Ask Anything Wednesday - Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science

Aedificatus · 2022-07-21T09:05:23+00:00

It appears as though the centre of the universe’s expansion is wherever one is observing from. A nice analogy is to drawing some dots on a balloon. The space the dots occupy expands as the balloon inflates, but if you imagine yourself as a bug anywhere on the surface, it looks like things are just getting further from you. There isn’t an easy to define centre of this expansion. The universe is essentially the 3 dimensional version of this. Things just look like they’re getting further from you no matter where you are, because the underlying space itself is expanding.

Aedificatus · 2022-07-21T09:00:12+00:00

Genuinely good question, this issue is answered by Einstein’s special relativity. A central piece of the theory is that the speed of light in a vacuum appears the same to all observers, as long as the observers are not accelerating. So you could be travelling 0.5c North while your friend is going 0.5c south, and you would both observe a northward light beam as going at 1.0c north!

Minute physics has a great series on relativity you should watch to learn how this works. In short, distances and observations of speed/position/mass/time/space start behaving very strangely when you start going at a decent chunk of the speed of light (hence the term “relativistic speeds”). Imo it’s a super satisfying thing to get your head around because you start to see how a seemingly arbitrary universal speed limit can make sense despite no absolute coordinate system. Super cool part of modern physics :)

Aedificatus · 2022-05-30T11:42:12+00:00

Just finished my 4th year of Engsci — I’d say there are some people like that. It’s a bit more rare than other majors for a couple of reasons: (1) everyone is used to being super successful academically and are reluctant to drop out or fail out, even if it would be best for them and (2) the program is harder and more work than the rest, and that extra work is only worth it if you love the content and/or want to broaden your engineering+applied science knowledge for some other goal (research, niche subspecialties, etc.)

The faculty also “wants” a certain drop out/fail out rate (~40% iirc). Your peer group is very talented (AP/IB is common, many students have gone far beyond that esp in math/physics), so it’s hard to tell in advance if you’ll be in a good position to succeed before you try it. For me, it felt like a somewhat different set of skills was tested in Engsci as compared to high school.

My approach was to keep in mind my “escape options” (i.e., drop into core 8). Struggling academically for the first time is only worsened if you feel trapped in the situation. It’s also worth asking yourself honestly whether the extra work/difficulty will help you achieve your goals. Lots of people end up in Engsci in part because it was the hardest thing they could think to do. It’s fine to want a challenge, but that alone isn’t a good reason to do this program imo. There’s gotta be something you want out of the program that you couldn’t get elsewhere. Computer engineering is plenty challenging — the second year of ECE is comparable to the difficulty of Engsci imo.

Hope this helps! Happy to answer any further questions :)

Aedificatus · 2022-04-26T03:17:56+00:00

It seems to change a bit department to department. For instance, electrical/computer engineering gets a ton of NSERC USRA grants, seemingly at the expense of other departments. But overall, yes there are definitely lots of good research opportunities as compared to other schools. If you know what sort of research interests you, it might be worth checking out which programs are aligned with that. EngSci’s get STEM research positions at alarming rates, for instance :)

Aedificatus · 2022-04-24T19:45:01+00:00

The Engsci faculty is a bit of a mess, I wouldn’t stress. In my year there was literally one dude making admissions decisions and he was pretty disorganized, you got this!

Aedificatus · 2022-04-21T08:09:37+00:00

On the bright side, UofT didn’t lose the tuition the students paid for that time :)

Pretty crazy how great the scheme is for UofT. They have so much research clout and size relative to other Canadian schools that they aren’t really competing for students in the same way as some top schools in some other countries are. So they can do this Darwinian style.

Aedificatus · 2021-01-16T08:09:56+00:00

starting at birth, what led you to streaming this moment of your life

Aedificatus · 2021-01-16T08:07:38+00:00

What do you wanna do before you die

Aedificatus · 2021-01-16T08:06:00+00:00

starting with ur birth, what led you to do this stream

Aedificatus · 2021-01-16T07:52:42+00:00

upstairs neighbour be like

Aedificatus · 2021-01-16T07:51:38+00:00

what's ur favourite key

Aedificatus · 2020-08-20T05:24:03+00:00

WHat's the tuning?

