This is a photo of a black graduation cap with a yellow/gold tassel. It is resting atop two textbooks: Physics and Quantum Mechanics. In the background is an abstract painting of green, aqua, and yellow brushstrokes.

Graduation and Other Warm Dense Matter

This is a photo of a black graduation cap with a yellow/gold tassel. It is resting atop two textbooks: Physics and Quantum Mechanics. In the background is an abstract painting of green, aqua, and yellow brushstrokes.

Our little tadpole grew a tassel, tossing his graduation cap in the air, like he just didn’t care. Except he cared…a lot! The baby of the Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks Team, Alex, graduated from college, cum laude, with a physics major and a minor in actuarial science. It. Was. Not. Easy. He said, towards the end, he understood the physics concepts for his senior thesis better in Portuguese than in English. As a mom, sitting there during his senior thesis presentation, I would have understood random interplanetary beeps and bops better, and that makes me proud.

Here’s the title of Alex’s senior presentation: Using FEFF10 to Determine XAS of WDM.

Here’s what I understood: WDM stands for Warm Dense Matter, which is what I was exposed to for three hours in a stuffy room during the senior presentation symposium. Nate got to experience that with me, later on, at the actual graduation ceremony which lasted four hours. WDM followed us into the tiki bar celebration we planned after graduation as well.

FEFF10 is some kind of massive computer Alex has never seen in person. I’m not sure who has seen it in person. For all I know, it’s like Bigfoot. You’re lucky if you see it, but you might not want it to see you. Maybe. There might be many theories about this—all of them speculative.

XAS stands for X-ray absorption spectroscopy, which I tried to say three times fast after pounding a celebratory wine spritzer.

Here’s what I made of all of this: WDM is some bad, hot as heck mofo, and it’s super difficult to X-ray for some reason. But the Bigfoot computer system (if you can find it) can help you determine how much wood a woodchuck can chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

If you want, I can forward on Alex’s PowerPoint presentation. It makes much more sense, and there are useful pictures, unlike the one I’ve drawn here:

This is a photo of a child-like drawing on lined paper in blue pen ink. On the left is a crudely drawn animal-like figure and it is labeled "woodchuck." There are three mountain-peak like lines. Above one of them is a sun-like drawing--it also looks like a spider. It is labeled "WDM" Off to the right is a tree drawing with an arrow pointing to a label: FEFF10. Below, there is a circle with wavy lines and it is labled "Swimming Pool" with an arrow.

Honestly, though, I’m thrilled Alex has followed his passion for math and science and new discoveries—with a human-centered focus and social justice spirit. Go, Alex!

This is an image of Alex walking across the stage to receive his diploma. It's projected onto the JumboTron. He's surrounded by professors in university garb. The banner underneath says Alexander Kennedy, Bachelor of Science in Physics, Cum Laude

He plans to travel to Brazil for a month to learn more math and Portuguese. After that, he might sit for actuarial science exams and/or work for contacts his professors have—maybe even think about graduate school.

Either way, I’m just glad that if warm, dense matter falls from the sky, someone on the Fixin’ Leaks ‘n Leeks Team knows what to do with it.

Your Turn: What are you celebrating today?

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Published by ckennedy

Author of the DIY blog: Fixin' Leaks and Leeks. Paper/Rock Writing Consultation, Sole Proprietor.

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