Microwaves Heating

Thought Experiment:
If the microwave produces the same amount of radiation for a particular setting, is there a threshold mass such that below a certain mass there is no change from the amount of stuff you put in and the temperature it comes out at?

I imagined microwaves working by producing a set amount of waves that filled the cavity of a microwave - and below a certain volume / mass amount some of the waves would not interact with the material to be heated simply because there was no matter there.  (Thinking of placing a thin disk in the microwave vs. a tall cylinder of equal volume - I would expect the tall cylinder to come out hotter).

Experiment:
I looked at the temperature change of different volumes of water (in the same 2 cup Tupperware measuring cup) for the same amount of heating time (1 min).

As you can see, the temperature change is lograthmic as a function of volume. For the amount of water I was adding, I did not expect to see such a dramatic change. I guess my microwave is wimpy. Look at energy added to the water (from Q=m c deltaT) as a function of water volume.

Linear - does that make sense? Say I have an logarithmic function, T = -27.4ln(V) + 431.2 (the fit for the change in temperature) and a linear function, E = 1057 V + 24285 (the fit for the change in energy). I calculated E as Q = mcT=rho*V*C*T, so then I could write the following: E=rho*V*C*(-27.4ln(V) + 431.2) =? 1057 V + 24285. But the V's in the logarithmic expression for E don't cancel into a linear term, so I have the wrong form for either the change in temperature or the change in energy.

Extra special prize for any suggestions.

And I still haven't answered my original question.

LiF Crystal Detector

The polymer detectors we are intrested in are based off of the Li-6 neutron capture where a neutron comes in, interacts with the Li-6 and decays into a tritum and an alpha particle.

We were tossing around ideas, and Neel asked why nobody made a LiF crystal detector.  Grow a LiF crystal and place it between two parallel plates - like a capacitor.  This seems like a great idea, so I expanded it a bit more.

Most of capacitance is due to geometry considerations, with the material property being the dielectric constant.  Place the capacitor made with LiF as the dielectric in series with a resistor, measure the voltage across the resistor.

A neutron event will produce an alpha, with has a +2e charge. This would be drawn to the negative plate, and would decrease the capacitance (capacitance is linear with the dielectric constant).  Current would flow across the resistor, which would show as a voltage spike across the resistor.   BOOM! Neutron detected!  Somebody get this man a patent.

I really want to test this though, gotta see if I can get Maryia can grow me one.

Mind blowing: Analog to Digital Converters are essentially doing spectral sampling with a dirac function.

Work to Win

The last two practices for Tennessee have been indoor conditioning because of the fields are too wet to play on.  Their conditioning is a lot different than Yuk - more intense, which I like.  (I never got much out of doing ployos in the Arena room.)  An example (Wednesday) we did a two mile warmup at a decent pace, and then did four sprints that consisted of a 10,20 m suicide, followed by a ~300m dash.  Rest was very short ~2 minutes.  Then we did stadium stairs.  The stairs were not particularly hard, but it was nice to be throughly winded and tired from the sprints.

In general, I would say that UT is more efficient at using their time than Yuk was.

What did irk me is a fellow player encouraging us to work hard because "you can be that Florida is doing this" with the insinuation that simply running stairs makes national caliber teams.  It bothered me to attribute Florida (and other national level teams) success to stairs - otherwise, what happened to CMU?  I think that as CMU demonstrated, being in shape is not the capstone, but only the base.   I would rather see encouragement presented as "Eat your veggies" a la Vogel.

IEEE Conference

It is official.  I will be presenting at the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium.

Black Bears - Cades Cove

Back Bears Are Scary

I saw TWO black bears this weekend, from about 100 ft away (I was above them).  They where much bigger than I expected them to be.  I wondered how afraid for my life I should be.  We stared at each other.  I tried to take a picture without looking through the view finder.  I missed.  The flash went off.  The bears jumped and started to move.  I ran away yelling.  My shorts remained dry.

I know that you are not supposed to startle them - auto flash is dumb.  I also know you are not supposed to run away from bears - back away
slowly.    Once they moved though, damned if I was going to back away slowly.

PreBear Encounter

The forest is very pretty in the fall.  I need to learn how to take pictures.  And a new camera.

