s h i r o u

I have written 112 pages of actual content for my dissertation. So far I have:

• Half an introduction. I started writing this, but then I decided that it would be better to write the body of the paper and return to the introduction, as the body is what I need to introduce. Theoretically I knew from the beginning what the body of the thesis would contain, but the actual writing of it makes much more concrete in my mind what I need to motivate. In addition to writing the latter half of the introduction, I will now need to revise heavily the former half.
• A chapter on the mathematics needed to understand my work. I assume that the reader has already learned multivariate calculus and differential equations; I'm not going to spend my time reviewing undergrad mathematics. Instead I focus on the problems of nonlinear dynamics and high-dimensional systems. This chapter will require only minor revisions.
• A chapter that follows my first publication. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of this is copied directly from the paper. The paper was short, though, and I felt that significant expansion was necessary. This chapter will require only minor revision.
• A chapter that follows my second publication. This publication is recent and I am quite happy with it as is, so this chapter is about 90% copied. Yeah, it's a cheat, I know. But hey: my words are my words, and I'm free to use them. I did add a page on distribution functions that we cut from the paper because, while it puts the work on firmer foundation, it doesn't add a lot of insight. This chapter will require only minor revisions.
• A chapter on the background of a biological process that I have modeled. My ability to describe biology sucks terribly. Dammit, Josh, I'm a doctor physicist, not a biologist! (Josh, btw, is my promoting professor.) This chapter will need heavy revisions, but fortunately I have collaborators in biology who can help me with that.

Still to come:

• Revisions.
• The latter half of the introduction.
• A chapter on the mathematical modeling I did for the aforementioned biological process. In truth this is partly written already, as I am working on writing the paper that we will submit for publication, and once I have that, I will pretty much just copy it into my dissertation. :p
• A conclusions chapter. I am excited about writing this because some experimentalists upstairs have found that one of the features I identified is necessary for explaining their results. That's right: my theory has helped explain an experimental result, and the theory preceded the experiment. Fuckin' sweet. It's not a complicated theory, but if it's useful, I count that as a win.

A couple of people asked for my chocolate mousse recipe, so here it is. The measurements are in English/American units, so I apologize to my international readers. The recipe comes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Délicieux!

( Mousseline au chocolat )

Finally, I feel compelled to pimp Dreamwidth one more time. If you are reading this on Livejournal, I strongly encourage you to check it out. My Dreamwidth page is here. I have several Dreamwidth invitation codes, so please let me know if you (or somebody you know) wants one.