User talk:Mcnamara12

What is going on? World Blogs Clogs Elections The Bar (talk) (talk) (talk) (talk) (hic) Welcome to RationalWiki, Mcnamara12! Check out our guide for newcomers and our community standards! Tell us how you found RationalWiki here! If you are interested in contributing: Read what our articles are intended to be Check out the to-do list See our help page and Wikipedia's formatting cheatsheet If writing a new article, consider writing up a draft And most importantly: Pull up a goat and have some fun!

Blue (is useful) 14:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Lot of time to kill

I used to work with spectroscopy, I know the feeling. Тy^JFNWA 18:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The work isn't super interesting, but I have a very cool and easy-going boss, and the students in the lab are pretty nice, for the most part.Mcnamara12 (talk) 21:23, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Particle Physics

Did you ever take any classes in particle physics or quantum field theory? --Andy^{not Schlafly} 18:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I took a really terrible particle physics class in undergraduate. Never took QFT, but I got through two semesters of graduate QM, and audited a class on group theory in QM. Also, sat through a research seminar series on high energy physics in grad school. Mcnamara12 (talk) 18:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I took a really terrible particle physics class in undergraduate. What made it so terrible? Never took QFT, but I got through two semesters of graduate QM, and audited a class on group theory in QM. Cool! What'd they talk about? Also, sat through a research seminar series on high energy physics in grad school. What'd they talk about there? --Andy^{not Schlafly} 18:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The terrible undergraduate particle physics class was taught by a an obnoxious condescending ass who was more interested in complaining about parking than actually teaching us.

Graduate QM is sort of the standard preparing you for qualifying exams stuff, but the professor was really cool, and it was a fun class. Definitely learned a lot and felt like I understood the basics of QM really well.

Group theory in QM is basically what it sounds like. You learn some of the basics of group theory, and in particular, you talk about the groups relevant to QM, such as SU(2).

The seminar series was a series of invited talks by various researchers to come in and talk about their research. Some of the researchers were professors at the school I went to, others were guests that were brought in for the seminar. A variety of topics were covered, but it was probably about 2/3 theory, 1/3 experimental. Most of it was over my head, since I took it my first year of grad school, but a lot of it was pretty interesting, nonetheless. The talks were not at a general audience level, they were geared to others in the field. Mcnamara12 (talk) 19:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The terrible undergraduate particle physics class was taught by a an obnoxious condescending ass who was more interested in complaining about parking than actually teaching us. That sucks. Group theory in QM is basically what it sounds like. You learn some of the basics of group theory, and in particular, you talk about the groups relevant to QM, such as SU(2). Cool! Most of the group theory I know is stuff you need for particle physics (in particular, non-Abelian gauge theories like QCD). Essentially just some basic representation theory. --Andy^{not Schlafly} 19:48, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

So, I'm guessing you are a particle physicist? Mcnamara12 (talk) 20:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Not really, actually. I'm hoping to go into astrophysics/cosmology. I've learned a lot of the stuff (in both particle physics and astrophysics/cosmology) on my own. --Andy^{not Schlafly} 20:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Good luck with the cosmology stuff. I find it interesting to learn about, but I don't have the patience to actually do it. By training, I'm a condensed matter physicist, although, as my user page indicates, I currently work in a biomedical engineering lab. Although, it's not as much of a stretch as you might imagine, since biological tissue is a condensed matter. I do miss doing physics, though. Mcnamara12 (talk) 15:40, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! And really? What do you mean be "do" it? :O --Andy^{not Schlafly} 19:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't have the patience to be involved in active research in cosmology, but it's interesting to learn about what others are doing. Mcnamara12 (talk) 20:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah. OK then. :D --Andy^{not Schlafly} 23:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

For all the chemistry nerds out there

Today, I was trying to find references for the resistivity of phosphate buffered saline solution, which is a common buffer used in tissue cultures. This is abbreviated PBS, but I actually typed out the full name when I was searching. I still got results for the resistivity of lead sulfide (PbS). Mcnamara12 (talk) 15:15, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Please sign

Hi. Could you remember to sing your posts? :-) Thanks.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 18:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I usually do, but I just forgot today. Mcnamara12 (talk) 20:59, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I can see that. Got a bit carried away. :-(--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 21:07, 8 February 2013 (UTC)