physics – codeXgalactic

Bridging the Great Stagnation: Why Taking an Extra Decade to Master the Fundamentals Matters

Posted onNovember 5, 2024November 5, 2024AuthorCorbett3 Comments

In the 1800s, educated elites were expected to be proficient in Latin, Greek, classical literature, religious knowledge, moral philosophy, public speaking, writing, basic arithmetic, geometry, natural philosophy (covering fundamental physics, astronomy, and biology), music, art, poetry, classical and national history, geography, French, and social graces. Physical activities like horseback riding, rowing, and fencing were also Read More …

Back at Caltech: Supermassive Excitement

Posted onFebruary 3, 2017AuthorChristine Corbett MoranLeave a comment

I’m delighted to be back doing numerical relativity research at Caltech after taking a year leave to deploy to the South Pole with the South Pole Telescope collaboration. I will continue to be involved with the South Pole Telescope data analysis in parallel with my work at Caltech to simulate formation pathways for supermassive black Read More …

5-qubit quantum computing simulator

Posted onMay 21, 2016AuthorCorbettLeave a comment

Since IBM released access to its 5-qubit quantum computer, with accompanying tutorial and ability to simulate and program it easily (via a graphical language that spits out a simple code for archival along with results), I’ve been kind of obsessed. As I worked my way through the tutorials in IBM’s simulator, for my own benefit Read More …

When Antarctica Just Isn't Cold Enough: South Pole Telescope (SPT) Fridge Cycle

Posted onFebruary 26, 2016AuthorCorbett3 Comments

As you might have heard on my website, my newsletter, my Twitter, or, if we’re colleagues at Caltech, at work, I am currently working on the South Pole Telescope (SPT) onsite at the South Pole in Antarctica for January-November 2016 (I am employed by the University of Chicago). I have taken a sabbatical from my NSF Astronomy Read More …

Durham University Institute for Computational Cosmology visit

Posted onJuly 20, 2015November 6, 2024AuthorCorbettLeave a comment

Visit to the Durham University Institute for Computational Cosmology I spent last week hosted by the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University, staying in “Castle” one of the historic colleges of the university, an actual, honest to goodness Castle and a World Heritage Site. Durham University has a lot to offer, a huge cosmology and astronomy department, Read More …

book review: Quantum Computing Since Democritus

Posted onJune 23, 2015AuthorCorbettLeave a comment

There is both room for and a need for many different types of physicists and scientists to kick progress up a notch. Some of the most mind-stretching and inspiring are those who are philosophical about their work, as well as those who are interdisciplinary in their understanding. Scott Aaronson fits in both camps and shares Read More …

Happy Academic New Year, 2015

Posted onJune 5, 2015AuthorCorbettLeave a comment

June 1, 2015 I was thrilled to start my 3 year tenure as an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow (NSF AAPF) at Caltech. I am therefore declaring June 1 as my official academic New Year. I’m treating this fellowship period as my shot to make a scientific difference, and here’s to the next 3 years. I have an structured routine scheduled, Read More …

#OCCUPYMARS: my experience as a SpaceX intern

Posted onDecember 22, 2014AuthorCorbettLeave a comment

I spent my Fall as an intern in propulsion analysis at SpaceX. I had unparalleled mentors in rocketry, computational physics and software engineering. The intern program is top-notch, and to me represented the most effective “in” to the notoriously selective and demanding company. Moreover, the internship duration was a perfect interlude in my academic career. Read More …

Finding earth like planets from the comfort of our own planet

Posted onMarch 13, 2014AuthorCorbettLeave a comment

Gravitational lensing results from the fact that General Relativity describes our universe: mass bends light and can function in effect like a lens, bending light in ways that can be used to infer the mass distribution itself. Gravitational microlensing is due to this same effect, but refers to the detection of objects which are of Read More …

M82 depicting recombining hydrogen outflows

Cold dark matter heats up – a review of a review

Posted onFebruary 21, 2014AuthorCorbettLeave a comment

This is a review of the recent paper, to be published in Nature, by Andrew Potzen and Fabio Governato Cold dark matter heats up. The paper is itself a review, containing information published in previous studies. I gave a presentation about it at our weekly Astrophysics journal club. The figure in the header is M82, Read More …