This year's annual letter directed you here, which is silly as I haven't posted here in months. My real website is here.

Two pictures from last week's road race

One Two

I'm not sure when the two photos were taken. I think the first one was after the first 15mi lap. The second one was either on the finishing hill, or the end of the second lap, which wasn't far before that. Either way, I was certainly feeling more tuckered out than shows in the picture. I'd have expected to have one of these faces. Apparently I wasn't working hard enough...

My Dartmouth presidential scholarship application is now complete. I just was by Prof Brownell's office and got his signature on the final form.

It's official

I'm a physics major. I got my cards signed by the department chair at ~10:45 and gave one to the registrar ~2:30. Here's schedule I got approved. I didn't put that much thought was put in to it, because I'm bound to change it anyway.

06F PHYS 19 06W PHYS 48 06S PHYS 44 06X PHYS 42 07W PHYS 41 07S PHYS 72,76 08F PHYS 43 08W PHYS 91 08S PHYS 66

Biking

This weekend I'll be racing in Boston. Men's D team time trial, road race, and crit. Read more about it.

Most pictures from spring break haven't distributed themselves yet. I've only found one picture of my self. I'll link to more when they're out.

Day 2 part 2

Physics 44 -- mechanics

This class spent more time going over the syllabus, books, etc. The class is a good size, and by show of hands, contains a similar number of sophomores, junior, and seniors. I also may be the only person for whom this is my first class in the 41-44 sequence. The class looks like it'll be the most math intensive physics class I've taken -- the prof recommended getting a book on mathematics for physics. I already have Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics sitting around, and it looks to cover what I'll need to know. I bought it as part of an amazon order some time ago -- it was well reviewed and cheap thanks to Dover books. After the introduction, we dived into material we'll learn a few weeks from now. We derived newton's second law from the principle of least action. It was ugly, but I followed most of it. Anyhow, classical mechanics is probably the least exciting branch of physics, but the prof seems good and the class looks solid.

Math 38 -- graph theory

There's not much to say about the class so far. The prof is young, spanish, and somewhat soft spoken. From what I can tell, he hasn't done much teaching, which is a mixed bag. After the standard first day of class stuff, he listed a few of the big graph theory problems (Konigsbeg bridges, traveling salesman, four color) and then dived right in to definitions. This was all boring to me, but at this point none of it was new. I recall that day one of graphs in prof Grood's class was full of definitions too, so I was expecting that. The prof seems very laid back, perhaps too much so. He used the phrase "I guess" many times too -- as in "I guess the complement of a graph is..." Although I'm willing to believe he says that because english is his second language, but it's still sort of disconcerting.

Day 2, part 1

Economics 22 -- macroeconomics

The prof is a very lively guy as reviews advertised. The class didn't dwell on the standard first day staples, so we got to some interesting stuff rather quickly. The class looks to cover the standard material, and we spent some time going over the various economic indicators we'd get intimate with (which I had already had lots of fun with at AEI). There was a discussion of what made an indicator useful: current gdp bad, real gdp better, real gdp per capita best. He did a cool example with gas prices, which when adjusted for inflation are very reasonable when comparing with past prices (gas prices during the 90s were the lowest ever). Moreover, the graphy energy costs as a percent of gdp is downward slopping because, among other things, cars are more efficient and people's wages have gone up even more (the hours worked to pay for a gallon of gas has been dropping).

One of his main goals is to teach people to identify bull shit, and he showed us several news stories (he apparently likes bringing news stories to class). One was a BBC article from 2003 that was mentioned record high gas prices, but that they weren't so high when adjusted for inflation. The story then quoted something like "while it's useful for economists to adjust prices for inflation, consumers pay in current dollars" from a AAA spokesman. Funny. Anyhow, this looks to be another good course.

