I can give it a try!

Condensed matter physics is rather broad (and probably, population-wise, the largest area of physics), encompassing the study of solids, liquids and generally squidgy stuff. As a theorist, I study simplified models of crystalline solids (materials where the atoms form a periodic structure) in an attempt to determine their properties (do they conduct? is it magnetic? etc).

The particular models that I'm most interested have two main properties: (i) the constituent particles (e.g., electrons) of the model are strong interacting; (ii) these particles are confined to move back-and-forth in a single direction. The first property makes these systems difficult to study as interactions often have surprising effects (properties of the interacting system can be completely different to the non-interacting system!) and we don't have many mathematical or computational tools to deal with such problems. The second property is rather special, but not completely crazy -- we do see real materials where particles are (approximately) confined to move in a single direct (through, e.g., quirks of the crystal structure). This restriction also saves us a bit, as there are a number of special technique which allow us to make headway with such problems, which don't apply when the particles can move in more than one direction.

The out-of-equilibrium problems I study basically aim to address the following question: if one dumps a load of energy in to a quantum system very suddenly, what happens? The natural conjecture is that if one leaves the system alone for a sufficiently long time, it should settle and become hot. In fact, it turns out that the story is quite a bit more complicated than that, and these kinds of questions are being studied quite a lot at the moment.

Tldr: I study collections of particles confined to move along a single direction which interact strongly. We want to understand how (and if) these systems get hot when you suddenly dump some energy in to them.

I'm working in condensed matter theory. My research is mostly studying strongly correlated low-dimensional (1+1D) quantum systems, with a particular focus on the physics of out-of-equilibrium quantum systems.

I sometimes have to program as part of my work. As with any coding, if you're not careful (or, even if you are) you end up with bugs in your code. As I'm often doing coding to get numerical answers, an oft-encountered bug is the NaN (Not a Number) error - something that should be a number is not, usually because you've accidentally divided by zero. I like bad puns -- like the kind of things you'd come up with for a themed bar trivia team name -- and at some point I figure NaN error could just as well stand for "Not another Neil" error (as Neil is my name, and I'm the one making the damn error).

I think #goodlongwatch is a great idea for a tag. Along these lines, there was a thread by magicjespa a few days ago about recommendations for documentaries which didn't get so much attention

and might be a good place to start finding some documentaries recommended by Hubskiers.

That's a really good question. And I'll attempt to illustrate it with probably the simplest example, although I apologize if this is too high (or too low) level!

Let's start first by defining quite what I meant when I said

if one leaves the system alone for a sufficiently long time, it should settle and become hot

The lower axis here is the energy (E) minus the "Fermi energy" (E_F) which is defined as the energy of the highest-energy electron at absolute zero temperature (so don't worry about seeing a negative axis!).

Now, lets consider a bunch of non-interacting electrons -- the electrons just float around, not seeing one-another or anything else. Of course, this isn't realistic, but we're theorists, so we can get away with thinking about such things. Imagine now that I "dump some energy" into my system by adding an electron with energy 1; what happens? Well, we have some electrons that float around, not seeing one-another and not interacting. This means that there's no way to reduce the energy of the electron you've added, so no matter how long I wait, there'll be an electron with energy 1, and I'll have a non-thermal distribution (it'll look like the Fermi-Dirac distribution above with a jump at energy 1). In physics, we like to say that there is a conservation law -- the number of particle at each energy is conserved in this simple case. Of course, this isn't very interesting so far as everything is non-interacting and not terribly realistic.

Now, what happens if we turn on interactions between the electrons in our system? Interactions may allow us to redistribute energy: if we have an electron with energy Ea and another with energy Eb we can collide them and scatter to energies Ec and Ed provided Ea + Eb = Ec + Ed, e.g. energy is conserved. Notice now that we only really have one conservation law -- that total energy is conserved. In general, it is expected that such processes will eventually lead to thermalization (e.g., the Fermi-Dirac distribution at a suitably higher temperature, fixed by the energy we dumped into the system).

Now, as a theorist, I want to test this expectation (let's call it a conjecture). So I turn to my favorite interacting model that I know how to exactly-solve (there are not many of these) and test this conjecture. What do I find? I find that my exactly-solvable model doesn't thermalize: when I inject energy into the system I do not recover the thermal distribution. What gives?! Well, it comes down to what I previously mentioned -- conservation laws. These special exactly-solvable models are solvable precisely because they have lots of conservation laws (in fact, they have the same number of conservation laws as particles) and this puts very strong restrictions on how the particles can redistribute energy around and eventually leads to a non-thermal distribution. Figuring out what this non-thermal distribution is and how to compute the values of "measurable quantities" are serious areas of research at the moment.

This comment ended up much longer than I anticipated, and I'm not sure of an adequate tldr!

Thanks for sharing! I'd never come across this anywhere before and it's a great read -- the guy really writes in a beautiful manner, filling you with his passion and enthusiasm. I couldn't put it down and read it start to stop and I agree that it really does show how easily you can slip into a survival situation without realizing it.

