Michael Lee's Messageboard

Hey, Vish! I love the fact that quantum mechanics can predict so many results of the microscopic universe (and the macroscopic universe!) that are inaccesible to Newtonian mechanics. I really enjoy taking classic problems and re-solving them using formulisms native to quantum mechanics. Also, I'm looking for an inexpensive print copy of the Feynman lectures for myself (I'm in the middle of reading through them, and they're always an excellent reference). Incidentally, Feynman most famously was teaching at Cornell (where I'm studying now) when he and Hans Bethe developed what we know now as quantum electrodynamics.

Hey! My favorite scientific result is definitely either the Michelson-Morley experiment, Young's double slit experiment, or the Stern-Gerlach experiment. All of them were conducted using setups that were both rudimentary and insightful, and they each revealed something very profound about the nature of modern physics.

Well, if you want a really oversimplistic answer, personally, I would choose brains over body. Brains last longer, and smart people make interesting conversation.

However, I would say that there's always more to finding a significant other than that simple dichotomy. What if somebody is brilliant, but treats you poorly? Or beautiful, but wholly intellectually unsatisfying?

As it is, my girlfriend isn't necessarily the smartest person or the prettiest person I've ever met, but I think she's the perfect mix of both for me, so that tells you my thoughts on the subject.

I've worked some of the Irodov problems out for myself, yes. They're not very difficult problems; I've heard that they're good IIT-JEE problems, but that's not really my thing (particularly, I'm not a fan of the structure of the exam). I find it a little irresponsible that the book presents only formulae, but no derivations (although I assume that the book really is meant to be used as a supplement for students that have already learned the derivations in a more rigorous setting), but more so that students should decide to study only the formulae without learning the theory and history of physics! In particular, if you want some challenges that require you to solve mechanics problems with great generality, one of the most fun (haha) books for undergraduate physicists has always been Kleppner and Kolenkow.

Hi! I applied to other colleges (a few other Ivies, and some other medium-sized universities in the Northeastern United States, which as an area of the US has the highest density of top-class research universities), but Cornell was definitely the right choice, as it was the university at which I was best able to fit in everything I wanted to do (I'm also very into music, and one of my prospective degrees is in Musicology). They also awarded me the most financial aid money, and they had the best physics program (in my opinion) out of the various colleges I applied to. In addition, the campus was beautiful, and there's a nice mixture of students who are really very brilliant and students who are interesting and from different experiential backgrounds. (Also, we have nice healthy rivalries with colleges like Harvard. Hockey games are a lot of fun. As a point of interest, acceptance rates are not necessarily a good way of measuring the selectivity of a university. Sometimes they're a better measure of the broadness of its educational scope. For example, Cornell turned down more students this past year than applied to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, as well as more than double the number of students who applied to MIT. The reason is that Cornell had so many applicants is that we have specialized schools for industial and labor relations, hotel administration, architecture and urban planning, human ecology, and agriculture, among other fields. While the other Ivies have excellent academics, and you can certainly study a wide variety of fields at any of them, Cornell's educational breadth is very much encoded in its founding philosophy.).