PhysicsDan profile picture

PhysicsDan

A bon vivant in an ivory tower

About Me

Personality in 5 words: Binary, Cerebral, Cocky, Maven, Zealous
Activities in 5 words: Biker, Caver, Dancer, Epicurean, Physicist
I'm a PhD student in Physics at UTK; I'm finally done with classes and have done All But Dissertation. I'm also a Lindy Hop dancer and DJ. I volunteer in the Big Brothers program and spend a lot of time with my Little Brother, Zo. When I can, I like to get underground. I haven't really had time for motorcycling lately, which is a shame because this is one of the best parts of the country for it.

My Interests

SCIENCE: Physics, Biology, Chemistry

DANCING: Lindy Hop, Charleston, Blues, Tango

OUTDOORS: Caving, Camping, Rappelling, Stargazing

OTHER: Billiards, Carpentry, Music, Electronics, Saxophone, Vodka, etc.

I'd like to meet:

More musician-dancers:

Music:

JAZZ: Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Sidney Bechet, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Gene Harris, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gilespie, Thelonious Monk, Ray Brown;

ROCK: Elvis, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Go Cat Go;

HIP HOP: Digable Planets, A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, En Vogue, Sublime;

COUNTRY: Johnny Cash, Robert Earl Keen;

SOUL: Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles;

TANGO: Carlos Libedinsky, Gotan Project, Lalo Schifrin;

CLASSICAL: Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky;

WORLD (by genre): Celtic, Mbira, Afropop, Azerbijian folk;

Really, anything as long as it's good!

Movies:

Pi; Before Sunrise; Shawshank Redemption; Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Television:

N/A - who has time for TV? Occasionally I'll watch TV, but not often. Sitcoms and reality shows bore me.

Books:

AUTHORS: Brust, Bujold, Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Tolkien, Yoshikawa.

I love to read; I average a couple books a week, but that includes rereads. I've strong tendancies towards SF/F, but I do read other fiction, as well as a lot of non-fiction (typically on jazz and science). I will tolerate poor writing in non-fiction, where the raw data may be of enough interest to sustain me, but in my fiction I have to have good writing, or I won't bother with it. "Calvin and Hobbes" still rocks!

Heroes:

Einstein (duh)
Feynman (shows me how to think about physics)
Kepler (who threw out his theories and theology in the face of his data)
Manning (who invented much of the dance I love)
Mom (I still solicit her advice and opinion on how to life my life better on a regular basis)
Dr. Kim (my first research advisor, who taught me a lot about scientific integrity)

My Blog

KLX - the Lindy Band strikes again

KLX was pretty sweet, although I stayed really friggin' busy. I was the Music Coordinator, so I did a lot of running around and tweaking things. Friday found me showing Jason Knight how to set up th...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Tue, 16 Oct 2007 04:23:00 PST

Revial Day

Thanks to everyone who came to Revival Day! It was great to see everyone and really get a chance to hang out. I'm thinking something similar should be in the works.Comments on potential improvements...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:20:00 PST

Knowledge is Power

Actually, Power is dE/dt... but anywayMy mom and I were talking the other day about how people perceive skill. In the US, we tend to assign ability to intrinsic, native talent. Someone is just "good...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Sat, 18 Aug 2007 01:41:00 PST

Travels

So, I'll be leaving in a couple weeks to head down to Orlando for the Gulf Regional Lindy Hop Championship. I figured I'd leave a bit early, so my schedule will run something like:Aug 6 : Atlanta (DJ...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:39:00 PST

I missed Sugar Foot Stomp because...

I'm sitting right now (Saturday afternoon) at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at the Brookhaven Nat'l Lab (BNL) on Long Island in New York.We got here Thursday to run an experiment, the d...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Sat, 14 Jul 2007 12:17:00 PST

Thanks to everyone for Buenos Aires Blues!

My top friends at the moment are just a handful of the folks who made BAB so great. A repost from the BAB myspace blog :Wow, what a great time! I knew the classes and music would be good, but almost...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:48:00 PST

I'm a little nervous

So, Buenos Aires Blues is rapidly approaching... it was a scant 4 months ago that Sosh and I had a conversation that sparked the whole thing. I'd expected this to be a regional workshop, but I had sim...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Wed, 16 May 2007 10:28:00 PST

A cunning plan

So I have this great idea of getting together a band with some of the SouthEast Lindy Hoppers.  The lineup would go: Piano - Michael Gamble (Asheville)Drums- Keith Moore (Knoxville)Trumpet -...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:14:00 PST

The Challenge - RAAR!

The call is now issued- that your city should select amongst its sons and daughters, dancers: those whose muse is Terpsichore. Find those that scream, "Rage, Goddess- dance the rage!" These your ...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:57:00 PST

I love eBay

I am a klutz.  About a month ago I was working on my microscope in the lab; I had taken out the objective and set it aside on a shelf.  Now, an objective  (the main lens that does most ...
Posted by PhysicsDan on Mon, 16 Oct 2006 12:30:00 PST