Macroeconomics - ECON 022 01
Associated Term: Spring Term 2006
CRN: 30035
Status: **Registered** on Feb 14, 2006
Assigned Instructor: James D. Feyrer
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Credits: 1.000
Level: Undergraduate
Campus: Hanover Campus
Scheduled Meeting Times
Type Time Days Where Date Range Schedule Type Instructors
8:45 am - 9:50 am MWF Carson L02 Mar 28, 2006 - May 31, 2006 Lecture James D. Feyrer (P)
9:00 am - 9:50 am R Carson L02 Mar 28, 2006 - May 31, 2006 Lecture James D. Feyrer (P)

Intro to Hebr & Israel Culture - HEBR 010 01
Associated Term: Spring Term 2006
CRN: 30654
Status: **Web Registered** on Mar 28, 2006
Assigned Instructor: Lewis H. Glinert
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Credits: 1.000
Level: Undergraduate
Campus: Hanover Campus
Scheduled Meeting Times
Type Time Days Where Date Range Schedule Type Instructors
10:00 am - 11:50 am TR Bartlett 105A Mar 28, 2006 - May 31, 2006 Lecture Lewis H. Glinert (P)
Class 3:00 pm - 4:05 pm W Bartlett 105A Mar 28, 2006 - May 31, 2006 Lecture Lewis H. Glinert (P)

Graph Theory - MATH 038 01
Associated Term: Spring Term 2006
CRN: 30098
Status: **Web Registered** on Mar 28, 2006
Assigned Instructor: Sergi Elizalde
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Credits: 1.000
Level: Undergraduate
Campus: Hanover Campus
Scheduled Meeting Times
Type Time Days Where Date Range Schedule Type Instructors
Class 12:30 pm - 1:35 pm MWF Bradley Hall * 104 Mar 28, 2006 - May 31, 2006 Lecture Sergi Elizalde (P)
1:00 pm - 1:50 pm T Bradley Hall * 104 Mar 28, 2006 - May 31, 2006 Lecture Sergi Elizalde (P)

Mechanics - PHYS 044 01
Associated Term: Spring Term 2006
CRN: 30736
Status: **Registered** on Feb 14, 2006
Assigned Instructor: Kristina A. Lynch
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Credits: 1.000
Level: Undergraduate
Campus: Hanover Campus
Scheduled Meeting Times
Type Time Days Where Date Range Schedule Type Instructors
11:15 am - 12:20 pm MWF Wilder Hall* 115 Mar 28, 2006 - May 31, 2006 Lecture Kristina A. Lynch (P)
12:00 pm - 12:50 pm T Wilder Hall* 115 Mar 28, 2006 - May 31, 2006 Lecture Kristina A. Lynch (P)

Day 1

Hebrew 10/Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 17/Jewish Studies 20.2

While only 16 people were registered according to the registrar's website, many more people showed up. I'd wager that most of the students are jewish because a show of hands revealed that almost all were familiar with the hebrew alphabet, but only 2 could actually read -- as opposed to pronounce -- hebrew (in other words, they had a similar hebrew school experience to my own). The prof is a lively guy -- he and this class got a good review from a cycling team member I talked with -- and fits the stereotypical Israeli/Jewish appearance (even if he weren't wearing a yarmulke). He is also apparently the first "Professor of Hebrew" (or some other title) since his the previous person to hold the post died of tuberculous in 1807 and wasn't replaced.

In addition to the standard first day fare (going over the sylibus, recording peoples names, etc.) he gave a brief overview of the hebrew language (who would have known it when, was it a spoken or written language (like latin), etc.) which was quite interesting. The short answer is that jews mostly stopped speaking it during late antiquities (they started speaking aramaic) at which point it stuck around as a written language pretty much until the creation of Israel. There was also renewed interest in hebrew by many christians around the time of the reformation, but interest (at least in the united states) died out around the time of the previous professor of hebrew.

The prof also went in to the origin of the words "jew" and "hebrew" and why one refers to a language and another to a people. I knew the former came from the kingdom of Judaea. The latter comes from a words that appears 6 times in the bible, a name for the jews that was used when talking with foreigners. How the two words ended up in their current roles is anyone's guess, although at different times and in different languages (eg Russian) they are used differently.