Comment What did your dad say (Score 2) 111
when he saw you wrote about the "Igon Value" problem? Wasn't he a math professor?
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/I...
Submission + - Faculty to Grads: Go Work 80 Hour Weeks! (tumblr.com)
Ian Paul Freeley writes: Controversy has erupted after a departmental email from faculty to astrophysics graduate students was leaked. Key tips for success in grad school include, 'However, if you informally canvass the faculty (those people for whose jobs you came here to train), most will tell you that they worked 80-100 hours/week in graduate school. No one told us to work those hours, but we enjoyed what we were doing enough to want to do so...If you find yourself thinking about astronomy and wanting to work on your research most of your waking hours, then academic research may in fact be the best career choice for you.'
Blogosphere reaction has ranged from disappointed to concern for the mental health of the students. It also seems that such a culture coupled with the poor job prospects for academics is continuing to drive talent away from the field.
This has been recognized as a problem for over 15 years in the Astronomy community, but little seems to have changed. Any tips for those of us looking to instigate culture change and promote healthy work-life balance?
Blogosphere reaction has ranged from disappointed to concern for the mental health of the students. It also seems that such a culture coupled with the poor job prospects for academics is continuing to drive talent away from the field.
This has been recognized as a problem for over 15 years in the Astronomy community, but little seems to have changed. Any tips for those of us looking to instigate culture change and promote healthy work-life balance?
Comment Re:Partial List Revealed! (Score 1) 533
How dare you out me like that!
Comment Re:Hire two more astronomers. (Score 1) 97
That's for undergraduate Astronomy *majors*--they are getting jobs, but not as Astronomers. Of course, most Art History majors don't go on to be Art Historians either--but many of us would hope that a degree in astronomy would be more like a degree in engineering than a humanities degree.
Comment Re:Look at the price tag (Score 1) 185
Yes, if only there were a google-map-like app that had SDSS data in it. I know, they could call it google sky! Oh wait, they did. Personally I prefer wikisky.org.
Step 1. Put survey data on web with a nice interface
Step 2. ?????
Step 3. PROFIT!
Step 1. Put survey data on web with a nice interface
Step 2. ?????
Step 3. PROFIT!
Comment My new dream Mythbusters episode... (Score 2, Insightful) 799
"So Jamie, there's a myth in a Russian newspaper that says you can plug an oil well with a nuclear bomb"
"We've got that pile of U235 left over from the radiation myth episode, let's skip the mock-up and go straight to full-scale."
"We've got that pile of U235 left over from the radiation myth episode, let's skip the mock-up and go straight to full-scale."
Comment Re:"soon-to-be Leader of the Free World" (Score 1) 608
How many of those can you do at once?
Comment Re:Star photo (Score 2, Informative) 131
Well, it's time to hire Mythbusters to settle this. Maybe its both. If the struts were that big of a problem, then couldn't they use a flat lens-plate(s) to hold the secondary mirror instead?
Astronomers hate putting lenses into their optical systems--there is always some light lost to reflection off the glass surface. The VLT is an 8 meter diameter telescope, so supporting a giant lens above the telescope would be a major engineering issue. This isn't really a problem you can solve by adding a new lens or tweaking the secondary support structure--it's a fundamental feature caused by the wave nature of light. Anytime light passes through an aperture, it creates a diffraction pattern.
Comment Re:Star photo (Score 3, Informative) 131
Why do star photos have crosses over bigger stars?
Refraction flares caused by the crystalline pattern of molecules in the glass of the lenses.
Um, no. The spikes are caused by the diffraction of light around the struts supporting the secondary mirror in the telescope. The wave nature of light ensures that no matter how large you build your telescope, you cannot focues stars to a perfect point.
