yes, I love Illustrator.
I asked for it to be installed on my new work machine and they told me I could get Inkscape. Hahahahahahahahaahahahhahhhahaa.
― caek, Sunday, 30 November 2008 13:25 (fifteen years ago) link
I didn't know you were working on there is no dark matter research until I read that poster. Hooray caek!! dark matter is some suspect shit.
― TOMBOT, Sunday, 30 November 2008 17:46 (fifteen years ago) link
its real ive seen it
― ice cr?m, Sunday, 30 November 2008 17:57 (fifteen years ago) link
listen man I am a lay person who reads magazines my opinions are informed
― TOMBOT, Sunday, 30 November 2008 17:59 (fifteen years ago) link
There is there is no dark matter research, but I wouldn't say I was part of that. I'm more, "OK, dark matter works well on large scales, but things get problematic when you throw some visible matter into the mix, and this is precisely how problematic...".
There's no question that there are discrepancies between the amount of visible mass and the speed with which we see things move (e.g. stars in galaxies). That is an empirical fact that everyone agrees on and it's the observational motivation for "invisible matter that makes things move fast", i.e. dark matter. (The other observational motivation is that time jhosh saw it.)
The other way to explain these disceprancies is Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), which is modifications to Newtonian Gravity on very large scales. If you're interested then a good chatty introductions to the merits of the two is James Binney's 2003 address to the IAU in Sydney, which you can read here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0310219v2.
Basically, my understanding is that both both dark matter and MOND are fits to data rather than predictions motivated by theories. E.g. Dark matter would probably not have dropped out of theories of particle physics or field theory unless cosmologists had told particle theory people to go looking for it. But dark matter in particular works very well in a lot of situations.
I confront the predictions of dark matter with observations of rotation in galaxies, and they don't match, so the question is what's the problem. Perhaps dark matter is just plain wrong. More likely, I think, is that the models of dark matter (which is simple stuff in itself) do not correctly incorporate "baryonic physics" (things like star formation, black holes, feedback, hydrodynamics, etc. which are all terribly complicated). So on scales where these processes are important, like individual galaxies, things break down.
Dark energy is another matter though. That's some bullshit right there.
― caek, Sunday, 30 November 2008 21:39 (fifteen years ago) link
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/Picture5.png
Here's me confronting some predictions with some observations. Each plot shows the speed at which the stars in a galaxy are rotating (in km/s on the vertical axis) as a function of distance from the centre (in weird units you don't need to care about). The observations are the points. The red lines are the predictions of models. Above each plot are the parameters of those models. The first number is the number of solar masses we ascribe to each unit of solar light we see. The second number is the amount of dark matter (in units of solar masses and then logarithmed for those of you playing along at home).
So the point it this:
Take the top left plot. The first number is 0.5 so we're saying each sun we can see weighs half as much as our sun. And we've got a 1 with ten 0s after it dark matter. And the model does not rotate as quickly as the real galaxy.
So we add more dark matter (plots to the right) and more visible matter (plots to the bottom) until we get the best fit. The best fit gives us an estimate of the amount of dark matter present. The best fit here is probably about 1 with twelve 0s dark matter.
― caek, Sunday, 30 November 2008 21:51 (fifteen years ago) link
Does this guy know how to party or what?!
Today I plotted 3,330 graphs. 30 galaxies, 111 for each galaxy.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOW.jpg
― caek, Monday, 1 December 2008 20:31 (fifteen years ago) link
My supervisor has been away for a week, so I printed them all out (ran to 50 pages), wrote "Welcome back, here's 3 x 10^3 graphs, see you at 10am to discuss them." That will teach him to get on my back about my progress.
― caek, Monday, 1 December 2008 20:32 (fifteen years ago) link
I was just reading the new scientist story on how another possible explanation for the discrepancies could be that the copernican assumptions of our postal code being somewhere in a universal kansas are incorrect, or at least the assumptions about the attributes of said kansas
― El Tomboto, Monday, 1 December 2008 20:45 (fifteen years ago) link
yes, that would do it. again though, all these are post facto fits to observations and not predictions : (
― caek, Monday, 1 December 2008 23:41 (fifteen years ago) link
My program is going to take ten days to run for one graph.