I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher, so I'm directly funded out of money from my boss, which comes from the US Government (the Department of Energy). Money is most definitely a problem for academic research at the moment in almost any subject (the humanities have had almost non-existent funding for years in the UK) and is one of the reasons I moved countries after my PhD. I don't like arguing for science funding on purely economic grounds (I think it says something very sad about society that one often has to make such arguments to politicians), but whilst there is some debate about quite how good funding science is for the economy as a whole (see, for example, this Nature piece and articles therein), there is a definite consensus that it is good.

Probably I'm biased (as a scientist), but I can't help but think scientific inquisitiveness is as much a defining feature of humanity as its pursuit of the arts, exploration, poetry, theatre, literature, etc. Eh, hopefully I don't sound too pretentious!

I guess I have a fairly usual morning routine. I get up some time around 7:30, hop straight into the shower and then brush teeth & shave. Following this, I get dressed and then make breakfast (usually some flavored porridge and an espresso). Then I surf the internet/read emails/relax for half-an-hour or so before heading to work.

If you're interested in morning routines, I'll point you towards the website of an old friend from school who curates the morning routines of various people. I generally find many of the people on there a little pretentious, but some of you may find it of interest!

Finally, I learned to do more planning when taking on a project, and resist the urge to begin modeling and engineering right away.

I know that feeling! It's always tempting to dive right in and get going, but you'll almost never regret spending some time thinking about things and getting more details, asking questions etc. Thanks for write-up; it was an interesting insight into this kind of engineering project.

I took a look at The Bad Plus last night and really enjoyed them, so I'll definitely be listening to them some more. It was also surprising (in a good way!) to hear them cover some non-Jazz songs, which work extremely well.

You should take a look at this link, which seems to discuss in a friendly manner some steps to go through to figure out what you can do.

The basic problem is your hard drive is getting full and you need to empty up some space. Make sure you've emptied your trash folder, if you use iPhoto check out the trash there (see the first comment on the article) and figure out if there's any files you no longer need, can delete, or can move to an external hard drive.

I quite recently finished The Magus by John Fowles, which I found to be quite a compelling read. Taking part on a small Greek island in the 1950s, the plot centers on an Englishman who becomes the pawn in some elaborate psychological game directed by an old foreign gentleman he meets whilst on the island. In particular, the fact that neither you as the reader nor the main character are quite sure about what is real, what is acting and what is illusion as the main story progresses kept me reading and enjoying the twists and turns of the plot.

I'm not sure how the last sounds so fresh, after so many years.

Smoke is such a great movie - it's one of those that I stumbled upon on Netflix and both me and my boyfriend absolutely loved it. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something to watch.

I was traveling for work for a couple of weeks, so I've only just seen your reply now. I agree completely with your comments -- graduate training can increase how good you are at other jobs and be character building. I don't think it's a particularly good sole/major reason to go to grad school -- one would probably be better served by working in a particular industry instead, where one can character build and obtain relevant skills.

I agree that in general, expanding career opportunities is a big part of education at all levels. However, I don't think that this is a particularly good sole reason for pursuing a Ph.D. -- my general impression from colleagues is that having a Ph.D. can be a hinderance on the (outside of academia) job market. I'd think in general (and of course, your mileage may vary...) that if improving career prospects is your main aim of graduate school, you're better off leaving with a M.S. and getting relevant job experience, instead of spending the additional 3-5 years on a Ph.D. (which is what I usually think of as "graduate school").

Another point to bear in mind, I think, is that if you're interested in academic jobs, it's also really worth being realistic at all stages of your chances. Very few Ph.D. students make it through to full-time academic positions and there is really no shortage of extremely well qualified candidates. I'm not advocating against this path, just it's worth having some back-up plan and gathering "transferable skills" for outside careers whilst in the academic pipeline.

1. Why did you go to grad school?

I liked doing research -- I'd started as an undergraduate and wanted to do more. And I wanted to learn more quantum mechanics and apply it to models to understand some (approaching...) real world problems. I liked the place, the research and the atmosphere and fellow graduate students.

2. When did you go to grad school?

I went straight after undergraduate, age 22. Finished just over a year ago.

3. What is a good reason to go to grad school?

I think about the only reason to go to grad school is that you like doing research and/or learning the subject to greater depths whilst on the front lines, worry about and performing the nitty-gritty side of things.

4. What is a bad reason to go to grad school?

Expand career opportunities. To stay a student. To get "Dr." in front of your name.

5. What is the best state of mind to start grad school?

Be open minded about what you're researching and focussed on the task at hand. Treat it like a job: when you're in the office/lab/library, don't procrastinate and waste time. Do stuff. Take time off; go on vacation. Watch your mental and physical health. Both of these things can suffer in grad school -- if they are, take a step back, take some days off, make time to do fun stuff. Don't work yourself to the bone -- life is short and you should be doing fun stuff and enjoying some of the freedoms that grad school gives you.

