Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
January 28, 2009
Cosmic Collisions: Galaxies, an astronomy special, one of three,
is airing tonight (wednesday 18th January) at 10 pm eastern/pacific, 9 pm central
oh it is on the discovery channel.
PS: here is the full schedule for Cosmic Collisions
the associated discover space web page
I hear two more "Cosmic…
January 28, 2009
I missed the session on tuesday of "Short Talks: Structure of GCs and Their Dynamics",
fortunately the audio and video feed is here for posterity
Fujii, Varri and Waters present.
January 28, 2009
how big is a globular cluster?
There are many ways to measure the size of a globular cluster, both observationally and theoretically.
This causes some confusion, especially when theorists try to talk to observers, or vica versa.
rc - the core radius
there are at least three definitions of this:
1…
January 28, 2009
or, why I am not a mathematician at heart
January 26, 2009
wherein you can learn about the "No Teleportation Theorem" and why there is no classical Scattering Theorem
or some such nonsense...
me, podcast with bonus video feed.
Argh.
one of the nice, but occasionally disturbing things about the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics is that they podcast…
January 24, 2009
"Making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science..."
So, the supplemental funding bill is moving through the House committee in sub-sections as different "Titles" of it are processed through the political sausage…
January 23, 2009
Situation in Iceland is getting worse every day.
PM is out; fish exports are down sharply because of lack of buyers - partly lack of credit by European importers, partly economic collapse in eastern and southern Europe - this could crush any prospect for short term recovery.
Larger protests…
January 23, 2009
it is still raining?!
so we have an east coaster telling us about actual data
on x-ray binaries
in clusters, globular clusters
in other galaxies...
there is an open-to-the-program-members blog over on the cluster09 wikispace.
It has some good summary of yesterdays in depth discussion on runaway…
January 23, 2009
Carnival of Space #87
yes, it is carnival time again - the science carnivals have been fading recently, good to see something is still going
January 22, 2009
it is raining, might as well liveblog the morning session...
runaway mergers of colliding stars - the quick and dirty intro...
stars are, in fact extended bodies.
This is mostly irrelevant to astronomers, since typical stellar separations are very large.
But, in dense stellar clusters, the…
January 21, 2009
Downtown DC shortly before noon, 20th January 2009
click to embiggen (big - 8kx8k ~ 10Mb)>A
h/t Jessica
January 21, 2009
Iceland shows the world the way.
the revolution will be twittered
The Heat is On - Eiríkur Bergmann's grauniad article on civil unrest in Iceland.
Newsfrettir has more - interesting sequence of pictures...
Hey, I think that is my cousin storming the "United Left" meeting at the National Theater.…
January 21, 2009
Multiple stellar populations in globular clusters (overview).
like this in NGC2808 (paper)
or even good old M4, and and NGC1851, and of course Omega Cen.
the original view of globular clusters is that they are the quintessential coeval sets of stellar populations - that all the stars in any…
January 21, 2009
it is cloudy and cold...
some random links to ponder:
FSP is on form as she asks "How hard should graduate students work?"
Mike Tobis studies blog error propagation
The Glorious Fool
"And I? Ah, would that I might these
Rude stanzas shape to worth and rule;
But like you, I may not please
Half-…
January 21, 2009
Change is good, right?
Nice of Sean to take the blame, just in case someone is feeling curmudgeonly about it.
Not that they should, since the option of continuing the old way by default is still there...
That is change we can live with.
January 20, 2009
getting organized
- unlike the totally laid back string theorists, the astrophysics program has daily morning meetings to discuss progress
except today
today we get to meet after lunch, everybody was kinda busy this morning for some reason...
then we get informal short talk presentations once a…
January 20, 2009
New calculations suggest the question of whether the universe is holographic or not is testable, and recent data is consistent with the model, and consistent with the universe actually being holographic.
h/t Jake at Pure Pedantry
Prof Craig Hogan, the new director of the Center for Particle…
January 18, 2009
with the original verses put back in
ok, let's try the hispanic broadcast since HBO seems to think they own the other version
oh, and that Bruce fella ain't half bad neither
h/t kos
January 15, 2009
The proposed economic stimulus package includes some funding for science.
Chunk for NSF, lot of facility funding.
NASA gets climate science.
DoE gets some toys.
Appropriations Stimulus 0115 (pdf)
The total package is somewhere in the $800+ billion range, as proposed.
With about 1/3 proposed as tax…
January 15, 2009
D
we set D equal to the measured value from A.N. Experimenter et al (2009)
we set D = 8π3/2/3 (Stokes 1854)
we set D = 8π3/2(1 + ε)/3, where ε = 4.2*10-7 is the Me-Stokes parameter (Me 1973), correcting for second order effects.
do you mean a total derivative or a partial derivative?
well, the "…
January 15, 2009
I am currently at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, hanging out at the "Formation and Evolution of Globular Clusters" workshop.
Apparently I am, for now, also the official "program blogger" program rapporteur...
cause you know everything sounds fancier in french
Who knew.
When David…
January 14, 2009
Hubble supplemental decisions are done, e-mails are coming out this morning.
Score!
bloomin' heck.
Now what do we do...?
So, how did y'all do?
Hold on.
Phase II is due when?
(Jan 27 in case you wondered, that is less than 2 weeks)
Aargh.
January 13, 2009
the weather is perfect
the ambiance is ideal
the food is good
the company is stimulating
but...
California is just not designed with pedestrians in mind, to the level that it is near impossible to cross roads separating adjacent neighbourhoods, or even walk between adjacent areas of shopping and…
January 10, 2009
my new office is probably the best office in academia
When I was in my final year as a graduate student, I had what I thought then was the best office in academia.
It had been Prof. Kip Thorne's office - on the ground floor on the north side, with french doors onto a balcony overlooking the Rose…
January 8, 2009
wtf is an impact evaluator???
apparently it is the trendy thing to be
the World Bank tries to explain
it is not convincing...
January 6, 2009
Hera Hjartardóttir
Her version of "The Girl Who Stares at the Sea" is one of my favorites.
January 6, 2009
random snippets from the 213th semi-annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach
not that I am there...
Hannah - one of the co-bloggers at Women in Astronomy is liveblogging from the AAS
I hear there were some excellent talks and posters on black holes and galaxies and white…
January 5, 2009
Prof Buiter on Maverecon over at FT.
Looking at the trap that the US finds itself in, economically.
Then dash quickly over to Krugman for some light relief.