Whenever I ask people to take a picture of me on the trail I get a lot of weird pictures of myself.  The girl who took the one on the right decided she wanted to take it from off the trail to "get in the beautiful woods".  She was a confusing person.

There was a lot of Fungi (I was one of them - for you, Isaac) that looked cool.

I do get out and socialize.  I went to a party that had UV lights - and then once I had a bit to much to drink I tried hitting on a girl by explaining to her how the fluorescence worked.  I got to harvesting electrons from the pi cloud before I struck out. (She did seem sort of interested at first . . . I think?)  And then there was Murph dancing.

 

Friday, October 22, 2010

A bunch of randomness:

• Milo being scared of mice made my week.  I wonder what his middle name is.  Starts with a f, (I think based on his twitter account), so I guess Franklin.  As in the children's stories.
• I will be attending the IEEE conference, where I will be presenting our results. I couldn't get out of speaking.  If MPL is any indication, this will be the shortest scientific talk ever.  (Ask Brando for details of my MPL talks).
• Compressed Sensing - This is a really cool method which uses the spareribs of signals to compress to O(S log(n/S)).  I am working on implementing an example in Matlab.
• I have to work on the mark once the disc is thrown.  I tend to get flat flooted, making me very slow on the give and go.  Phil (very quick, plays for Tenasi) destroyed me at practice today.
• I get to take over modeling now that Martin had a successful defense.

Finally, I leave you on this disturbing thought: the fine structure constant might not be constant.

Good Night and Good Luck.

MJU

Bananas

This morning I didn't have a banana for breakfast (I ran out). This is the first time in 72 days that I didn't have a banana for breakfast.

US Energy Usage

Breakdown of US Energy Usage and Sources

A while ago I attended a doom and gloom lecture about the US energy usage which gave consevation a very bad rap and decided to check it out myself.

The premises was that the US uses too much energy (petroleum) on transporation which unless there are dramatic changes in alternative transportation technologies we cannot change.  Then focusing on conservation of energy doesn't help all that much because energy conservation is mostly electrical based - which currently is not the largest use.

Electricity Flow Diagram (Quadrillion BTU)

Looking at electricity, the first thing to note is that 63% of the energy is lost converting the fuel into energy.  Residential is the largest consumer of electricity (36%).  If by conservation we cut the residential use in half to 2.35 quadrillion BTUs, because of the huge loss in conversion we would only need to consume 32.55 quadrillion BTUs, a reduction of 16%.  A more doable 10% in residential electricity reduces consumption by 3%.


Below is how I calculated the reduction values. The source for these diagrams is U.S. Energy Information Agency.

$\frac{38.89-\frac{\frac{14.28}{38.89}}{14.28-4.65x}}{38.89}$

Finally, I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but in order to clear off my white board here is a good quote from somewhere: "Carbon / Fossil Fuels plants store their waste in the atmosphere . . . for free".  Just something to muse on.

US DOE EIA Energy Quiz

20 question quiz from EIA about energy usage.  It doesn't tell you what you got at the end, you need to keep track yourself.  I got a 16/20.

Some answers and thoughts below.

• I call shenanigans on the question about petroleum production - how am I supposed to know that Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia a year ago?  I liked how Russia's petroleum production peaked when it was the USSR, than fell when it became Russia.  
• I didn't even know Wyoming produced coal.  
• Didn't know Denmark even had a notable amount of wind power - but  to put the 19% of electricity Denmark gets from wind power into perspective, that is only 3,482 MW compared to 34,863 MW in the US.

Mice

I learned today that a friend of mind is scared of mice.  That might make my week.  By the way, rodents don't bother me.  As kids we used to spend a lot of time trying to catch and kill the mice that would come into the turkey pens once a flock was done.

Though I guess I can't say much since I am afraid of heights, something that doesn't even move.  On the way back form Itchfest I was discussing this with Casey, and now I question if I am scared of heights or of falling, since being in an airplane doesn't bother me while standing on a 11ft ledge does.  Supporting the fear of falling is that I became scared of heights after falling out of a tree and breaking my arm.

