I’m still alive!

So, my last post was a few months ago, which is a surprise to me, since I have felt as if I’ve only been away for a couple of weeks. Well, that’s what diving into General Relativity will do to you, I guess. Anyway, the point is I’ve been busy, but I’ve constantly thought of resuming regular posting on physics and all kinds of other things here. I’ve finally felt guilty enough to at least post this and, as I write, I don’t really know what to say other that I’ll do my best to neglect this blog a little less. (I’ve managed a handful of posts in my other blog, in Spanish, but even posting over there is too scarce for my taste as well.)

Most of the CUCEI campus is reing renovated, which means lots of dust all over the place, but the renovations will be worth it, as far as I can tell. For example, in order to get to the graduate physics building, I have to get through this:

The tiny gray structure behind the (brand new) yellow building is Building Z, where I and other graduate physics students dwell on campus. Other parts of CUCEI are quite lovely, and the students are quite peaceful and dedicated to their studies. Here are a few samples:

Also, I’ve made a somewhat successful effort  to exercise. I jog for a few minutes on the track a few minutes’ walk from Building Z. Sometimes I can get a short run on three weekdays, though mostly I get one or two and another one on the weekend.

This track was just renovated as well, so I’ll be running on a nice new track starting next week.

Anyway, as far as actual physics goes, I’m almost done with a “first pass” over Relativity. I’ve used the textbooks by Lambourne, Schutz, and Carroll. Lambourne is surprisingly easy to digest, thought it may be too lenient for some people’s taste. Schutz is more like the usual modern approach to Relativity at the undergrad level, and Carroll is much more advanced and directed explicitly at graduates.

I’ve been assigned to write a short essay explaining de Sitter space for my Relativity course, and the text is pretty much ready (though in Spanish). If all goes well, I’ll resume posting here regularly quite soon, and I’ll use that essay as a crutch to get started. After that, I hope to resume topics on Classical Mechanics, and then work my way into other core subjects of graduate physics. Perhaps I’ll do asides on mathematical concepts as well, and many other topics that interest me (politics, religion, books, philosophy). This is a blog, after all, and I’m sort of making it up as I go along. In an ideal world with plenty of time and no procrastination, I would have a physics/math post and an unrelated post each week. I know I’m supposed to focus on my studies, but I just love writing and hate leaving for (possibly several years) later.