Recent content by tim_lou

Hi everybody: I'll be graduating this year but don't want to just blow my summer away. I want to do something useful (get an internship, peace corp or something like that). I found the SULI program by DOE that accepts graduating seniors. What about other opportunities? I am willing to try...

boundedness isn't really a topological property, for any metrizable space, one can introduce a new metric: d' = min{d, 1} and the resulting topology will be the same and the metric will be bounded. More obviously and specifically to your example, (a,b) is homeomorphic to the real line, which...

Hello, I know this has been asked many times... but I am greatly worried about the verbal GRE session. English is not my first language but I've been around long enough to be considered a fluent speaker. Realistically speaking, I'll probably get around Verbal: ~450 (what if I completely bomb...

I have to disagree. For instance, do you really think taking differential geometry, and learning manifolds, tangent spaces, pull backs, curvature is easier and benefits you more than an actual GR course which skims through curvature+connection and go straight into Einstein's field equation and...

That's a nice video of Feynman! Anyway, I'm 20 and have been wondering about this question all my life. But in the end, it never gets me anywhere. I wondered if I really like physics, I wondered if going into the academia is really meaningful, I wondered if I'd be happier to just leave...

To get into REUs, you must at least know a good chunk of E&M, maybe quantum mechanics and some other things. If you have these under your belt, it's not hard to get into some programs (specially with good GPA). Otherwise, it'll depend heavily on your luck. Try to ask some professor for research...

I am not sure how much of that is true. I've heard that most good grad students going into theory already know QFT as a freshman (in grad school). And to be quite honest, taking a QFT class doesn't necessarily mean that I know QFT. Though getting started early is definitely a plus. It's...

yeah... definitely a problem. A lot of dedicated physics major (including myself) tend to overlook stuffs regarding relationships, but as a human being, it is still an important part of living a fulfilling life.

Alright... I've talked to a theorist in our high energy department, and he said that he would not ever say that it is okay to drop a class like QFT. He pretty much said that in order to be a theorist, I need dedication and make sacrifices. If I can't put enough effort down now, it's only going...

Alright, I've decided to take some positive actions to relax my schedule... I talked to my advisor and he agreed to let me drop that graduate QFT class... Should I do it? or not?! argh... I really enjoy learning QFT but that class is moving really quickly... Perhaps too quickly for my taste. A...

I understand the idea of sacrificing, and this is exactly where my problem lies: I really don't know how much I am willing to sacrifice and what I want to prioritize. I used to be able to just completely fill my head with physics for days, and during weekends (Saturday+Sunday) I can just stay...

The question remains, is it really possible to have a good social life as a theorist? One of my friends said that a lot of the theorists are single... I'm not sure if that is true though.

Not true at all... I have a really close group of friends who are in general physics majors and we often do mindless silly stuffs. The problem is though, once my friends are present, I cannot do any work.

Recently, I've gotten into a kind of crisis mode. I am a third year undergraduate majoring in physics. Last semester, I've overloaded myself with graduate courses and dragged through it with good marks at the end. My social life was pretty much non-existent. I slowly realized that I cannot...

Ha... the age old question... death? No, and I highly doubt anyone who haven't gotten close to death yet actually completely accepts death. Though, I understand death. I understand that when I die, my mind ceases to exist, all thought/emotions/knowledge die with me. And when my pet, my family...