Recent content by TaylorRatliff

There are other schemes of laser-plasma interactions for accelerating particles. I'm an undergraduate working on ion acceleration from thin foil targets in the radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) scheme. My work is a mix of analytic theory and computational science.

I'm a student and undergraduate TA at UT Austin, and have some strong but mixed feelings about the use of Quest in lower division courses. It certainly helps the course run smoothly from the instructors view, but I would rather see more written problems emphasizing problem solving and thought...

What do you want to accomplish? As a fellow transhumanist its my opinion that developing human/machine interfaces is the biggest problem. Maybe you should look into bio-physics, specifically regarding the nervous system. In the next 10 years you could be working on making robotic arms or legs...

Thanks for the advice, Choppy! I've emailed APS about it, my concern is that potential graduate advisors from a much broader range of topics in plasma physics will be at the undergraduate session, and if I'm not presenting there I will lose opportunities to make an impression. Upon browsing...

In one week I'll be flying to Chicago with my group to attend my first APS conference, the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP). This is a pretty critical moment in my academic career, as I'm a senior undergraduate in the process of applying for graduate school, and I want to make a good...

The first thing I read was Carl Sagan's contact (I have a PDF - unfortunately its not in the kindle store). I mostly use my kindle for reading PDFs, as very few textbooks are available in the kindle store. Amazon also let's you convert PDFs to kindle format, but for texts rich in diagrams and...

I was under the impression that the name "god particle" was a euphemistic, popularizing twist on "god damned particle".

Plasma physics - especially magnetic confinement for fusion.

I watched this the other day, and couldn't help but grin as he somewhat nervously revealed why he has spent so much time and effort on this project: Physics. Once a physicist, always a physicist I suppose. I don't know what to think about NKS though. It sounds good in theory but where are the...

I have a related question, so I won't start a new thread: I understand that the electron degeneracy pressure arises from the Pauli exclusion principle, which forbids two electrons from occupying the same quantum state. However it has been explained to me, and I can show that the degeneracy...

Well you can never get in more than you put out, but you can get closer to 100% efficiency. Think of a gasoline engine in a car, only a small amount of the chemical potential energy in the gasoline is converted into kinetic energy, a lot is lost in the form of heat.

This is an interesting development, the real question is how much more efficient is this than current power generation tech? You still need fuel, for example gasoline, but a slow chemical reaction could be orders of magnitude more efficient than combustion. I guess we'll find out Wednesday...

This is an interesting development, the real question is how much more efficient is this than current power generation tech? You still need fuel, for example gasoline, but a slow chemical reaction could be orders of magnitude more efficient than combustion. I guess we'll find out Wednesday...

The iPad disappointed a lot of people who were expecting a revolutionary new device because the iPad is not revolutionary, it's evolutionary. It uses the same simple layout 75 million people already know how to use. Its built to deliver content in the form of music, movies, TV shows, and apps...

I don't think the Binomial distribution is appropriate here, check out the Negative Binomial Distribution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_binomial_distribution