Guess where I'll be tomorrow?

That's right! The 999 Eyes Freakshow at Cicero's. It starts at 8:30PM. Come on down! There is a tarot card reader. We all know how fun those are!

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Black Hole Sun Won't You Come...

Welcome to day two of my attendance at the APS meeting in St. Louis. This time, I remembered to bring my laptop with me. I am currently sitting in on a session entitled "Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes. Earlier today, I stumbled into a wonderful story-telling session about the Manhattan Project which included some wonderful little anecdotes about life at Los Alamos. One of the speakers was a British physicist who had worked there at the time. I would repeat some here but I would get the details wrong. Looks like the first talk is starting. I'd better listen up.

First up is Dr. J. R. Stone of Oxford discussing the equation of state for high density matter. The main question discussed is whether or not observational or experimental data can be used to place constraints on the equation of state of neutron star matter. One of the major pieces of data necessary for these constraints is a good measurement of gravitational mass v. radius for neutron stars. According to to Dr. Stone, "That would do it for me." Sadly, technical problems have cut this talk sort of it's ten minute allowed time. My estimate is that Dr. Jones was able to present about a third of her planned talk. I think I might have had a chance of understanding her neutron-neutron scattering data if she were given a few more minutes. If is the neutron-neutron interaction that must be fully understood in order to come up with the desired equation of state.

Talk number two is also on the equation of state for neutron starts. Dr. John Friedman is talking on astronomical constraints to the equation of state. Dr. Friedman tout that neutron stars might be strange quark stars. I'll have to look into that later. So the required astronomical include mass, moment of inertia, and spin frequency. From this talk, I have learned that if you know little about the field, the 10 minute talk format is probably not to go. Yesterday, while I was in the dark matter talks, I loved the 10 minute format because I absorbed a lot of information in little time. Knowing little about determining the equation of state of neutron stars, this talk is hard to follow, but I will talk about it anyway. Overall, I have learned that determining either the mass and moment of inertial or the mass and the gravitational wave characteristics both place good constraints on the shape of the equation of state.

On to the third talk! Guess what it is about. Come on, guess. That's right, it's another talk on the parameterization of the equation of state for a neutron star. This speaker is giving the second half of the second talk. Turns out they are testing 31 different equations of state some including all kinds of exotic matter including hyperons, mesons and quarks. One of the parameters most often used to parameterize these equations of state is the maximum allowed mass of the neutron star. Also used it causality which considers the speed of sound in the star. Redshift and rotation rate are also used in this manner. Currently, measuring the mass and radius of neutron stars is quite difficult. The four parameters mentioned above can be used to determine bulk properties of nuclear matter through the determination of the equation of state and therefore would have application beyond neutron stars. As you might be able to tell, this talk cleared up the previous one a little.

I'm going to sign off now to save some battery power for the dark matter talks.
Edit: I've decided to take pen and paper notes for the Dark Matter talks. I'll tell y'all about them later.

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Laptops and Bad Hair

Since I just spent a full day at the APS meeting in St. Louis, I thought I would share my impressions. I spent all day listening to talks on dark matter detectors and liquid argon purification. Amazing right? Actually, I really enjoyed it. I learned about a dark matter detector called LUX (site is still under construction)that I had not heard of before. Though it is not new in the techniques that it employs (it is a large liquid Xenon time projection chamber), it does have quite the measurement range. There are some exciting times ahead for those looking for dark matter.

(Dark Matter in a Box)

One the things that really blew my mind was the number of people with open laptops, working on their presentations during someone else's presentation. I can honestly that that number if approximately 1/3 of the total audience. If I had known there was free wireless, I would have brought my laptop and done some live blogging. There is always tomorrow (or Monday or Tuesday).

The highlight of the conference was, by far, the hair of the physicists. I saw long gray scraggly ponytails, frizzy scientist puffros, and foot-long beards. It was great. I can only hope there was a correlation between beard length and academic prominence.

Tomorrow, I will listen to more talks on dark matter. This time, it looks like it will be more theoretical. Joy! Sadly, I will be missing the morning talks because of a previous engagement. I will be missing the one talk I think will be crazy. I'll link to the abstract here. It is only a 10 minute talk but I think it would be a wonderfully strange 10 minutes. I should be able to make it in time to hear a few on gravitational wave detectors or x-ray bursts as well.

Tune in tomorrow for a live blogging on dark matter, if I remember to take my laptop.

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Meeting Details

As stated earlier, we're having a very social meeting this week. After much deliberation, we haven't come up with anywhere better than Cicero's as a place where you can hear your neighbor talk AND had good beer. So here are the details:

When: Friday, April 4. 7:30 PM
Where: Cicero's on the Loop

Remember, all are invited. We hope this is a good opportunity to meet some like-minded people in the area. Look here for some of the people to look for (Randi will not be there. Sorry.). If you would like to go but cannot make it this week, drop us a line and we'll make sure you hear about the next one. Hope to see you there.

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More Scientology Protests Today

Looks like Anonymous is at it again. This this time, there were about 50 people across the street from the Scientology Center holding signs and wearing V masks. I honked a cheery tune as I drove past and got a cheer in response. I was in Qdoba earlier and found a stack of anti-Scientology fliers on the table. Keep up the good work guys.

Here are some links to last month's protests. (1, 2)

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Scientology Protest in St. Louis

I don't have much information on the specifics, but I drove by the Scientology center today to see approximately 50 protesters across the street holding signs that said things like "Cult of Scientology". There were police on the Scientology center's side of the street, but it seemed a fairly innocuous protest. The protesters seemed to be in good spirits and waved as I drove by. It was quite a wonderful sight. Kudos to those braving to cold to tell it like it is!

This protest is part of the recent announcement by the hacker group Anonymous of their intention to bring down Scientology. Here are some more links. (1, 2). Here, I found the itinerary of today's protest. The overall organization of the protests seems non-violent and quite amazing. I hope the protests around the globe go well today.

Hail Xenu!

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