The art of not being one with the universe » The wonderful world of science http://skjaeve.net The life and ramblings of Mr. Skjæveland Sat, 19 Nov 2011 10:40:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Greek letters. It’s sciencier. http://skjaeve.net/2010/09/14/greek-letters-its-sciencier http://skjaeve.net/2010/09/14/greek-letters-its-sciencier#comments Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:49:50 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/?p=818 So I’m staring at this unfinished paper of mine. The idea is that if I stare at it for long enough, it’ll cease being unwritten.

There’s this thing that might be important in said paper. There’s a kind of electric potential structure that can occur in the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere interaction. It causes electrons to be accellerated along the Earth’s magnetic field lines in a very specific and localized manner. When you fly a satellite through this accellerated region, it looks like a crescendo-diminuendo in the energy-time spectrogram. So what do we call this interesting phenomenon? Pyramid structure, perhaps? No, we call it an “inverted-V” structure.

Inverted V.

I thought we were doing physics here. Shut up, you. What happened to our love of the Greek alphabet? You know the lambda? The λ? What does a capital λ look like, people?

That’s right:

Λ

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2010/09/14/greek-letters-its-sciencier/feed 0 How not to organize your radar data files http://skjaeve.net/2010/06/01/how-not-to-organize-your-radar-data-files http://skjaeve.net/2010/06/01/how-not-to-organize-your-radar-data-files#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:34:16 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/?p=735 So, in this PhD thingy I have some radar data files to work with. Not too hard, is it? A single radar beam, which records data in N-second batches. So we get a nice time series containing a sequence of altitude profiles of data.

Example profiles from the EISCAT Svalbard radar: Log10 electron density, electron temperature, ion temperature, ion velocity component along beam

Example EISCAT radar profiles.

Just like that. Now, the radar produces a lot of these profiles, for example one per minute. What’s the best way to organize these data? That’s right, in matrices where each column is one profile. And then you just stack them in sequential order. That way it’s easy to make scripts that snip out just the time period you want to poke at.

Below is a graph of the time axis in one version of a dataset I’m analysing. Can you spot the error? X axis profile number, Y axis timestamp of profile.

Plot of an interleaved time axis, making time series difficult to handle

Please don't do this.

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2010/06/01/how-not-to-organize-your-radar-data-files/feed 0 Waves in clouds, caused by mountaims http://skjaeve.net/2009/10/22/waves-in-clouds-caused-by-mountaims http://skjaeve.net/2009/10/22/waves-in-clouds-caused-by-mountaims#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:36:15 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/?p=676

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2009/10/22/waves-in-clouds-caused-by-mountaims/feed 0 I’ve been plotting revenge today. http://skjaeve.net/2009/02/02/ive-been-plotting-revenge-today http://skjaeve.net/2009/02/02/ive-been-plotting-revenge-today#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:47:06 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/2009/02/02/ive-been-plotting-revenge-today Revenge!

Revenge!

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2009/02/02/ive-been-plotting-revenge-today/feed 0 Frozen can http://skjaeve.net/2008/10/08/frozen-can http://skjaeve.net/2008/10/08/frozen-can#comments Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:47:07 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/?p=477 If you leave a can of fizzy drink in a too cold fridge, so that it freezes, the CO2 will be released from the water and go into the gas pocket in the can, right? Right. And this will increase the pressure inside the can, right? Right. And the freezing and expanding water will increase the pressure even more, right? Right. And eventually the increasing pressure inside the can will cause the can to crack along the weakened opening, releasing the pressure in a spray of gas and liquid, right?

Actually, not always.

DSC_1997
DSC_1996

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2008/10/08/frozen-can/feed 0 Dialog http://skjaeve.net/2008/09/24/dialog http://skjaeve.net/2008/09/24/dialog#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:44:10 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/?p=456 A dialog NASA's <a href='http://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/cdas/'>CDAWeb application</a> greets me with.

A dialog NASA's CDAWeb application greets me with.

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2008/09/24/dialog/feed 1 New job! http://skjaeve.net/2007/10/23/new-job http://skjaeve.net/2007/10/23/new-job#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:54:59 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/2007/10/23/new-job/ Since I’ve announced it everywhere else, I might as well say it here, too: I’ve got a new job. At New Year’s, I’ll be moving to Longyearbyen to study polar cap patches, an obscure phenomenon in dayside northern lights. If all goes well, I’ll have a Ph.D. to my name in three years.


Vis større kart

Oh, one more thing:
Wheeeee!

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2007/10/23/new-job/feed 0 First post! http://skjaeve.net/2007/09/02/first-post http://skjaeve.net/2007/09/02/first-post#comments Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:28:55 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/2007/09/02/first-post/ Admittedly, only a meagre fourth author, but still, first post!

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2007/09/02/first-post/feed 0 Half a brain http://skjaeve.net/2007/06/03/half-a-brain http://skjaeve.net/2007/06/03/half-a-brain#comments Sun, 03 Jun 2007 15:25:35 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/2007/06/03/half-a-brain/ One of the incrediblest things I’ve heard in a while: over a hundred children have had half their brains surgically removed as treatment of extreme seizures. Apparently it works remarkably well.

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2007/06/03/half-a-brain/feed 0 Conversation pieces I need http://skjaeve.net/2007/05/16/conversation-pieces-i-need http://skjaeve.net/2007/05/16/conversation-pieces-i-need#comments Wed, 16 May 2007 12:17:15 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/2007/05/16/conversation-pieces-i-need/ So another thing I decide that the world needs:

  1. A CAT scan of my head, used to construct a 3D model of my skull.
  2. Said model is fed to a 3D printer.
  3. Repeat, only this time use an MRI scan of my brain.

Voilà, I can reenact Hamlet’s conversation with Yorick with my own skull. Or, at least, a replica of it. And contemplate the mystery of the brain using my own as a paperweight.

All the technologies are right here. We have them today. We had them years ago. All that is needed is for Someone™ pull a wire from one to the other and connect them.

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2007/05/16/conversation-pieces-i-need/feed 0 And after tea, you have an appointment to destroy the Earth, sir. http://skjaeve.net/2007/04/25/and-after-tea-you-have-an-appointment-to-destroy-the-earth-sir http://skjaeve.net/2007/04/25/and-after-tea-you-have-an-appointment-to-destroy-the-earth-sir#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:26:27 +0000 Åsmund http://skjaeve.net/2007/04/25/and-after-tea-you-have-an-appointment-to-destroy-the-earth-sir/ Finally, somebody took the trouble to enumerate and rank the various methods for destroying the Earth.

]]> http://skjaeve.net/2007/04/25/and-after-tea-you-have-an-appointment-to-destroy-the-earth-sir/feed 0