Spring 2008

A new semester begins tomorrow. As I mentioned earlier, this time I am foregoing the wisdom of my advisors (sorry!) and dropping Thermal Physics in order to pick up another semester of research, this time under the direction of Dr. Michael Summers.

I purchased my text book for the Modern Physics class from Amazon. Got it "used but really new" for half price. Seems mint condition to me - the pages are still even slightly stuck together from cutting! There is a small binding error - the periodic table on the inside back cover is skewed and will need to be trimmed or, more likely, scanned and repasted in correctly so I don't twitch every time I see it.

That is actually my only truly required text. I will be semi-auditing (showing up when I want for as long as I want) an atmospheric physics class, but I can check that book out from the library. I may try to sit in on the Thermal Physics class - we'll see what vibes I get from the unknown instructor when I sit in on tomorrow's class (I'm still technically registered for that class, not research). If I plan to do that regularly, I may have to see about picking up the text.

My big problem so far is that the Physics department redid their web site. While I applaud the move (the only one was very old tech and hardly updated), they seem to have broken more than they fixed. The new format is wiki-based, which I suppose is fine, but there is a lot of information which was there before that seems to be missing now. I suppose it will appear over time, but I am a proponent of having all your data set up before relaunching a site, especially in the week before classes start when some folks (ahem) are trying to dig up class information!