Maths Physics Seminar

The title of today's talk is "Illusion of space-time and quantum mechanics (QM)" given by Professor Pavel K. Smrz from University of Newcastle, Australia. For more see this link.

As usual, I went to University de Montreal (UdEM) using metro subways since I can't stand to walk up the hill to the seminar room. And before the seminar started, I just noticed there is a conference given in CRM (Center of Mathematical Research), UdEM which is in 2007 that have a participant from Malaysia. The topic was heavy called

Groups and Symmetries: From Neolitics Scots to John Mackay"

This participant from Malaysia is known to be my former supervisor's colleague who her Phd advisor was Professor Leon Takhtajan from SUNY Stony Brook, New York. Prof. Takhtajan is one of the speaker in EQuaLS1.

I was so impressed that Malaysia do have a representative in this kind of I might say difficult area. John Mackay on the other hand is a very famous mathematician with his works on computation group theory and also Galois theory related from Concordia whom I met before during my Lie group class last winter 2008 (see this post). To be honest I was really inspired by these people.

Longest Verification

I've been doing this calculation of group multiplication from a 'new' group representation theory for about two weeks now. Last weekend saw me doing it over and over again. Which at the end, showed that no resolution is covered. Last week also during my discussion, me and my advisor are somehow 'fighting' each other to show which formula really works and how to solve it.

There are two things which I need to prove. The first part is using the group multiplication one needs to show that the group representation is correct. And the second part is to get the correct matrix form from the group representation. I sense that this is not as simple as the 2x2 or 3x3 matrices. So I start with 4x4 and all my matrix multiplication so far show a NO go. One of the terms which I got is not correct. I just manage to get only three terms correct out of four. Which is not correct at all. It has to be a unique solution.

Owh I feel so so tired. But I need to keep it up and try other ways plus trying to look for if there is meaning comes out of it. The multiplication and groups. Aarrgghh...

It Is Still Winter...

I sense that this year winter is a bit of not so cold and also not so many snow. But I was totally wrong since yesterday there were a very heavy snow and today we have the coolest weather so far.

This going to be continued for the whole weekend. Seems like our plan to go to the winter carnival is not going to happen. Well, just look like at the "feels like" degree.
Though lets enjoy the warmest feeling at your home.

Weekly Mathematical Physics Seminar

This is the first maths physics seminar of the semester which took place at UdeM (Université de Montréal, French local university). The topic of the day is "États cohérents et comprimés pour des systèmes quantiques et potentiel de Morse". Yes, it was given in French which means "The Coherent states in one-dimensional of quantum system in a presence of Morse Potential".

Fortunately that the slides was in English. At least I know what the speaker was explaining when she refer to the slides. But of course I missed most of the elaboration or maybe certain examples which is not in the slides when she talking while not refering to the slides.

My advisor also coming to the seminar (he encouraged me to go even if it is in French) since the topic is closely related to his research interest and perhaps my future area. He even asked question and yes he asked in French. I asked the next day what is his question. So he told me.

The topic is somehow on the introductory to the what is called the coherent states. And instead of trying to solve in terms of the famously quantum harmonic oscillator, the speaker used the presence of Morse Potential. One knows that Morse potential give a much more reliable model when it comes to compute the potential energy of a diatomic molecules. It gives a better approximation for the vibrational structure of a molecule than that of the quantum harmonic oscillator. So the topic this week is showing some results (recent) due to this advantages.

Department Seminar

Today I've been told by my advisor that there will be a seminar given by a new member of Mathematics and Statistics Department. So every new recruited member of the department will have to give a seminar to the rest of the department related to his/her specialization. Today the speaker who is an algebraic geometrist give a talk on "Singularity of polynomial of characteristic zero and characteristic p".

Obviously this topic is not my interest but since I have my advisor attending it and also I found there is also few other students who attend. Then might be I guess I can learn something new about.

The speaker defined on what he called the log canonical threshold which works on the characteristic zero and the f-pure threshold (f for Frobenius) that works on the characteristic p>0. But first he presented on what he call a singularity in terms of functions that takes only an integer element. And of course one of the example is a cusp (pronouce cus with silent p). He talked more about an hour before he meets with the department committee due to his new position in Concordia.

After he give his talked, there are questions and answers session. Most of the question were given by the mathematical physicists. Since I've known each of them. The rest were by mathematicians. This session in general give an introductory of a personal interest of a new member to the department. So that the rest of the member will know what is his skills and on what basis do he specialized in. So to be more even general, it is like a breaking the ice session.

First Day of Class

Today is the first day of the Quantum Mechanics II (QM II) course. It will be carry on during this semester for every Wednesday afternoon from 2pm until 4.45pm. I was so excited to attend this course since the lecture will be given by my supervisor. Plus also on how would he made quantum mechanics to be lovable. That is the first thing he did, when he first started his lecture. He said exactly

"this would be a very fun course. It contains the story of the love of my life which is quantum mechanics"

I do have a bit of uneasy on how I would perform in his class, but the way he gave lecture effected me even more.

As I imagined, the student who took this courses are mostly male students. The fact that I'm trying to be as early as possible to the class, so that I can sit in front was not working that well. I'm competing myself with a few other tough guys which also taller than myself. And in the end I only secure myself for the second row. Maybe next time I can try to squeeze more to get a better view.

Today's topic touched on the historical of quantum mechanics and later on trying to generate concepts from the classical mechanics towards quantum mechanics. This is by doing the most famous example such as the pendulum and harmonic oscillator. I can safely say that I enjoyed this first lecture and also understand most of the topic which have been discussed.

good luck...

Snow Shower & 20-Ten

Wish all readers out there a very happy 2010.

Here in Montreal, the beginning of the new year is welcomed by the whole day of snow showering. Until now, the snow still falling non-stop.

May this new year of 2010 give a healthy living and prosperous life to all of us.

cheers...