Comments on: Sullen Congratulations

By: H of L

H of L — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:12:59 +0000

Hi, Julianne.

Don’t worry; we’ll be sure to treat him very well, now that he’s back home in Chile. I just saw him last Saturday at Armin & Marlene’s despedida, before R went up to Campanas. I hope to talk to him next week …

Saludos!

By: Congratulations to Iggy! | Cosmic Variance

Congratulations to Iggy! | Cosmic Variance — Thu, 31 May 2007 16:55:37 +0000

[...] tower is Ignacy Sawicki, who successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis yesterday. (Some of us are less grudging with our congratulations than others.) I swooped into Chicago for the event, then swooped right [...]

By: John Phillips

John Phillips — Sun, 13 May 2007 23:45:26 +0000

Lab Lemming, but isn’t that actually the point, i.e. it distinguishes the elements produced in some type of stellar process, whether stellar nucleosynthesis or explosive nucleosynthesis for instance, from those created in the big bang or primordial nucleosynthesis. In that sense, there is only one ’solid’ element as such in the astronomical table, as they are all the result of some type of stellar process.

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Sun, 13 May 2007 10:39:20 +0000

I am familiar with the terminology. Rather, I am questioning the wisdom in lumping together elements formed in different stellar environments.

After all, for those of us who study solids, there is only one element in the astronomical table.

By: mollishka

mollishka — Sun, 13 May 2007 04:05:14 +0000

Lab Lemming: in astronomy, there are three elements: X, Y, and Z. X is more commonly known as hydrogen, Y is more commonly known as helium, and Z is everything else … a.k.a. “metals.”

By: Sean

Sean — Sun, 13 May 2007 03:34:13 +0000

Congratulations to Ricardo, Master of Supernova Metallicities!

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Sun, 13 May 2007 02:58:44 +0000

Julianne and Ricardo

Heartfelt congratulations to you both. Ricardo, congratulations on doing work that marks your becoming an independent researcher, and starting your own career. Julianne, congratulations on having successfully provided an environment that allowed Ricardo to grow into a research scientist, and on having the good grace to let him leave when he was ready. And I understand your feelings completely; I’m sad when my students get their Ph.D.’s and leave, even though that’s what I want for them. The consolation is that if they stay in the field you get to see them for the rest of your career, at workshops, and conferences, and as visitors; and you get the vicarious thrill of watching them produce their Ph.D. students, your scientific grandchildren. What really breaks my heart is when a former student, who is doing wonderful work and really wants to stay in physics, is forced out of the field by the limited opportunities (a sadly common occurrence in particle theory these days). They don’t get the career for which they worked so hard, and you rarely, if ever, get to see them again once they’re out of the orbit of academic physics.

By: John Phillips

John Phillips — Sun, 13 May 2007 02:48:48 +0000

Lab Lemming: it can be confusing. But as you probably already know, in astronomical or cosmological terms metallicity can be considered more a reference to the when and where the heavier elements were synthesised rather than to the elements themselves.

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Sun, 13 May 2007 00:54:36 +0000

Julianne,
Have y’all published any of that metallicity work yet? If so, gotta ref?

On a related note, by what stretch of the imagination do C, N, O, and Ne qualify as metals? And as a more pedantic analytical question, why don’t astronomers simply refer to whatever they actually measure, when they report metallicity: e.g. instead of calling something hich metallicity, why isn’t it high iron, or high Ti-O, or high whatever other emission line is the flavour of the week?

By: Zeno

Zeno — Sat, 12 May 2007 17:34:14 +0000

Duh: I keep forgetting that Sean has lots of partners on CV. (I followed him over here from his old site at Preposterous Universe.) I really must learn to read the bylines at group blogs!

I smite my forehead in penance!