ITT: We learn something new

>State your background and/or area of expertise (or at least what you think you feel comfortable explaining)

>Ask a question: What is something outside of your field that you've always wondered about but haven't found a fulfilling explanation for?

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youtube.com/watch?v=t7EYQLOlwDM
math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bsz_new.pdf
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I'll start

Background
>BS in Geology and Geophysics
>MS in Geophysics and Seismology
>Work in the oil and gas industry
>Informal background in applied math

My question:
>How close are we really with superconductivity for practical applications? What have been the major breakthroughs and limitations?

>Doctor of Medicine
>Currently in speciality training- Cardiology
>Experience of Intensive Care, General Surgery, Stroke medicine, Respiratory medicine and General Internal Medicine
>Some lab-based experience in immunology

When will quantum computing become more widely available and what technological challenges do we need to overcome in order to achieve this?

Also, would government by scientists result in a utopian society or an absolute shit-fest? My opinion on this often varies considerably and would be keen to hear what other Veeky Forumsentists think

How do you sleep at night knowing that you're contributing so heavily to wrecking our atmosphere?

Retard

Some laymen view science dogmatically. It is my opinion that technocratic government-by-scientists would be in practice indistinguishable from theocracy. Ya know, except for the space ships and shit. Unless we go hard commie with it, it will be co-opted by corporate interests. Ya know, just like real life.

What do you use for lysis therapy and how effective is it? Also is anyone developing some alternative to vasopressin/epi that actually helps in a cardiac arrest?

Also give me tips on memorizing anatomy, senpai.

Well... we really can't live without oil and gas. We don't only use hydrocarbons for energy, but also to make an enormous amount of materials including plastics and many pharmaceuticals.

I wish we would change to more sustainable sources of energy, but nothing really comes anywhere near the efficiency of hydrocarbons. The only alternatives that I think have a shot are nuclear fusion and space-based solar. Everything else is waaaay too low-yield. In fact, those other alternative energy sources like wind and biofuels are prohibiting real progress by hogging up all the research money from the alternatives that actually have potential. And this doesn't even consider the transportation problem (i.e. you can ship oil around).

I started working in this industry thinking I would be entering a dying industry. Now I just hope that that is true, but it really doesn't seem like we are moving in that direction. Energy consumption is growing and so is the global population. It is all unsustainable.

I think that a more realistic solution to the global warming problem is to develop the technology to allow us to still use enormous amounts of energy (from wherever) and actively clean up the atmosphere. Some of these efforts are currently underway including carbon capture and sequestration as well as this recent development from Oak Ridge:
youtube.com/watch?v=t7EYQLOlwDM

I think the oil and gas industry should not be told to stop producing oil (that will never happen as long as people need it), but they should be pressured to develop these technologies to clean things up.

But at the same time, you have to understand that we are not in this position because of the oil and gas industry alone. We have a polluted planet because we use things that don't grow on trees. Anything that you are using, if it's not biological, it had to be mined (or drilled). And somewhere, there is a big pipe of crap going into some river in order to get you those cool new headphones.

I suspect that scientists will sacrifice things like welfare in pursuit of investment in research. Which is like a long-term investment in higher standards of living for all but would almost certainly result in revolt by the impoverished lower classes

We use alteplase for thrombolysis

In myocardial infarction, thrombolysis is reserved for patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) who are too unstable to transfer for angiogram or who will not reach the cath lab within 2 hrs. It is less effective and less safe when compared to angioplasty. Following thrombolysis, the patient will need an angiogram after 24-48 hrs (so-called rescue PCI). This is because of longer-term issues with myocardial dysfunction and ongoing coronary atherosclerosis leaving a residual risk of re-infarction and cardiac failure. This is a nice reference upon which much of our practice is based:
Di Mario C, Dudek D, Piscione F e al. Immediate angioplasty versus standard therapy with rescue angioplasty after thrombolysis in the Combined Abciximab REteplase Stent Study in Acute Myocardial Infarction (CARESS-in-AMI):an open, prospective, randomised, multicentre trial. Lancet 2008;371:559-68

There is no benefit of alteplase in non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI).

In ischaemic stroke, thrombolysis is less effective than endovascular thrombectomy but has demonstrated a substantial benefit in terms of degree of disability, duration of stay and mortality when compared to standard anti-platelet therapy. The risk is haemorrhagic transformation of the infarct (bleeding into the dead brain). For this reason, it should generally not be offerred beyond 4.5hrs following the onset of symptoms.

For pulmonary embolism, it is reserved for massive PEs causing haemodynamic compromise or arrest. It is difficult to assess efficacy of thrombolysis for PE because the mortality is so high. Lysis does not improve outcomes in PEs without haemodynamic compromise.

Memorising anatomy without context is difficult. I studied anatomy by dissection, which helped. I also read the operative anatomy at the same time which gave me some context.

Many of the names of various structures can give you a clue to the function. There are lots of helpful acronyms as well. Test yourself frequently with flashcards. Always have some in your pocket and when you are waiting for stuff/on a bus/whatever, just get them out and have a read.

law of large numbers

Oh shoot. Well you gotta know when to kiss ass I guess. What do they do that provokes you?

Whatever works for you mate. I can guarantee your job is more interesting and better paid than mine, so there's some compensation.

background
>Spanish
>nothing else desu

question.
how do I QFT?
is it worth studying math, on proper rigorous math textbooks for mathematicians, to do physics?