Itchfest 2010

This weekend I played at Itchfest 2010, and a delightful time was had by all.  I didn't have any spectacular plays (I did have a very nice layout of O and a D that I got my finger on but knocked it closer to my guy), but I felt that I did a good job of team D.  On O I played alright - I completed a flick huck, handled against a zone for a point (until someone else turned it), and generally had good cuts.

Points of Improvement:

• I need to work on staying in my position in a H-stack
• Continue to work on looking upfield.  I noticed that as the games get tighter I look upfield less.
• Pop-out throws.  They were generally a little behind the guy, and slighly wobbly.
• Catching slightly below the waist.  I had a drop in the endzone and a drop in practice today where I tried to crab catch and both times I had a drop with the disc hitting my hands.   I either need to take a knee, or practice pancaking / crab catching below the waist.  Carb catching below the waist sounds really, really dirty.

Open Gate 2010

Open Gate is a program sponsored by PSU Ag. Extension where a bunch of farms conduct tours of of their premises.    This year Pappy's Orchard will be participating, along with other farms.  I made up a poster explaining the fruit aspect of Pappy's Orchard, and another of the turkeys.

So if you are in the Coopersburg area you should check out a few places.  If nothing else there are free samples at Pappy's Orchard, and Marwell Dairy (the Gehman's, down the street) usually have a nice presentation with large equipment.

Ultimate Action

I played really well today.  I think I will attribute to the return of the backwards hat.

It made me really happy. Looking forward to the tournament this weekend in Nashville.

PR

Today I ran 10.25 miles in 67 minutes 23 seconds (slightly over 6 min 45 sec splits), and continued on the greenway for a total of 15 miles in about 110 minutes.  The 10 miles felt great, but I really ran out of steam for the 5 getting back to Neland.  In any case I feel that it is a PR, so I am happily exhausted.

Fall Break

 Fall Break was this weekend, and I left UT for home Wednesday afternoon.  Overall I had lots of fun, but am not looking to the work ahead of me this week.  I wish I could be back at home right now, riding the scooter through the orchard and on the back roads.

On Thursday I helped my mother in the bakery until 3 pm.  Then I did some weed trimming until it got dark; I rediscovered the new blackberries we planted! (I think Art mowed over one though).

Arkansas Black - My Favorite Apple

Friday Eli was off from school, so he was my helper.  We put up the free range turkey fences for Father, even making a hexagon.  I then taught Eli had to find the area of a hexagon so he could prove to Father that using a hexagon maximized the amount of area for the fence we had.  Then Eli and I went ice skating - he is getting to be quite good now, good enough to have his own coach.  Can even do fancy little jumps.  I fell four and a half times, the half times are from when I stopped my fall with my hands on the ice.  Turns out I cannot do jumps or twirls.  Friday evening I picked a lot of apples - Criterion, Winesap, and some Red Delicious.  We had a problem with fruit dropping off the trees before it was ripe this year, so for some variates the color is not there.

Saturday we brushed the fruit from Friday, and then I worked in the brooder house preparing for the next flock arriving October 16th.  I also did more weed trimming and mowing, preparing for Open Gate October 17th.

Absolute Light Yield of Benzene with Methyls

I had a scientific discovery!  In our weekly meeting today Neel asked me about what the samples are.  In looking them up, I noticed that there seemed to be a trend - as more methly groups where added to the benzene ring the slope of the absolute light yield as a function of boron increased.  This is really exciting (in case you were wondering), because our current paper provides only characterization and having a physical backing would be awesome.

Ideally I hope to associate the change in the pi cloud of the benzene with the changes in the slopes - but other than being a neat little fact I don't know what it would imply.  I have to learn a lot of chemistry.  Most of it seems to be easy enough to pick up and qualitative.  I think at some point I should revisit my chemistry career and get over my lingering hate of freshman chem. 

It is all rather confusing, actually.  We want to detect a neutron interaction with boron, so two fluors are used to transfer the ultraviolet photons emitted from the when boron reacts with a neutron to visible light, and from there the benzene+methyl groups transfer the photon.  So really the above trend could be because of the methyl groups interacting with the fluors . . . at which point its time for whiskey.

In other news, I learned a really cool command for dos, 'tree'.  It prints out the file structure as a tree structure.   This was very useful as I tried to find the settings that were used for the previous rounds.