if you let this into your mind – i feel it can help to broaden your worldview.

Coffee — just some random Folgers my mom got me — Thanks mom.

Shpongle — electronic music I was introduced to by my friend Emery Clark.  — This is my favorite song they do –> Shpongle – Divine Moments of Truth

Computer — eh, you get the visual.

So far this morning I’ve watched a movie called Dark Matter, which I thought was relatively well put together minus the ending.  I won’t ruin it for you.  Regardless, there was a particularly moving scene where this Chinese foreign student who has just come to America for Graduate school is discussing Cosmology with the tea/coffee house female barista.  He is trying to impress her, but she comes right back at him with the idea that the Big Bang was caused by God.  A beautiful dialogue followed, and I think I’ve always adopted this perspective, though maybe not explicitly.  Check it out:

“You study the Big Bang ? It’s supposed to be the beginning of the Universe?”

“Mm hm, Mm hm.”

“I don’t believe it, because something had to cause the Big Bang… It didn’t just come from nothing.”

“What do you think caused the Big Bang?”

“God.”

“Then what caused the God?  He can’t come out of no where.”

“He’s eternal. :shrug: He’s always been there.”

“In my new theory, the Universe is eternal. Big Bang is a major event, but not the Beginning.  The Universe has no beginning, no end, just like God.  So you see, we are really the same.  Universe and God is the same.”

It’s my understanding that the idea of No Beginning and No End comes from Chinese culture, but at the same time I remember at the last Wedding I went to for my cousin Russell and new cousin Katie, they referenced the Ring with no beginning and no end like “God’s love.”  Hmm.

There’s an old saying “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger…”

I truly believe every person will eventually say this; the point to be made is when.

As a Senior in my Undergraduate institution, I have already discovered this phenomenon.  I’m not placing myself above anyone else by claiming I’ve already had the epiphany.  All I’m saying is that I’ve had it.

As a Freshman I had potential.  I had resources.  I had everything at my finger-tips, a scientist working for NASA, a cluster of machines in a room begging me to come play.  Instead I chose other means, and I regret this today because I can only imagine, if given more time with Dr. Porter, all the things I could have accomplished here.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have done some great things with Dr. Porter this past year.  I am also not down on myself for staying up till 4am playing video games and playing pranks with my hall-mates.   These things helped define who I am, and college is a learning process.

I truly wonder about many people in this college ‘game.’  How many years will it take before they realize they didn’t take their education seriously…  one?  two? five? twenty? never?!

Bleh, just some of my ramblings.

I find it increasingly hard to live without the speculation of life elsewhere in the Cosmos. How could it be that a single planet, orbiting a single star, revolving around a single arm of a single galaxy, in a single galaxy cluster is unique? The further I dive into the Cosmos, the more humble I become, and subsequently, the further my desire to dive even deeper. It is fascinating that something so complex, so utterly, unimaginably multifaceted could occupy the thoughts of a twenty something year old more than anything else in the world. It is precisely because of this complexity that it occupies my mind. Astronomy and astrophysics have become my passion. I want to know more at all times; I have an insatiable appetite for astrophysics. Looking up at the stars for most people is inspiring every once in a while, but often taken for granted. For me, looking up at the stars can be quite dangerous. Minutes translate into hours as body heat uniformly dissipates from everywhere except my head, because my mind is spinning immeasurably fast in immense battles of neurotransmitters and chemical reactions creating more heat than even the sun, or so it feels.

… … … …

I want to give the human race a greater sense of humility by putting their position on the grand scale of things into perspective.  Those in the general public are not aware of the awe inspiring depth of our universe, beyond the pretty pictures they see every once in a while in a chain e-mail.  Why is that?  Is it because they do not want to know, or is it because we are not doing an adequate job showing them?  I cannot accept the former, for every person who gives me time enough to share information with them basks in the majestic, humbling, and eye opening qualities.  This leads my reasoning to the latter.  I will usher change where others have finished trying.

Here at Furman, I have selfishly taken all resources pertaining to the subject and available to me.  Last summer, I went with Physics Professor David Moffett, to the 1-week Educational Research in Radio Astronomy [ERIRA] in Green Bank, WV, before beginning my research with Physics Professor Bill Baker back at Furman.  I rejuvenated Professor Baker’s study of the evolution of globular star clusters by creating a parallel version of his Mathematica program to run across several machines, thereby subdividing the problem and enhancing his very limited scope.  This past fall, I worked with Computer Science Professor Hayden Porter to rewrite this globular star cluster program in Java and use the Message Passing Interface [MPI] to run it on a Beowulf class computer cluster.  I then created a 3D graphical environment to study and interact with the cluster as it evolves over time, based on data sets collected from the cluster.  This research won 2^nd prize at the Association for Computing Machinery Mid-Southeast Fall Conference in 2007 in the Undergraduate 4-Year division.  In the spring of 2007, I worked with Professor Porter drafting a proposal that I submitted to the South Carolina Space Grant Consortium to develop a dynamically configurable computer cluster for the purpose of studying the influence of dark matter on stellar star cluster formation and evolution.  My proposal was only one of eight funded statewide in South Carolina. On top of all of this, we have just finished construction of a new planetarium, which will soon become the bearer of some of my next projects.

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill offers new resources that were previously unavailable to me, such as the opportunity to work on the SkyNet project.  This project has already produced a great deal of results of interest to me, especially with parsing Gamma Ray Bursts and identifying Supernovae.  Think about it:  you have a completely remote ability that can be automated such that as soon as a notification goes off, there are mere seconds between that message and ensuing action.  This is absolutely phenomenal for studying GRB’s, and I am certain this system can either be of use or at least aid the more exquisite problem I outline below.

I want to probe the heavens.  Beyond mere statistical probabilities that confirm our planet’s lacking uniqueness to many, including myself; I want to explain this fact in a way that can be convincing for the non-numerically inclined, less-analytical type mind.  In our hunt for extra solar planets, we find it progressively more difficult because of the sheer size differential of stars and planets.  I believe Nature contends that there has to be a simpler approach, and I hope to one day provide such an approach.  My goal is to utilize, either partially or wholly, the SkyNet project to accomplish this task.  I hope to bring my skills and intellect to the university in an effort to further both the University and myself.