>is it worth studying math

no, it's never worth studying math, unless you're calculating the dose of cyanide to take in order to kill yourself.

hint: (1). it's 1. 1 cyanide.

Great answers, thank you!

Somebody's still a little upset they failed Calc I :(

Good thread concept.

Background:
>BS in physics
>Publications in biophysics regarding mechanics of cell structures and protein transport models
>Pursuing a masters in education
>CS minor and hobby

Question:
>For anyone who achieved or will soon achieve any science degree: At the conclusion of your course of study, how satisfied were you in the quality of the education you received, both as a field and at your institution? Was it sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive? Should it have included more or less of something?

I've just finished my BSci. Energy management and math. It was sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive I suppose. I regret not doing a couple of CS papers (but then would struggle to pick papers to substitute for them). Overall 8/10, I would repeat the experience and recommend it to others who had the stomach for it.

Background:
>BS in Biomedical Science
>MS in Clinical Laboratory Science
>ASCP, etc.
>6 years in cancer genetics research

Question:
What is the actual answer behind wave-particle duality? I get over-simplified answers about point excitations of fields being particles, and such. But if we're detecting peaks of a waveform as particles, why do they still behave as particles? People always answer way too simply to be accurate, or go straight into high level math without explaining.

I was satisfied. But I went to a large research university, so a huge amount of my education was done in conjunction with actual research. I wound up with my name on a publication by the time I graduated undergrad. They did a good job of ensuring that.

>4th year undergrad, physics with astrophysics

Quantum computing is receiving a shitload of research money because governments just loooove secrets.
I haven't got a clear idea of how long it will take to get viable quantum computers, but if I had to guess, I'd say at least twenty years.
If you care enough, I could give you a layman's intro to quantum computing?

Now for my question. Why does the heart muscle not get tired like every other muscle structure in the body? I'm guessing it has something to do with the constant, oxygen-rich, energy-rich blood supply, but surely there would need to be a workforce of white blood cells to repair ripped tissue from exertion?

Oh, and also, a scientist-run government would be ineffective because everyone would want to continue being a scientist, and not have time/experience in politics.
What would be good though, is if every world leader was forced to take science aptitude tests and moral compass tests.
In fact, I would apply this to any political figure in positions of power.

"Wave particle duality" is misleading. In science, we use "model" to describe a mathematical framework that describes the behavior of a system and makes predictions of the behavior of a system. In some situations, it is useful to use a classical model of a particle. You are no doubt familiar with this model: rigid spheres colliding elastically according to k=1/2*mv^2 and conservation of momentum. This model is used on human-comparable length and energy scales. On the other hand, it is sometimes useful to use the quantum-mechanical model. You probably don't have much experience with this model, but it involves describing the likelihood of an interaction based on the solution to a particular differential equation depending on the potential it is in. That's the turbo-simplified explanation, anyway. This model is used when we are dealing with simple systems on an atomic length and energy scale.

But how do you decide which model to use? What happens at the boundary of usefulness of these two models? The hallmark behind a good model is that it decomposes into the classical limit. Try this with gravitation: you can turn U=GmG/r^2 into U=mgh for small displacements. Same with length contraction: L=L_0=sqrt(1/(v/c)^2) reduces to L=L_0 when you set velocity to be much less than c. The same holds for some (but not all) aspects of quantum mechanics. When you apply the classical limit, the classical laws fall out of the quantum.

Does this mean that quantum mechanics is "correct" and the classical particle model is correct? Not necessarily. Some of GR contradicts quantum. It could be that both descend from an even greater theory that we don't know yet, or that some predictions made by the theory are wrong and we just haven't discovered it yet.

Does that sufficiently answer your question?

Background
>Biochemistry (Medicinal Chemistry) 4th year
>Minor in pure math

Obviously I'll never apply any of this math to my field but does anyone else here study advanced math as a hobby without any relation to their field?

not that guy but yes it did, thanks

Area of expertise:
>condensed matter theory
>TQFT
>some quantum algebra and geometric quantization

Question:
>what is the physical justification for the existence of cosmological strings, when the connectedness of Minkowski spacetime is assumed for the development of QED, the world's most accurate theory of reality?

I'd say within a few decades. There had been many experimental confirmations of high temperature (around 50K-200K) superconducting phases that basically arise out of topological phase transitions that protects these phases from thermal fluctuations (given that it is thermally relaxed adiabatically); and these superconductors can be further doped to increase the critical temperature.
The theory that describes superconducting behaviour is already quite accurate and well-studied, so I doubt there will be anything unpredictable happening that will prevent the implementation of high-temperature superconductors to commercial sectors.

The problem is mainly the cost of making superconducting material and keeping the conditions under which the material will lie in the superconducting phase. But once that's out of the way there will be no problem implementing it on a large scale.

>What is the actual answer behind wave-particle duality?
The actual answer is that, from the construction of the boson field [math](\Gamma,\alpha,\omega)[/math] from a sympletically topologized C*-algebra and the orthogonal symplectic group acting on it, there exists a unitary transformation that maps every observable in the boson field to an unitary operator on the N-particle Hilbert space [math]\mathcal{H} = \bigotimes_{i=1}^N \mathcal{H}_i[/math] in the Fock space representation, where N is one-half the dimension of the symplectic space. This is known as the particle-wave duality theorem (Baez et al. math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bsz_new.pdf 1992).

If this doesn't make it clear for you I don't know what will.

>government run by scientists
This was pretty much the USSR after stalin, so thats what it would be like

Polyglot. Language and linguistics.