Comments on: Multi-periodic Variables, or Playing Sudoku with Stars

By: Syed Moin Doja

Syed Moin Doja — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:00:15 +0000

I really love your posts, having just recently discovered this site and I admire you enthusiasm. this is how science progresses I guess, not in leaps and bounds but in small minute increments, with dedicated scientists like you diligently working away, adding their bits , chiselling away patiently, one hammer strike at a time on the marble chips of ignorance until you have liberated a remarkable sculpture , an edifice that amazes and awes us all.

don’t make much sense?…..like you once said , I am working ‘under the influence of too little coffee’. hehe.

just wanted to say – keep up the good work.

2.30 am
Calcutta, India.

By: john

john — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:41:35 +0000

Let them give you cow cookies. I think there might be some resentment of your enthusiasm. Beside how else are you going to keep carbon neutral if you dont use their supplied energy source.

By: RJN

RJN — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:51:19 +0000

Sudoku is a good example. It’s fun for you, but completing Sudoku puzzles and doing research into some types of variable stars is not likely to grab lots of funding and headlines (F&H). So, good for you, just so long as you don’t need lots of F&H. Also, in my experience, F&H are somewhat fad driven in physics and astronomy anyway. One result of this is that avenues of research that will turn out to be vital for many interconnected areas of astrophysics later, and so should be higher on the F&H scale now, are sadly low on the F&H spectrum now. Quite possibly, due to their relatively high abundance in faint surveys and the accuracy of their distance determining characteristics, RR Lyrae stars will fall into that category.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:11:27 +0000

Pamela,

As an amateur I find variable stars anything but boring. RR Lyrae are neat. I myself have just begun my own program of watching a few Cataclysmic’s. Hopefully my observations can contribute to the whole someday. Keep up the great work and BTW love the podcast. I wear my “Slacker Astronomy” shirt proudly at the local star parties :>

Brian.

By: Alice Enevoldsen

Alice Enevoldsen — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:26:11 +0000

Pamela,

This is a great post. I recent was asked by some young students “How do astronomers decide what to study?” I think this post speaks directly to that, and to why we study at all.

By: Colin J

Colin J — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:13:09 +0000

Sounds like you’re on the right track. If all science is only focused on Significant Contributions, or worse yet, what can we do to make money with it, then the core of science is lost. The best science is done by those who are doing what they love. Besides, some of the largest discoveries have come from someone saying ‘Huh, that’s odd.’ As they fiddle with some ‘non-significant’ contribution. Keep doing what you love!

By: Richard B. Drumm

Richard B. Drumm — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:47:29 +0000

Yup, I agree, you do what you want to. If RRs are puzzling & fun, then work on them just for fun. There are plenty of folks working on the galaxies, and if you’re one of only a few variable star observers, then that’s actually an advantage. Keep plugging away with the FFTs and ignore the sticks-in-the-mud that want you to work on something else.

It sounds like a photometry telescope in space would be worthwhile. Are there any science packages out there like Deep Impact/DIXIE that can be repurposed, I wonder…
Rich

By: Beth

Beth — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:11:57 +0000

I don’t see a picture above, so I imagined one of what you’re doing.

What you’re doing is playing with a purpose. Why play a pointless (but fun) puzzle of Sudoku when you can do a puzzle with a purpose in figuring out the variable stars? You’re playing. You’r having fun. Life doesn’t have to be all directed at publications and moving science forward.

It’s delightful that you enjoy astronomy enough that you even play in it.