General purpose thread where Kitty advises posters on whatever they ask

[KrazyHorse]

How much should one study for quals?

I did 3-5 days for each of my written exams (one each on Stat Mech, Classical, Quantum and EM), a week for my oral exam and 2-3 weeks preparing my presentation and studying for my thesis proposal.

[KrazyHorse]

Two cars:

One runs on regular unleaded and gets low to mid 20s to the gallon.
One runs on diesel and gets 30-40 mpg.

Do you buy the diesel? Right now diesel is ~30% more expensive than regular gas. If that holds in the future, the diesel makes sense. There are other factors, but let's ignore them for now.

-Arrian

There is no reason to believe that there will be massive swings in the price ratio. AFAIK the D/G ratio is actually fairly stable. The only thing to bear in mind is the inconvenience of purchasing diesel (less service locations).

[Elok]

They are merely idle speculation by a bunch of people who have managed to convince others to fund their intellectual masturbation.

Don't you wish you could do that?

[Theben]

Do you subscribe to the notion that people formulate bits of data into images and ideas that are what they want them to be? I need to know b/c every time I see your avatar out of the corner of my eye I think it's an erect phallus.

[KrazyHorse]

Don't you wish you could do that?

In all seriousness, no.

I really do think that many of these avenues of research are sterile.

[KrazyHorse]

Do you subscribe to the notion that people formulate bits of data into images and ideas that are what they want them to be? I need to know b/c every time I see your avatar out of the corner of my eye I think it's an erect phallus.

I think that our senses provide us with a picture which is much more subjective than most people allow for, if that's what you mean.

[Lorizael]

Do you subscribe to the notion that people formulate bits of data into images and ideas that are what they want them to be? I need to know b/c every time I see your avatar out of the corner of my eye I think it's an erect phallus.

Really? I think 2girls1cup. (For the uninitiated, DO NOT google at work.)

[Arrian]

There is no reason to believe that there will be massive swings in the price ratio. AFAIK the D/G ratio is actually fairly stable. The only thing to bear in mind is the inconvenience of purchasing diesel (less service locations).

Pretty much my thinking. I don't really care about the inconvenience issue - it's not that bad. The real issue for me is that the diesel is brand new, so I can't buy a used one. I don't much like the idea of buying new.

edit: the other issue is that we live in NE, and cold weather & diesels don't get along all that well.

-Arrian

[The Mad Monk]

You could buy an engine block heater, but of course that would bite into efficiency.

[Blaupanzer]

Block heaters must be available for both, but in all the years I lived in Wyoming, I never saw one for a diesel engine. If you travel much, I would second KH's suggestion. However, if not, diesel was readily available near the interstates in the nation west of the Mississippi. Suspect it still is and the cost formula works very much in your favor.

[Arrian]

We don't travel all that much, but this car would be the "trip car." The main destinations would be other parts of CT, NH, VT... maybe OH and NC.

The whole point of it is to be able to put us, 2 labs and a child (to be produced later) and our stuff in the vehicle. The trip car right now is a Honda Accord, and that won't get it done, since the dogs take up the entire back seat.

-Arrian

[The Mad Monk]

It should be easy enough to find out online; most vehicles on dealers' lots don't have them unless the winters are really harsh, but you can order one if you're buying new and can afford to wait a couple of months.

[KrazyHorse]

Every car I ever saw sold in Montreal had an engine block heater
Gasoline engines usually only required them if it was going below -25C overnight (-13F) which is pretty cold for CT

[Elok]

Inane physics question: if two objects collide while each traveling at a little over half the speed of light, they have a combined velocity greater than C, right? It's like an object traveling faster than light ran into a stationary object. Might there be any trippy side effect to "bending the rules" that way? Aside from the massive flash of light when the two objects crashed together at that speed, I mean, which would be pretty cool in itself. I'm thinking of Cherenkov radiation here (stumbled across its Wiki page a while ago).

[Ramo]

No. From the reference frame of one of the objects, it'd be equivalent to hitting another object going at ~4c/5. You'd see standard high energy collision stuff.