6. What obvious and not so obvious things should I look for when choosing a program?

Assuming STEM, as this is my background: supervisor is the most important person. Try to find someone who you get on with; a strained relationship with supervisor definitely makes life more difficult (I had some experience here). Find out about money for traveling to conferences etc. Work environment (will you be in cubicle farm? small shared office?) and atmosphere (is everyone in 14hrs a day, 7 days a week? are people happy? do people look permanently tired/ill?). Talk to grad students 1-to-1 away from faculty to get some honest perspective on pros/cons of the place -- most will be happy to give you the low-down. If profs don't give you time/space to talk to grad students whilst at interview, take this as a bad sign.

7. How on earth am I supposed to generate income while simultaneously committing enough hours to my studies? During the school year in undergrad I worked usually less than 10 hours a week.

Again, from a STEM perspective, you'll be earning money. Probably not great money, but enough to live off. Many places (if you're a full-time grad student) won't allow you/be at all happy with you having another job. I know in my contract that I signed, it explicitly stated I couldn't have a second job. Often you can make some extra money teaching/TAing for classes, although the hourly pay is rough in reality.

I'm reading a graphic novel adaption of Swann's Way by Marcel Proust. I read the book a few years ago, and I'm using this as a reminder before starting the second book in the series. Quite liking it so far, the book is beautiful, both visually and in terms of tactile/quality.

Thanks for letting me know about the members and their other projects -- I'll definitely have to check them out as I've been really digging the American Football album. And I completely agree that this album is so far ahead of its time -- it sounds so fresh, it could have been released last week and I'd never had known any different.

I've been listening to the self-titled album by "American Football", which was released back in 1999 but is new to me.

I'm English, but have been living in the US for over a year now.

I'm about 200 pages in to the Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas.

I read the Count of Monte Cristo last year and absolutely loved it (it has to rank up there in my top 5 reads), and so far I'm really enjoying the TMITIM, although it took me a fair few pages to really get in to it. I've not read The Three Musketeers; despite some of the same characters cropping up, I don't think I'm massively missing out on a lot of the story.

Teaching is in a sad place at the moment in the UK, dominated by tedious paper work which don't really have much to do with the actual meat-and-veg of teaching

updating the classroom risk assessments or rewriting schemes of work (again) so that French definitely includes teaching “fundamental British values” (seriously).

I've seen a lot of friends from high school and university go in to teaching and more than half leave after a year or two. Whilst one anecdote doesn't equal data, it's telling when you know lots of people who have similar experiences with their friendship groups.

Whilst undoubtedly some of it can be written off to "people-not-knowing-what-they're-getting-into", I know in quite a few cases people who had extensive class room experience pre-PGCE leaving once the reality of paper work and lack of time to support any students, whether they're the best and brightest or those struggling.

Mostly, this situation just makes me sad. I really wouldn't be where I am today without the influence of many great teachers (even though I went to a "bad" school) who pushed, challenged and encouraged me, opening my eyes to opportunities I would never have encountered from mine and my parents' background. If we're losing this, we're losing social mobility and opportunities for kids.

Edit: also, I've just seen this article

Thanks for sharing! I didn't agree with quite a lot of what he said, but I think it was an interesting watch and critic of modern art. I'm not sure that I'd agree that the sole or primary aim of art is necessarily beauty (although, it is the case that this is the primary aim of many pieces of art) or that losing this aim is a damning testimony about the state of humanity or modern society. Also, the idea that beauty is somehow the "divine" in corporeal form seems almost laughably outdated as a point of view (although this is presumably highly personal).

If someone else can add a tag, it'd be a #goodlongwatch (if define an hour as long!).

Thanks for the specific recommendations for albums, I checked out both the Hank Mobley and the Sonny Rollins & Theolonious Monk albums and will definitely be listening to both again, as well as checking out some of their other stuff.

Yes, my partner is a fan of hers - she has a great voice. I love the song 'sweet memory'. Thanks for suggesting!

Latin Jazz is an area I've never explored, so thanks for giving me a great starting point to dive into it some more!

Thanks for all the recommendations -- I'm especially liking Lenny Breau and Kneebody. I'll be sure to check out some more from all your suggestions!

Thanks for the suggestions. Wes Montgomery is really right-up my street and I'll definitely be listening to more by him. I'm not so familiar with guitar-based Jazz, but I liked all the other suggestions you made and will definitely be investigating them some more!

Thanks for all the recommendations! I'd come across Charles Mingus' name before, but I've not listened to him previously. I'll be sure to check out some of his stuff -- from the brief listen I gave it, I think I'll like it. I fee like electronic jazz music is something that I've still not quite got used to yet, it doesn't quite gel with me as much as the stuff I usually listen to. The Herbie Hancock you linked has a wicked funky beat to it though!