron and classic type II SNe
stable mass…
March 26, 2009
Phil tutors us today on neutron star formation and retention in globulars.
So we expect neutron stars to be made in globular clusters.
Massive metal poor stars should undergo supernovae and make neutron stars for a mass range of ~ 8-15-or-20 solar masses, maybe more or less, and depending a little…
March 25, 2009
Tom leads today, talking some more about Intermediate Mass Black Holes and possible evidence for black holes in globulars.
NGC 4472 in x-rays
ok, so there is probably a black hole in a globular in NGC 4472, and this, and the discovery paper
and very nice it is too
variable point x-ray source (…
March 24, 2009
so The Intersection has followed several other of the top ranked science blogs to the Discoverblog hive
all well and good, and good luck to them at Bob's place (not no, not that Bob, Jr).
he dated Ann Coulter - wow, one learns the strangest things on the Nets
Anyway, the Baad Astronomer and his…
March 24, 2009
you'd think that clusters that are bigger ought to be more massive, and vica versa.
ah, but are they? Arunav discusses
cf figure 2 in Kissler-Patig et al 2006
which was by all accounts a most invigorating and energetic discussion
but I missed 95% of it, as my paymasters required my presence in…
March 23, 2009
What if, Geithner is a Good Guy, who has a Real Secret Plan which the bailout is intended to effect, and which will do enormous public good?
I mean, we can hope, right?
That he is not just another Goldman Sachs frontman who has confused What is Good for Goldman being in the US or World Interest?…
March 23, 2009
Astrophysicists like to quantify their estimates. One way to do that is to offer bets, with odds, on hypotheses or models being correct. There have been some famous bets, with spectacular odds.
We now have a new one, and a very daring one too.
Prof. Cole Miller gave today's Director's Blackboard…
March 23, 2009
Carnival of Space #95 at Orbital Hub.
Actually an interesting assortment of posts this week.
March 23, 2009
the sun is back, and so is the intrepid gang of globularists here at the Kavli institute
apparently this week is gravitational radiation sources, with primary focus on intermediate mass black holes - including evidence hinting at their possible presence, and the possible fun things we can do with…