Achievement Unlocked: Coulomb’s Law

Today, I mark the day I received full confidence in figuring out the relations of charged particles. The individual steps in the computation of the forces of charged particles is relatively simple (relative to the understanding of basic vector algebra, geometry and trigonometry), but I had a lot of trouble conceptualizing the math, as is normal for me.
Fortunately, this mental deficiency generally means I get a greater feeling of accomplishment concerning what others would consider daily epiphanies. It feels good, and it makes me excited.

This is only in math/physics however, and with those peaks have been valleys of depression when I think about the love I have for languages. It tortures me that I spend so much time with this mistress when my loyalty should be to what I’ve loved since I was a child. It pains me to think I will now take another path toward my future; the divergence feels dirty to me.

With time comes change, and we have to embrace it. Somewhere inside of me wishes that I had a confident understanding of how to tackle languages, and with that be able to pursue what I first set out to do with stoicism. To counteract this feeling, I keep a laundry list of who I am so that it cannot define me. With that and a bit of childish justification, the majority of the time it doesn’t bother me; yet I still write about it.

I have pushed aside programming a bit because of this fascination with electricity (brought about by the Christmas gift given to me by my fiancee), but I will work through the rest of the Java book I have for the next month until school starts again. I think I should be able to finish the Java book, and maybe half of the MIT course on Electricity and Magnetism. Maybe if I just put some Japanese on in the background while studying I won’t feel so bad, haha.

Anywho, today is a good day because I have a good understanding of a fundamental physical law. I will be moving on to mastering electric fields next and then continuous charge which will allow me to use some of the Calculus I learned last semester. After that comes what I’ve been waiting for, which is Gauss’s Law and then I will probably make another post of achievement.

Here are the materials I’ve implicitly and explicitly mentioned in this post:

Physics Book: http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Scientists-Engineers-Modern-4th/dp/0131495089

Java Book: http://www.amazon.com/Building-Java-Programs-Basics-Approach/dp/0136091814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357588145&sr=1-1&keywords=reges+java

Christmas Present (Electronics Learning Lab): http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3814337

MIT Courses: (E&M) http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-and-magnetism-spring-2002/index.htm and (Vector Calculus) http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-007-calculus-revisited-multivariable-calculus-fall-2011/part-ii/

The Nice Feeling of Accomplishment

I’m going through a book that deals with audio programming in C. The only languages I know at the moment are Java and Python haphazardly. There are still many things that are too abstract for me to understand but I can say, with great pleasure tonight, that pointers and arrays in C are not one of them.

Pointers in particular gave me a bit of an uneasy feeling as they were mentioned in the introduction chapter in the audio programming book. I felt I couldn’t progress because I hadn’t fully understood them and I know the dangers of copying code without complete understanding of it. There was one particular video that really hammered it down, supplemented with a great response by the creator of the video. The internet is truly a great place, when you can receive instruction from a person familiar with a strange concept at 12 am. I will leave a link to the video and the book I am working through at the bottom of the post.

I know that, due to my impulsiveness and lack of commitment, I may not commit to finishing this book but I want to chronicle the fact that, although my interests are fleeting, I can accomplish great things. I am very excited to be able to move on to the next section in this book and I hope that one day I will have worked through it, or a similar book, and be able to understand the underpinnings of how digital audio works in the computer. Good job, to me! 🙂

Here’s the video:

And here’s the book:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/audio-programming-book