Location: India
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Yes
Technologies: Systems Engineering, Basic electrical prototyping, Shell scripting (Bash), scientific programming (C, Python, MATLAB)
Résumé/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A37IsS_kBqwYGWBG9eK4l2FYTHzh7b4i
Email: vishwajeetx@gmail.com
Hello! I am Vishwajeet. I am an EE who also holds a degree in liberal arts. I have 3+ years of experience working on integrating electro-mechanical sub-systems to train control networks. I am returning to work after a career break. My core strength are system analysis and integration, scientific research, engineering strategy, and managing teams.
I am looking for work including, but not limited to: Hardware Systems Engineering, Technical Program Management, Product Management, Consulting, Sales, Founder's Office/Chief of Staff, Teaching (Math, Physics)
This interview with Rana X Adhikari from Caltech who is involved with LIGO does give a perspective on the technical difficulties in carrying out such precise measurements and eliminating noise: https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-technical-challenges-of-mea...
Also to me, it seems that Barry Barish got his share of the Nobel more as he was the leader of the LIGO project and less due to his direct involvement with some experimental or theoretical work as is the case with most Nobel prize. Am I wrong in saying that? Also if this is true then has this occurred in past also when someone was awarded a Nobel prize more because of their leadership in starting a project or an institution then their direct involvement with the actual work?
One could argue that the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the W and Z Bosons, given to Carlo Rubbia, was more for his leadership of the UA1 Collaboration at CERN. His co-winner, van der Meers, actually developed the technology to make colliding protons and anti-protons possible. The theory behind the W and Z was already given a Nobel Prize in 1979.
EDIT: Rubbia is an interesting character in himself that some have said was a bit of an egomaniac and obsessed with getting a Nobel prize for himself. For a highly entertaining biography on him, as well as a look into the academic politics of a place like CERN, I recommend "Nobel Dreams" by Gary Taubes.
The idea of using laser interferometer for detecting gravitational waves was first proposed in 1962 (shortly after inventing lasers) by M. Gertsenshtein and V. Pustovoit [1]. So it took more than 50 years from the idea to its implementation.
I'm very interested in this question. In the age of massive physical collaborations, it is an oft-debated question whether the Nobel committee should be awarding the prizes to the collaborations themselves and/or the leaders thereof. I don't know anything about Barish's history.
Thank you for the link! A quote from the interview:
> The wave comes to us and by the time it gets to us, because it’s billions of light years, the squeezing and stretching is much less than 500%. It’s more like a part in 10 to the 21 or 22. So that means if you have a, the whole earth for example is about 10,000 kilometers in size, and so the whole earth will be only stretching by about 100th of a micron. I don’t even know how to imagine that.
"Co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1956, along with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. In his Nobel lecture, he gave full credit to Brattain and Bardeen as the inventors of the point-contact transistor."
Can someone explain what is the feedback mechanism to self-correct the clock? This biological clock like any other clock will deviate from the true time after a while, maybe weeks or months; so what is the self-correcting mechanism in the biological clock?
The SCN receives input from specialized photosensitive ganglion cells in the retina via the retinohypothalamic tract. Neurons in the ventrolateral SCN (vlSCN) have the ability for light-induced gene expression. Melanopsin-containing ganglion cells in the retina have a direct connection to the ventrolateral SCN via the retinohypothalamic tract. When the retina receives light, the vlSCN relays this information throughout the SCN allowing entrainment, synchronization, of the person's or animal's daily rhythms to the 24-hour cycle in nature.
And importantly, the photosensitive ganglion cells are most sensitive to blue wavelengths of light, which is why a lot of people recommend avoiding blue light at night.
Off-hand I do not have a good reference (maybe this? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078443/ ) but I've heard quite often that both light and food have an impact on our body clocks, and that the systems operate more or less independently. Perhaps someone out there who knows more can clarify.
It's been several years since I took my neurobiology class in undergrad. There has been a lot of research in this area. You're right that the clock does deviate (I checked Wikipedia and it looks like in the absence of light humans' circadian rhythm cycles on just over 24hr). Exposure to light helps tweak the cycle.
Even I first thought of this while reading about this plan. But may be this is more about cheap and long term storage of electricity. Lithium ion batteries are expensive and also Lithium is limited. But I would definitely like to know how this idea stacks up against the idea of pumping water to a high altitude place and then using it as a battery.
I think there's a huge amount of promise in the idea of "inside out" hydro power, where power is used to pump water out of a pressure vessel deep under water (in a lake or in the ocean) and then later generated by letting water back into the vessel. All the advantages of hydro power but without the necessity of a conveniently shaped mountain range nearby.
Last I checked, a far larger percentage of livable land is next to deep water than is next to high altitude lakes.
Also, you can use existing deep holes which were dug for other reasons - for instance, open-cut mine pits tend to end up flooded once they're no longer mined.
It doesn't have a huge amount of head, but for an example of the volume of water involved, the upper reservoir at the Ludington Pumped Storage plant is about 100 billion liters (it draws from/empties into Lake Michigan).
It's pretty huge, able to produce more than a gigawatt for ~8 hours.
Does it make sense to store energy as heat differentials for long term? Insulation can only work for so long, eventually it will come back to environment temp.
You only need to hold this energy until the next peak period hits the grid. The Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme in Australia actually buys off-peak electricity to run the turbines in reverse & pump water back into reservoirs, and then generated electricity when demand is high: effectively time-shifting power generation & arbitraging the peak/off-peak price difference.
Longer term seasonal storage would be handy too in some areas, I think using excess electricity to make hydrogen/methane/ammonia is one avenue that's being explored.
I am looking for work including, but not limited to: Hardware Systems Engineering, Technical Program Management, Product Management, Consulting, Sales, Founder's Office/Chief of Staff, Teaching (Math, Physics)