Saturday, December 13, 2008
Brew Ha Ha
Another weekend.... woke up a bit early for saturday (loong story). Drove down few miles to get some coffee from a gas station (yes gas station!!!). God I miss the good old Brew HaHa. For several years got so used to getting my coffee from there. I guess I dragged ABD so often than he got hooked there too. I did find Brazilian Coffee house in NYC but it is definitely not work the hour train ride. Came across this latte art... enjoyyy
*latte art
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Physicist getting inspired!!
Here is something interesting... this is an absract from a paper in PNAS on doped ceria by D.A. Anderson et. al. (published date 12/2005)
"Oxides with the cubic fluorite structure, e.g., ceria (CeO2), are known to be good solid electrolytes when they are doped with cations of lower valence than the host cations. The high ionic conductivity of doped ceria makes it an attractive electrolyte for solid oxide fuel cells, whose prospects as an environmentally friendly power source are very promising. In these electrolytes, the current is carried by oxygen ions that are transported by oxygen vacancies, present to compensate for the lower charge of the dopant cations. Ionic conductivity in ceria is closely related to oxygen-vacancy formation and migration properties. A clear physical picture of the connection between the choice of a dopant and the improvement of ionic conductivity in ceria is still lacking. Here we present a quantum-mechanical first-principles study of the influence of different trivalent impurities on these properties. Our results reveal a remarkable correspondence between vacancy properties at the atomic level and the macroscopic ionic conductivity. The key parameters comprise migration barriers for bulk diffusion and vacancy–dopant interactions, represented by association (binding) energies of vacancy–dopant clusters. The interactions can be divided into repulsive elastic and attractive electronic parts. In the optimal electrolyte, these parts should balance. This finding offers a simple and clear way to narrow the search for superior dopants and combinations of dopants. The ideal dopant should have an effective atomic number between 61 (Pm) and 62 (Sm), and we elaborate that combinations of Nd/Sm and Pr/Gd show enhanced ionic conductivity, as compared with that for each element separately."
And here is a paper in Journal of Materials science on doped ceria again published by Selladurai (Anna Univ).Well I guess the first author might have been a graduate student but I am pointing out the corresponding author. The paper was out sometime last year (2007).
"Oxides with the cubic fluorite structure, e.g., ceria (CeO2), are known to be good solid electrolytes when they are doped with cations of lower valence than the host cations. The high ionic conductivity of doped ceria makes it an attractive electrolyte for solid oxide fuel cells, whose prospects as an environmentally friendly power source are very promising. In these electrolytes, the current is carried by oxygen ions that are transported by oxygen vacancies, present to compensate for the lower charge of the dopant cations. Ionic conductivity in ceria is closely related to oxygen-vacancy formation and migration properties. A clear physical picture of the connection between the choice of a dopant and the improvement of ionic conductivity in ceria is still lacking. Here we present quantum-mechanical first-principles study of the influence of different trivalent impurities on these properties. Our results reveal a remarkable correspondence between vacancy properties at the atomic level and the macroscopic ionic conductivity. The key parameters comprise migration barriers for bulk diffusion and vacancy–dopant interactions, represented by association (binding) energies of vacancy–dopant clusters. The interactions can be divided into repulsive elastic and attractive electronic parts. In the optimal electrolyte, these parts should balance. This finding offers a simple and clear way to narrow the search for superior dopants and combinations of dopants. The ideal dopant should have an effective atomic number between 61 (Pm) and 62 (Sm), and we elaborate that combinations of Nd/Sm and Pr/Gd show enhanced ionic conductivity, as compared with that for each element separately."
simply amazing... what are the odds that two people came to the exact same conclusions !! well I went over the entire paper and believe it or not they even had the exact same data, plot everything. Talk about reproducibility. This is the awesome I have heard people say reproducible data but Dr S. Selladurai's group took a giant leap and reproduced the entire paper.
