I am officially finished with my summer classes! Physics is over, and I’m fairly happy about it. My professor was great for physics! His name is John Newport, and he’s a teacher at Carmel High School. What luck I had: he obtained his Ph.D. in theoretical/mathematical physics! I’m confident that I ended up with an A in the course, and I’m ready to move on.

This fall, I’m taking a lot of great subjects. I feel that I am going to start growing a lot academically. I’m officially going to be a year ahead in physics, starting my 300 level intermediate physics courses at the start of my sophomore year. I’m also going to be taking 2 math classes: linear algebra (matrix math for the non-math nerd), and differential equations (kind of like physical modeling with equations… it’s hard to explain). Aside from my math and physics courses, I will be taking an introductory course in philosophy, and a speech course.

Outside of courses, I have started a research project with one of the professors/physicists at IUPUI. His name is Yogesh Joglekar, and he’s been awesome to work under so far!

I’m still waiting to hear back about the Dean of Science scholarship. They’ve had a lot of trouble with organization and administration this summer, because they’re doing everything very differently this year. I don’t know when I’m supposed to expect to hear about that, but so far I’ve got $1500 dollars in scholarships for this fall. If I do get the Dean of Science scholarship, that will bring it up to $2750 in scholarships for the fall, bringing me to about 67% payed for this fall. Cross your fingers for me!

Back in the day, Einstein, after discovering a few important implications about gravity, through the theory of relativity, realized that if there is a certain amount of gravitational force between two objects, then, every object in the universe must be pulled towards the other.

Einstein didn’t like this idea much, so he came up with a new force called the Cosmological constant. This force would counter gravity causing the universe to be static, or standing still… Einstein later called this his biggest blunder, when the Hubble telescope was used to discover that the universe is expanding, and definitely not standing still.

Nearly 10 years ago, physicists found out that not only is the universe expanding, but its expansion is accelerating. Now, just think about what that means for a second. That means that gravity is being overcome by something. It’s effect isn’t wholly resisting some other force that is forcing galaxies apart.

Scientists are now finding that there must be some cosmological constant to explain this accelerated expansion. They’re calling it dark energy, and it’s not just enough to overpower gravity, but they’re saying that this ‘dark energy’ makes up roughly 74% of the universe.

Observing these galaxies that are accelerating away from ours, physicists are able to calculate what’s called the “w-parameter” which describes the ‘density’ of this dark energy (or just the cosmological constant) that opposes gravity. In order for Einstein to be correct with the model he created, the w-parameter must be exactly -1.

So what have they calculated? The team doing the research won’t have a final answer until next year, but as of now… it is -1 with a plus or minus 10% error! So, according to these results, Einstein was correct in what he called his biggest blunder. Now this isn’t just it. After this, there is a lot of theorizing and explaining to do.

Physics describes physical phenomena, but there is absolutely no explanation for why this dark energy exists or how it manifests itself without being traced. There are many (currently) untestable theories of the universe that could explain it, but obviously, physicists have a long way to go.

School is going really well. The great thing that happened recently is that I got a job as a tutor in the Math Assistance Center at IUPUI. It’s been going really well. It feels great to be helping students with math. I’ve decided that if the physics isn’t as fun in practice as it is in study, then I’d really like to teach.

I already know my schedule for next semester. I’m kind of taking it easy. I’m only taking 12 credit hours next semester, but those 12 credit hours are composed of Calculus II, Chemistry II, and Mechanics (my first physics class), so I guess it’s not taking it easy. I don’t know. But I’m going to get off school everyday between noon and 1:30. This means I’ll definitely be able to at least help with the musical. And I’m really excited about that.

Not much else has been going on. Olivia and I are coming up on 9 months this Friday. Speaking of Olivia, she and the Marching Woodmen won at the State Championship on Saturday! They were so great! I’m so proud of her!

School has just been going really well. I’m getting straight As from what I can tell.