It is working!

[kareina]

Every so often over the past year I've tried to get the mass balance calculations to work properly in Mathmatica. We've gotten it sort of working, but some of the calculations were still giving negative numbers. While those are valid mathematical solutions to the problem, they are not an accurate representation of these experiments, since each of the phases which are present are there in positive amounts. The solution to this problem is to "fix" the amount of one or more of the phases--to tell it "ok, this sample is 0.05% kyanite", how much of each of the other phases has to be present given these compositions and the amount of available ingredients. Unfortunately, for all of the past year that step has not worked on my old computer. Today I tried this task on my new computer. And it worked!

As a result I have just spent many hours happily playing with the program, trying various % to fix the problem phases to, and looking to see what happens to the amounts of each of the other phases, and comparing the results with photos of the experiments to see if that amount of each actually sounds reasonable compared to what I can see. For some samples it was easy, for one it took nine different tries before getting a result that seemed reasonable. I was having so much fun working it was with great surprise that I looked up to see it was after 23:00. I love it when I fall into work like that. Particularly as I had such difficulties yesterday making myself focus on anything. The closest I managed yesterday to "uni work" was to add a few more potential jobs to the spreadsheet of things I need to apply to.

With luck today's breakthrough will keep me inspired, and I will make huge amounts of progress on things I haven't been able to accomplish due to computer issues.

In other news, I now owe a bunch of people e-mails. The nice thing about sending out a change of address notice to the world is that it prompts a certain percentage of folk to reply. Now I need to encourage them to keep in touch by writing back. Fortunately, other than job application deadlines and "finishing up" this project, I don't have anything else on in the way of a time commitment between now and the end of the year except for meeting up with blamebrampton in Sienna in a couple of weeks.

I know that I will be able to meet my goal of completing everything that needs doing with this data and having it ready to publish before the end of the year, because I managed to finish the PhD thesis before I got on that plane, so I know the routine...

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Give me a few days to sort out accommodation and I will let you know if it is doable to do Sienna and Pisa ;-) though I have a bad feeling I was planning to arrive in Pisa in the evening, but that could be good! Quick dash through Sienna when you arrive, then train and Pisa the next day. They have a good museum!

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. I will try to work hard enough this weekend as to not feel guilty for running off to sightsee with you. Just let me know where and when I need to meet you, and how long I am planning to hang out with you...