Mathematical knitting and crocheting

I remember a statement recently made by a fellow student and friend, claiming that 'knitting is hip' and will soon become the next big thing. Time will tell if she's proven right.

Anyway, it seems more people are knitting and are making useful things with it. I came across an article about a maths professor who is using crocheting to make models of mathematical objects that are difficult to imagine, like hyperbolic planes and a Lorenz manifold.

Dilbert

I receive daily Dilbert comics for quite some time now. Most of the time they are very funny or even hilarious. The comic of today is one of those hilarious ones.

Calculus

Tomorrow at this time the first part of my first exam will come to an end. Hopefully I will be able to fill out the right answers. I've been preparing for this exam for the last three weeks and feel like I know some of it, but it's a very hard course.
Nearly 200 pages full of mathematical formulas and principals, including proof of all statements that are made. On average there is a statement with proof on every page throughout the whole textbook. This means a little less than 200 statements with proof that I must be able to reproduce tomorrow.
Although I feel confident I will be able to produce some of the most important ones, I'm not sure about a whole lot of other statements.
Unfortunately the exam consists of two parts. The theoretical part is tomorrow in the afternoon, the second part consist of excercises and is scheduled the day after in the morning. It is a good thing to have some time between both parts, where I can review some excercises. But it's also a very long time where pressure will start build.
With less than 24 hours to go I'm going to review the most important statements again, in order to be prepared as good as possible.

Ball lightning explained

An explanation for the formation of ball lightning was found by New Zealand researchers.

"Ball lightning forms when lightning strikes soil, turning any silica in the soil into pure silicon vapor. As the vapor cools, the silicon condenses into a floating aerosol bound into a ball by charges that gather on its surface, and it glows with the heat of silicon recombining with oxygen."

To prove the theory, a Brazilian research team set up a test, which resulted in small ball lightning the size of pingpong balls.

MIT courses available online

Famous American university MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has made its courses available on the internet for free. This is part of the OpenCourseWare program they are participating in.
MIT wants to make their knowledge available to everyone, including those who can't afford to study at a big university. A lot of courses are already available at the moment. In the future all MIT courses will be available through the program.

Last.fm

I registered at last.fm last week.
Last.fm is a website that keeps track of the music you listen to, using plugins for the most used music players around. When you listen to your music, with your favorite music player, information about the songs you have heard, is sent to the last.fm website.
This information is used to make a profile of your listening habbits: what is your favorite artist, what kind of music do you like most, ...
This profile is then used to match you with other people who have a similar taste. You are provided with other music those people like and which you migth like too, as you have a mutual musical taste.

At least that's what the website is telling me. I have used the plugin for a few days now, but it will take a few weeks - according to their website - to build a profile.

BTW: I got the plugin working on iTunes (it keeps track of both the music I listen to on iTunes and my iPod) and on XMMS (Linux).

Clouds

It seems the plane on this picture is coming out of a cloud or flying through one, but in fact the cloud is generated by the plane itself. And no, the plane is not on fire or leaking any fluids.





The cloud is induced by the plane flying at a speed near but not greater than the sound barrier. The effect is caused by the Prandtl-Glauert Singularity.
In short: At speeds near the sound barrier and at certain pressure, the temperature drops, causing moisture in the air to condensate and forming a cloud.

Physics can be beautiful. :-)