"Oxides with the cubic fluorite structure, e.g., ceria (CeO2), are known to be good solid electrolytes when they are doped with cations of lower valence than the host cations. The high ionic conductivity of doped ceria makes it an attractive electrolyte for solid oxide fuel cells, whose prospects as an environmentally friendly power source are very promising. In these electrolytes, the current is carried by oxygen ions that are transported by oxygen vacancies, present to compensate for the lower charge of the dopant cations. Ionic conductivity in ceria is closely related to oxygen-vacancy formation and migration properties. A clear physical picture of the connection between the choice of a dopant and the improvement of ionic conductivity in ceria is still lacking. Here we present a quantum-mechanical first-principles study of the influence of different trivalent impurities on these properties. Our results reveal a remarkable correspondence between vacancy properties at the atomic level and the macroscopic ionic conductivity. The key parameters comprise migration barriers for bulk diffusion and vacancy–dopant interactions, represented by association (binding) energies of vacancy–dopant clusters. The interactions can be divided into repulsive elastic and attractive electronic parts. In the optimal electrolyte, these parts should balance. This finding offers a simple and clear way to narrow the search for superior dopants and combinations of dopants. The ideal dopant should have an effective atomic number between 61 (Pm) and 62 (Sm), and we elaborate that combinations of Nd/Sm and Pr/Gd show enhanced ionic conductivity, as compared with that for each element separately."
And here is a paper in Journal of Materials science on doped ceria again published by Selladurai (Anna Univ).Well I guess the first author might have been a graduate student but I am pointing out the corresponding author. The paper was out sometime last year (2007).
"Oxides with the cubic fluorite structure, e.g., ceria (CeO2), are known to be good solid electrolytes when they are doped with cations of lower valence than the host cations. The high ionic conductivity of doped ceria makes it an attractive electrolyte for solid oxide fuel cells, whose prospects as an environmentally friendly power source are very promising. In these electrolytes, the current is carried by oxygen ions that are transported by oxygen vacancies, present to compensate for the lower charge of the dopant cations. Ionic conductivity in ceria is closely related to oxygen-vacancy formation and migration properties. A clear physical picture of the connection between the choice of a dopant and the improvement of ionic conductivity in ceria is still lacking. Here we present quantum-mechanical first-principles study of the influence of different trivalent impurities on these properties. Our results reveal a remarkable correspondence between vacancy properties at the atomic level and the macroscopic ionic conductivity. The key parameters comprise migration barriers for bulk diffusion and vacancy–dopant interactions, represented by association (binding) energies of vacancy–dopant clusters. The interactions can be divided into repulsive elastic and attractive electronic parts. In the optimal electrolyte, these parts should balance. This finding offers a simple and clear way to narrow the search for superior dopants and combinations of dopants. The ideal dopant should have an effective atomic number between 61 (Pm) and 62 (Sm), and we elaborate that combinations of Nd/Sm and Pr/Gd show enhanced ionic conductivity, as compared with that for each element separately."
simply amazing... what are the odds that two people came to the exact same conclusions !! well I went over the entire paper and believe it or not they even had the exact same data, plot everything. Talk about reproducibility. This is the awesome I have heard people say reproducible data but Dr S. Selladurai's group took a giant leap and reproduced the entire paper.
inspired!!!!
well last weekend I spend some time listening to some music and I found out that there is a new (hey I dont follow it as much I should) music director in hindi movies... Pritam. Well first of all I did hear the song Ya ali from gangster and I had heard the original arabic version too. I thought may be just one out of quite of few of his hits. well it seems that most of his hits song are actually copies all around the world. Apart from the usual middle eastern, Tarkan he did not even spare Korean, Indonesian and far east music. Here is a site which lists his hit songs and the original version of the same
The issue here is can we just say it is just inspired from another artist or just plagiarism. Karan Thapar had a segment on this issue and he picked two music directors- Anu Mallik and Pritam (two poster boys for music plagiarism). It is a must watch... Pritam seems to think that getting the tune is just 15% of the job and the difficult part is trying to re-do so to speak. Well if the bollywood movie industry is so much against video piracy.. hmmm should I go further.
Well just in case Pritam does accidentally bump into this blog.. I do agree that sometime people get inspired but there is definitely a clear difference between inspired and copying. Not making sense here is an example.. this is an slightly old song of Ofra Haza (a wonderful Israeli singer)
And this is a Deva's Tamil song which has similar begining
I think although it has a similar beginning the rest of the song is different. May be again may be this is called inspired. (For the record Deva is also known to steal songs completely in many occasions)
Now what about "the not so inspired but rather copied" here is a song from the Korean soap opera
And this is Pritam's Peheli Nazar from the movie Race .. and yeah if you look at the time line when the songs came you can figure who copied whom :)
It is so interesting some years ago there was a similar claim in particle physics. A group from Kumaon University did a direct copy of Renata Kallosh paper word by word and got is published in some journal. Well after people figured it out the axe fell on the graduate student not on his advisor. More infohere
The issue here is can we just say it is just inspired from another artist or just plagiarism. Karan Thapar had a segment on this issue and he picked two music directors- Anu Mallik and Pritam (two poster boys for music plagiarism). It is a must watch... Pritam seems to think that getting the tune is just 15% of the job and the difficult part is trying to re-do so to speak. Well if the bollywood movie industry is so much against video piracy.. hmmm should I go further.
