Classes have started. So far, so good. I took up a personal project that involves what is called a circular, hydraulic jump. You can see a simple example of a hydraulic jump by turning on your kitchen sink. The ring of water that forms at the bottom of the sink is the hydraulic jump. Well, it turns out that this thing appearing in your kitchen can be used as a model for the
time-reversed equivalent of a black hole, aka a white hole. A black hole sucks everything up and nothing can escape, not even light. Well a white hole spits everything out, and nothing can get in. In the kitchen sink, you can see little waves traveling out towards the ring, but you don't see waves traveling in. Just like a white hole! Who would have thought that fluid dynamics is analogous with the weirdest, craziest things happening in the universe?
My professor sent me a bunch of papers to read. Papers about things like quantum field theory, general relativity, time-reversal, and Hawking radiation. These topics are things super insanely intelligent theoretical physicists study. One of the papers even calls
Stephen Hawking's calculation of the event horizon temperature as "naive." I'm in way over my head, but I would much rather be overwhelmed than underwhelmed.
I went to Bordeaux. Twice! Once to go exploring, and once to see one of my favorite bands of all time,
Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I've heard that there is a bit of a rivalry between Paris, the largest city in France, and Bordeaux, the second largest city. I won't add anything to fuel this rivalry, but what I will say that I really REALLY like Bordeaux. Of course, I made sure to try some wine while I was there. I also had a funny exchange with a bartender:
"Good evening. What kind of beer is the Waggle Dance?"
"It's a honey beer. You're American, right? Yeah, maybe you would like it."
My professor took some classmates and me to visit the Château de Clos Lucé. This was the place Leonardo da Vinci spent the last years of his life. Everyone knows Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, and that he's one of the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (that's right, Michael Bay, both teenage AND mutant). However, he was also an engineer and an inventor. A really good one. Some of his inventions didn't work so well, but the principles they were based on made sense. Very impressive, especially for someone in his day.
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| One of my schools, École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et d'Aérotechnique. This building was designed to be slanted so that it looks like a crashed spaceship. |
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| Basilique Saint-Michel. |
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| Lots of nice little shops and cafés and restaurants. |
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| Le miroir d'eau. |
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| Pont de Pierre. |
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| Leonardo da Vinci's study room. |
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| "Movement is the cause of all life." |
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| Courtyard at Château de Clos Lucé. |
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| da Vinci's precursor to the helicopter. |
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| da Vinci's design for a military tank. |
