I’m in the library, revising for my electromagnetism exam by reading some of the Feynman lectures on physics. He presents the material in a clear, accessible, and interesting way, and it’s a real joy to read. He also goes off on some great tangents to relate the basic material to more complex unsolved problems in Physics, and it’s really, really interesting. He addresses all the issues you have as an undergraduate - should I have a mental model of what’s going on, is this treatment accurate, and provides tips and tricks for solving various problems.

This got me to thinking in general of how easy it is for your enthusiasm for something to be crushed by the process of actually having to study it - sometimes you read about things the great scientists of the past discovered and you wonder how they could bring themselves to work on anything quite so dull!

Makes me wonder if perhaps we get our knowledge too easy; the things which were the life’s work of some of our greatest minds, taught in a lazy afternoon.

Obliquely, this led me on to thinking about Lost. I’ve just seen the 4th season finale, so it’s on my mind, but I’m going to avoid spoilers here! I realised they’d got their characterisations of the characters completely and utterly wrong!

Jack is the man of faith, and Locke is the man of science! Jack believes so thoroughly in “reason” that he totally ignores the things he can see with his own two eyes - like giant columns of black smoke that can kill people. Locke has the use of his legs restored, and immediately comes to the conclusion that something awfully odd is going on. Locke’s attitude is clearly the more scientific. The writers obviously have no idea what they’re talking about.

This could be just because I’m feeling a tad hostile towards them right now - anyone who’s seen the finale can probably guess why!

On a quick skive from revision, thought I’d make a quick note on what I’m upto.

Mostly, going to the library every day. First exam is at 2pm on Wednesday, which gives me a frighteningly short amount of time left. My morning haze has started to wear off, so I really ought to get down to business!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/news/080520_news_01

This is really just the best news ever. I guess the news I heard was true. 

Annoyingly, the full 5th series won’t actually be on until 2010. In 2009 all we get is 4 specials. Lame! Also lame is that the first of Moffat’s two-parter this series (The Silence in the Library) is delayed by a week due to Eurovision.

http://live.cgcu.net/news/1769

After a unanimous decision by Union council, there will be a referendum on disaffiliation from the NUS this term.

The NUS conference in Blackpool was an unmitigated disaster, and there is no benefit to Imperial staying in this shambles any longer. Next year, the NUS will cost us £46,000 if this disaffiliation doesn’t go through. £46,000 that could be spent on Imperial students, rather than going to the utterly pointless NUS.

I know you have exams, but the vote will be online, and it’ll take only 10 minutes to do. I hope as many of you as possible (who are Imperial students, naturally) will remember to vote.

It looks like the poll will take place in the second-to-last week of term.

So revision is proceeding more or less on track. Things which I thought were scary now appear less so! It’s good. Haven’t really got a lot to write about right now, but I’m trying out a little experiment in microblogging, using Twitter.

You can see my Twitter stream here, the RSS feed of it here, as my status on Facebook (that’s automatic, how awesome is that?), or on the sidebar of my blog homepage.

I’m hoping to post updates slightly more regularly than I would here, as there isn’t the burden of feeling like I have to write a whole post. Also, I can write updates by sending a text from my phone if something really cool happens, which is tremendously awesome.

Exams start on the 28th. It’s all downhill from here!

Update: Doing a trial of using Disqus comments. This may/may not go well.

I really, really dislike revision. It’s not so bad when it’s something that’s reasonably interesting, like Quantum Mechanics or something, but trying to bludgeon my brain into learning Thermodynamics in this kind of heat is frankly just horrific and painful, and I want it to go away and leave me alone.

My exams are:

• Thermodynamics & Statistical Physics
• Quantum Mechanics
• Applications of Quantum Mechanics & Electrons in Solids
• Fourier Methods, Differential Equations, & Statistics of Meausurement
• Mathematical Methods
• Electromagnetism & Optics

I’ve done one past paper each for the first two, and overall I’m fairly confident, although there are some pretty major gaps in my Thermodynamic knowledge (how do you work out entropy change again?!), which I’m desperately trying to plug. I’ve done some revision in the other areas too, so I’m feeling fairly alright with differential equations, and statistics is just a retread of A Level stats anyway, for the most part.

First exam is on the 28th, so things are moving on.

Went camping last weekend, may or may not do a writeup on that at some point, possibly when I run out of ways to continue procrastinating. Should have struck while the iron was hot.

Utter madness.

With thanks to New Scientist for publishing this!

The best part is going through the formulae, as it’s patently obvious that they make no sense at all.