Well just in case Pritam does accidentally bump into this blog.. I do agree that sometime people get inspired but there is definitely a clear difference between inspired and copying. Not making sense here is an example.. this is an slightly old song of Ofra Haza (a wonderful Israeli singer)
And this is a Deva's Tamil song which has similar begining
I think although it has a similar beginning the rest of the song is different. May be again may be this is called inspired. (For the record Deva is also known to steal songs completely in many occasions)
Now what about "the not so inspired but rather copied" here is a song from the Korean soap opera
And this is Pritam's Peheli Nazar from the movie Race .. and yeah if you look at the time line when the songs came you can figure who copied whom :)
It is so interesting some years ago there was a similar claim in particle physics. A group from Kumaon University did a direct copy of Renata Kallosh paper word by word and got is published in some journal. Well after people figured it out the axe fell on the graduate student not on his advisor. More info
Monday, November 17, 2008
Documentary
well I am creating a list of must see documentaries.. first in the series is "The Corporation" . I watched it some years go I watched it again today. Part of the reason is something I remembered from Farid Zakaria (GPS show host in CNN) a few weeks ago during the height of economic meltdown. Well in conclusion Farid question if the economic meltdown is an indication of the failure of free market/globalization. He answers that it is not and goes on to explain that no economic model is perfect but the free market model is self correcting and that it will correct and in due course of time will evolve into this perfect model. (I am not exactly quoting him but this is what he meant). I am no economist but I have my own doubts about this claim. I just remembered this documentary "The Corporation" so true and will also explain why a non supervised, de-regulated, freemarket might not be the solution. On a good note you can watch it legally for free in google videos.
Some other documentaries I watched recently
*The Corporation
*Life and Debt (about IMF practices with an example of what happened in Jamaica)
*Bring back my father (Vandana shiva campaign for the farmers in India)
*Outfoxed (all about Fox News)
*why we fight (well the name explains all)
Some other documentaries I watched recently
*Bring back my father (Vandana shiva campaign for the farmers in India)
Friday, November 14, 2008
friday
well it is friday and for the next couple of weeks no visit to D :( and unlike the usual friday "yayyy" it has been more friday "crap".. part of the reason is the god forsaken seminar series we have every friday... keep telling myself not to attend but usually end up getting tricked for a nice talk or sometimes for food. Toady was one of those moments (again) when right after some talk you feel dumb,,, like shit,,, wondering more if my last six and half (not seven) years could have been better spent doing something else......
Interesting read
I came across this interview with Peter Higgs (of the legendary Higgs Boson) and it was very interesting to note that he mainly credits his theory to Phillip Anderson. Infact to here are some interesting snippets from this article
"Once more help arrived from the condensed-matter community when, in 1963, Phil Anderson pointed out that the equivalent of a Goldstone boson in a superconductor could become massive due to its electromagnetic interactions. But did Anderson's argument apply in the relativistic case? No, said a paper by Walter Gilbert in an issue of Physical Review Letters that arrived in Edinburgh the middle of July. Yes, said Higgs, after thinking about it over the weekend."
and here is an quote from Higgs
""Anderson should have done basically the two things that I did," says Higgs. "He should have shown the flaw in the Goldstone theorem, and he should have produced a simple relativistic model to show it happened. However, whenever I give a lecture on the so-called Higgs mechanism I start off with Anderson, who really got it right, but nobody understood him."
You can read the complete articlehere
Well it is friday had a couple of interesting seminars which I attended to but it is one of those day where after the talk you do feel a bit dumb/frustrated. On the good note atleast it made me go back and read about Kondo effect. In most pure metals the resistance is supposed to go down as temperature. It has the usual t power 2 and 5 dependence with an addition phonon contribution. In certain impure metals (impurity being magnetic) however the resistance shoots up at some region. This was first observed in 30s and I think a few decades later Jun Kondo explained it. Simplifying the work of Kondo we could explain the data by adding a log{1/T} dependense. This should give rise to a divergent term at T approches 0 but I guess Kondo effect only comes it for a particular region.It is one of interesting and the very first example of asymptotic freedom discovered in nature. I guess much earlier than the same description was applied to strong forces in elementary particles. Its odd than Jun Kondo has not been awarded Nobel proze yet.... For a good reading on Kondo effect there is a good article
here
"Once more help arrived from the condensed-matter community when, in 1963, Phil Anderson pointed out that the equivalent of a Goldstone boson in a superconductor could become massive due to its electromagnetic interactions. But did Anderson's argument apply in the relativistic case? No, said a paper by Walter Gilbert in an issue of Physical Review Letters that arrived in Edinburgh the middle of July. Yes, said Higgs, after thinking about it over the weekend."