― caek, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 18:12 (fifteen years ago) link
Sort of bragging, but mainly I just write shitty code.
i made a really excellent graph this weekend but i cannot post it becuz it was for work. i managed to get like five pgs of text into one easy-to-read bar graph
making charts and graphs is like my favorite part of my job
― Lamp, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 19:12 (fifteen years ago) link
BOO YA
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/jamchi2.png
― We are all from Northampton now (caek), Thursday, 5 March 2009 22:18 (fifteen years ago) link
(two months of my life)
btw, ur graph is v. pretty
― Dan I., Friday, 6 March 2009 01:24 (fifteen years ago) link
An early version of my model
http://i44.tinypic.com/33ww5yb.jpg
― I fucked up the word rear (Z S), Friday, 6 March 2009 02:57 (fifteen years ago) link
final version will look way different but hey
that's cool, but needs you get good and drunk and do stuff to it in fifteen minutes
― We are all from Northampton now (caek), Friday, 6 March 2009 17:53 (fifteen years ago) link
(sounds like my wife etc.)
― We are all from Northampton now (caek), Friday, 6 March 2009 17:54 (fifteen years ago) link
hat tip to dan m? http://www.andrewjaffe.net/blog/science/000399.html
― caek, Wednesday, 8 April 2009 23:12 (fifteen years ago) link
tufte up in this muthafucka
― Imaginary Dead Baseball Players Live in My Cornfield (Pillbox), Wednesday, 8 April 2009 23:28 (fifteen years ago) link
lol structure of the universe
http://sdss.physics.nyu.edu/vagc/shells.gif
― caek, Friday, 8 May 2009 13:13 (fifteen years ago) link
universe is made of shells
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Friday, 8 May 2009 14:51 (fifteen years ago) link
have you heard that new song by the boxy bulges, "dark matter & bars"?
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Friday, 8 May 2009 14:53 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.politico.com/blogs/anneschroeder/0609/Sen_Voinovich_Had_us_at_PacMan.html
― koogs, Friday, 12 June 2009 20:31 (fifteen years ago) link
lol bright galaxies spin faster, but one type of galaxy (the red ones) spins faster at a given luminosity than normal ones (the blue ones)
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/tf4.gif
― caek, Thursday, 5 November 2009 12:11 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/the-visual-miscellaneum/
― rap band (schlump), Monday, 23 November 2009 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
http://s3.amazonaws.com/infobeautiful/billion_dollar_960.gif
― rap band (schlump), Monday, 23 November 2009 22:13 (fourteen years ago) link
want to see some fucking beautiful display holy shits http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/92
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 18:56 (fourteen years ago) link
ha i was just watching this. and i saw it quite a long time ago during a TED addiction phase. amazing shyt.
incredible how similar and middle class most of the planet is
― goole, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 19:09 (fourteen years ago) link
love that dude
― caek, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 21:16 (fourteen years ago) link
http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 21:42 (fourteen years ago) link
http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 8 December 2009 21:51 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/mg20227041.500/mg20227041.500-1_1000.jpg
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 29 December 2009 06:14 (fourteen years ago) link
just doing mah thing
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/Picture8.pnghttp://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/Picture9.png
― caek, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 19:37 (fourteen years ago) link
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/Picture11.png
― caek, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 19:38 (fourteen years ago) link
same surface viewed in two different projections. who knew?!
i don't know if somebody posted this already, but: snow morphology!http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/primer/morphologydiagram.jpg
― Anton Levain (jdchurchill), Friday, 12 February 2010 22:52 (fourteen years ago) link
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/ngc5746_pvd.jpg
colour scheme IN YOUR FACE
― caek, Thursday, 4 March 2010 17:12 (fourteen years ago) link
http://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2010/03/21/slope.gifhttp://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2010/03/21/slope.gifhttp://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2010/03/21/slope.gif
― caek, Monday, 22 March 2010 00:43 (fourteen years ago) link
2
― caek, Monday, 22 March 2010 00:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Wheeeeeeeeeeee!that is all I have to contribute
― ljubljana, Monday, 22 March 2010 00:53 (fourteen years ago) link
well obv 2. f(x) = x^2 and the differential is 2x...
― koogs, Monday, 22 March 2010 10:04 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/mlm/6a00e0098226918833012876674340970c-800wi.jpg
as E.T. would say, this thing is rich with information and repays careful study
― caek, Monday, 22 March 2010 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
That's incredible. Do you have a larger version, or the 2009 one?
― Brakhage, Monday, 22 March 2010 18:34 (fourteen years ago) link
Sorry, just realized that I could get a larger one if I opened that one first - thanks
― Brakhage, Monday, 22 March 2010 18:35 (fourteen years ago) link
only thing slightly sus about that graph is apparently the uk is almost exactly average both in its healthcare spending and life expectancy.
― take me to your lemur (ledge), Monday, 22 March 2010 20:26 (fourteen years ago) link
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kzmiozA8Ex1qbo6leo1_500.jpg
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 22 March 2010 21:05 (fourteen years ago) link