Journal Club: Scientific American, February 2008

This week I read most of the February edition of Scientific American.  It’s funny, because I remember trying to read it when I was a kid and not understanding most of it.  I read some interesting articles about a new university in Saudi Arabia, a scientific city in Brazil, and the possible “benefits” of Huntington’s disease.  I was most fascinated by the article about the Large Hadron Collider that will hopefully be coming online this summer.  It will hopefully detect the Higg’s boson which according to the theory gives mass to the other gauge bosons.  I really like particle physics, but I think I am more interested in the theoretical formulations of the different theories than the practical discovering of the particles and the construction of colliders, though it is really cool.  And through my electronics lab this semester, I also realized how important it is to understand what your machines are telling you and how they do it, because then you obtain a deeper understanding of what is going on around you.

 In other news… I found out I got into Washington University in St. Louis yesterday.  Woohoo!!!  It’s the first grad school that I was accepted to, and I am planning to visit in February.  I just feel so hyper and excited about it that I can’t really sit still right now.  I feel like the next stage of my life is starting, and while that is a little bit scary, it’s also really exciting too.  I can’t wait to go to grad school and continue learning, because there is so much that I still want to know.