and here is an quote from Higgs
""Anderson should have done basically the two things that I did," says Higgs. "He should have shown the flaw in the Goldstone theorem, and he should have produced a simple relativistic model to show it happened. However, whenever I give a lecture on the so-called Higgs mechanism I start off with Anderson, who really got it right, but nobody understood him."
You can read the complete article
Well it is friday had a couple of interesting seminars which I attended to but it is one of those day where after the talk you do feel a bit dumb/frustrated. On the good note atleast it made me go back and read about Kondo effect. In most pure metals the resistance is supposed to go down as temperature. It has the usual t power 2 and 5 dependence with an addition phonon contribution. In certain impure metals (impurity being magnetic) however the resistance shoots up at some region. This was first observed in 30s and I think a few decades later Jun Kondo explained it. Simplifying the work of Kondo we could explain the data by adding a log{1/T} dependense. This should give rise to a divergent term at T approches 0 but I guess Kondo effect only comes it for a particular region.It is one of interesting and the very first example of asymptotic freedom discovered in nature. I guess much earlier than the same description was applied to strong forces in elementary particles. Its odd than Jun Kondo has not been awarded Nobel proze yet.... For a good reading on Kondo effect there is a good article
Monday, November 3, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Prayer for John Macain
The only two program which I watch for my dose of american political news is Colbert Report and Daily Show by Jon Stewart. It is an irony that both are aired in comedy central not a major news channel but I think they are more fair and balanced than other news channel. Here is an interesting part from a recent episode of Colbert report
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
God's own country
I wish I had enough time that I could travel around Kerala. I guess having half of my relatives there did not help much either. Well for times when I had the opportunity I did not want to and now that I want to i dont seem to have the time for it. My India trips are filled with visiting friends and relatives...
I stopped by Istanbul on my way to India. Well had to talk to iA's parents ;) amidst all the meeting people and talking I got some time to walk around in the streets of istanbul with iA. Nice people, absolutely wonderful food, and an amazing place. Also the very friendly front lobby guy which whom I smoked at the end of everyday. Looking forward for my next visit insha allah.
I stopped by Istanbul on my way to India. Well had to talk to iA's parents ;) amidst all the meeting people and talking I got some time to walk around in the streets of istanbul with iA. Nice people, absolutely wonderful food, and an amazing place. Also the very friendly front lobby guy which whom I smoked at the end of everyday. Looking forward for my next visit insha allah.
Flamenco
It has been up in my list of do things to learn to play some instrument (knock the smile off). In my second year at grad school I got myself a yamaha guitar and two years down I sold it :). So much for progress. My latest dream is flamenco guitar. It is much more lively, and not to mention the dance accompanying it. Here is a video which has some good music
The interesting thing is I always knew someone who was good in music... during grad school it was couple of friends, when I moved to NY my land lord was big in it and most importantly my current adviser plays blues guitar (which apparently he learned it by himself).
The interesting thing is I always knew someone who was good in music... during grad school it was couple of friends, when I moved to NY my land lord was big in it and most importantly my current adviser plays blues guitar (which apparently he learned it by himself).
Fountainhead
I read this every once in a while when I am bored.. this is Howard Roark's coutroom speech from "The Fountainhead".
Howard Roark's Speech
Monday, October 20, 2008
Orhan Pamuk
My friend asked me to read Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Lecture. It is a very moving speech. I am right now reading "my name is red" I will blog about it when I am done. For now...
Pamuk's Nobel lecture
Friday, October 17, 2008
who is joe the plumber
How high is the sky?, how deep is the ocean? who is Joe the plumber?
