Category Archives: bennnnn

That’s his name, don’t wear it out.

Ben In Toronto

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Hi guys, i haven’t been able to update the next segment of the “twin paradox” saga, on account of being in Toronto for the Canadian Association of Physicists conference. I gave a talk, where i presented my research on quantum-collapsing matter turning into a black hole. I talked to all sorts of folks. Also, many of the friends i have made over the years and across the continent are at this conference, and it’s great to catch up!

I suppose the funnest talk I heard was by a gentleman named Kipp Cannon, and he presented a talk where the LIGO gravitational wave detector could be used to look for COSMIC STRINGS whose gravitational waves rumble like thunder… If they exit.

Toronto, the capital of the province of Ontario, is canada’s largest city. almost 3 million people! and the university is within walking distance from all sorts of fun food! I’ve eaten Ethiopian food, and Ramen, and Udon, and a PIZZA SLICE bigger than my head.

The moral of the story is that the CAP conference is lots of fun. and also, that Toronto is a surprisingly wonderful and charming city and well worth a visit. (Also I have found the Sneaky Dee’s restaurant that appears in the scott pilgrim books, and i’ve also gotten lost in HONEST ED’S!!!)

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The Twin Paradox (Part ONE)

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The Twin Paradox

a TWIN PAIR OF DUCKS! O_O

No you misheard. I said “twin PARADOX”. As in: a situation where the outcome seems counterintuitive or contradictory. The twin paradox is a famous paradox closely associated with Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity.

Simply put, you take a set of twins. Born on the same day, on the same year, to the same Mom. We’ll call one of them Liz, and the other Ben. We take Ben and send him on a trip into space on a rocket (or throw him too close to a black hole)… and after a couple years, he returns from his exile and goes to see his twin. It’s their birthday after all (suppose that it’s also their birthday).

But as they put candles on their cake, they realize that Ben is MUCH YOUNGER than Liz! A whole handful of candles! How can this be? Neither twin has access to a TARDIS. Each twin denies undergoing any magical or science-y procedure (aside from the rocket trip, but Ben contends that he mostly just sat around in a room playing nintendo). Each twin recalls each and every day since they parted, years ago, and claims that nothing strange has happened. It’s a mystery! No! It’s more than a mystery: it’s a PARADOX.

Continue reading The Twin Paradox (Part ONE) →

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How the Mayor Will Save You in a Zombie Apocalypse (by reminding you to stay at work)

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Hello everyone. Welcome to my first blog post. Today is a silly day, and since it is still zombie awareness month , I’ve decided to present some of my own silly fiction-science research on zombies. Specifically, zombie epidemic mathematics.

Thanks, google image search!

Epidemic Mathematics
Okay, so there are real people out there studying real epidemics using mathematics; and as it happens, modeling an epidemic can be fairly straightforward (you know, like assembling a sky scraper, or running a factory). Let me do a thought experiment with you do demonstrate how it can be done.

Suppose that there are four people moving about randomly (once an hour) inside of a four room house, and one of them has the flu. The odds that a healthy person will meet the sick dude are 1/4. Suppose that, should you get stuck in the same room with the sick dude, the odds of contracting the flu are 1/7. Then the overall odds of catching the flu (by getting caught in the sick room, and then contracting the illness) are 1/(7*4)=1/28. Thus, the number of people who will get sick each hour will be 3/28. Alternatively, I could say that it will take about 10 hours for ONE PERSON to contract the flu. After that, there will be two sick people and two healthy people wandering through the claustrophobic little house.

Follow that?! Then you’ve just taken a baby step toward being able to model an epidemic. Its a helpful and noble field of mathematics. Of course, I’m a physicist, and neither helpful nor noble. So I chose to model a stupid ZOMBIE epidemic.

Continue reading How the Mayor Will Save You in a Zombie Apocalypse (by reminding you to stay at work) →

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