It was interesting to watch the final presidential debate a couple of days. Joe the plumber was mentioned quite a lot of times. After watching some video interviews of the mysterious Joe the plumber you can just conclude that is "yet another right wing nut". O believe me just the couple of minutes of interview and a non zero IQ was all you need to understand that. So whats his problem? Well it seems that our good old Joe wants to buy his plumbing business. This wonderful business makes more than $250000 income, a range which gets taxed 3% higher in Obama's plan. Well he is upset, now now how is going to buy this business (in which he currently works).. after all he still owes IRS a lil more than thousand dollars ? well this part lets just say it is "magic". So the "American Dream" of Joe the plumber is all shattered because he has to pay 3% extra tax. But well one may say are we along with our humble Joe the plumber counting the chicken before they hatch.. ehh in this case we are counting chickens with no eggs at all. But I guess it is idea of redistribution of wealth that bothers Joe. I mean rightfully so does that makes us socialist!!!
The one word which republicans hate : socialist... you are just few steps away from becoming godless communists. But again are'nt taxes itself a way of redistribution of welath? I would say that in the bush administration there has been a redistribution of wealth... yeah the money from the less fortunate has been redistributed to the rich. Case and point the almost trillion dollar bail out plan. I think it is not the redistribution which bothers republicans..it is directions in which it goes. In all what surprises me is that an average Joe the plumber, who in his own words is now where making close to $250000, who owes IRS back taxes is freaking about taxing more for those who have more.
It was interesting to watch the final presidential debate a couple of days. Joe the plumber was mentioned quite a lot of times. After watching some video interviews of the mysterious Joe the plumber you can just conclude that is "yet another right wing nut". O believe me just the couple of minutes of interview and a non zero IQ was all you need to understand that. So whats his problem? Well it seems that our good old Joe wants to buy his plumbing business. This wonderful business makes more than $250000 income, a range which gets taxed 3% higher in Obama's plan. Well he is upset, now now how is going to buy this business (in which he currently works).. after all he still owes IRS a lil more than thousand dollars ? well this part lets just say it is "magic". So the "American Dream" of Joe the plumber is all shattered because he has to pay 3% extra tax. But well one may say are we along with our humble Joe the plumber counting the chicken before they hatch.. ehh in this case we are counting chickens with no eggs at all. But I guess it is idea of redistribution of wealth that bothers Joe. I mean rightfully so does that makes us socialist!!!
The one word which republicans hate : socialist... you are just few steps away from becoming godless communists. But again are'nt taxes itself a way of redistribution of welath? I would say that in the bush administration there has been a redistribution of wealth... yeah the money from the less fortunate has been redistributed to the rich. Case and point the almost trillion dollar bail out plan. I think it is not the redistribution which bothers republicans..it is directions in which it goes. In all what surprises me is that an average Joe the plumber, who in his own words is now where making close to $250000, who owes IRS back taxes is freaking about taxing more for those who have more.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Turkish music
I guess I have been introduced to Turkish music for quite some time. I once had a housemate who played Sezen Aksu almost 24/7. Maybe I would appreciate the songs better if I understood it. I just found it depressing. I think my all time favorite turkish song is Isyankar by Mustafa Sandal featuring Gentleman. I think the video is nice too. My first visit to Istanbul earlier this summer was quite like the taxi drive in this video
I guess his earlier song araba was also very popular. But the version of Faudel's La main dans la main is much better. I am not sure who copied home. Faudel's version sounds more pop rai.
I guess his earlier song araba was also very popular. But the version of Faudel's La main dans la main is much better. I am not sure who copied home. Faudel's version sounds more pop rai.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
veepee
"That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately what the bail-out does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Helping the – it's got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade – we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today – we've got to look at that as more opportunity."
well gee z that's quite a mouthful but this was a response from the Russian neighbor and veepee pick Sarah Palin's answer to one of Katie Couric's question on the bail out. More specifically the question was why not to use the bail out money for people directly. Unfortunately here in US socialism is looked with greater skeptism than any where else. And it is not just the rich people even middle class american are!
well gee z that's quite a mouthful but this was a response from the Russian neighbor and veepee pick Sarah Palin's answer to one of Katie Couric's question on the bail out. More specifically the question was why not to use the bail out money for people directly. Unfortunately here in US socialism is looked with greater skeptism than any where else. And it is not just the rich people even middle class american are!
my baby
well part of my work (hard working experimentalist) it dealing with very moody instruments. I will upload pics of the baby as she grew but for now. The last week has been rough it has been as moody as it can get
new hope
well here goes... first official. I hope to keep posting more. I got the inspiration for the title from this sign. Apparently new hope is just half an hour from Philly :)
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