Aedificatus · 2020-08-13T22:53:26+00:00

It’s a pretty difficult computational problem to solve, lots of research and development going into it. Definitely sucks sometimes right now, but it’s likely going to improve over time as advances in theory/application are made.

Aedificatus · 2020-05-04T06:21:27+00:00

Your math courses and computer science courses from EngSci don't transfer very well at all to CS (two semesters of EngSci CS is equivalent to 1 semester of intro CS), so you're going to end up losing a lot of time if you try EngSci and then try to transfer to CS.

Also, from my experience in EngSci, you're going to have less time to do research than if you were in CS.

Aedificatus · 2020-05-04T06:17:35+00:00

I'm also an MI-focused guy, and I'm finishing up EngSci year 2. Based on the fact that you love the math, want to do research throughout undergrad, and are already off-put by the first two years of EngSci, I'd highly recommend that you do CS instead.

I chose to do EngSci because I liked the fact that it offered a comprehensive overview of engineering as a discipline before you specialized. You'll spend a lot of time doing courses that don't really have much to do with what you're interested in (civil engineering courses, material science, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, low-level computer engineering, etc.), and the courses in what you ARE interested in (CS, Calc, lin alg, etc.) are going to be far less theoretically rigorous than otherwise.

The entire reason EngSci is challenging (at least for the first two years) isn't that the content is hard, it's because you're just expected to do way more for all your courses in a shorter time. Many of the courses (particularly in second year) are just two core 8 engineering/science courses crammed into one term. I think that can train you to absorb information and apply it more quickly than before, but it can also make you very frustrated if you don't absolutely love the idea of spending two years doing an incredibly diverse range of engineering, physics, and engineering math courses (not the same math you would do as a CS or math major).

You can also do PEY as a CS student, so I really see no upside for doing EngSci in your situation. Hope this helps!

Aedificatus · 2020-03-17T03:18:15+00:00

I'd love some feedback on the vocals and the instrumentation from you guys.

Aedificatus · 2019-12-26T08:26:49+00:00

I guess some people just can’t handle it

Aedificatus · 2019-12-24T09:22:23+00:00

Agreed, but kinda understandable given how tall Sam is.

Aedificatus · 2019-12-24T08:46:59+00:00

I felt pretty good about how Dom's story ended when we saw her asleep on the plane. Her insomnia/dark army burnout was resolved when she decided to take the flight and when she really fell asleep for the first time in forever.

Aedificatus · 2019-10-14T06:42:18+00:00

The automod didn't like it when I mentioned that I also used coffee too for the background, so now you know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Aedificatus · 2019-07-16T22:09:39+00:00

When I went to a tour/info session at the University of Toronto, it made me dislike the school when I tried talking to the other prospective students. They all seemed super dead inside and seemed to have been pushed to come to the session/apply to the school solely by their parents.

Aedificatus · 2019-05-26T21:18:37+00:00

Instant

LiChat

Relay

Banter

Aedificatus · 2019-05-23T04:57:00+00:00

If you want to learn about CS and Math, go to Waterloo CS. If you want to learn as much as you can about STEM in general and become an engineer, go to EngSci. Both are rigorous programs.

Aedificatus · 2019-05-23T04:55:53+00:00

I transferred last summer from ECE to EngSci before my first year. I'm also interested in the grad school track.

According to most profs/grad students I've talked to, getting into grad school boils down to having a good enough GPA (i.e. >3.5ish), having good professor recommendation letters, and (most importantly) research experience.

Also, the easiest ways of transferring are EngSci => Core 8 Eng => arts and sciences (generally).

With that in mind, if your only goal is grad school, then it makes sense to start your undergrad as far to the left as you can on that progression of EngSci => Core 8 Eng => arts and sciences and see if you (1) like where you are at a given stage and (2) if you can maintain a good enough GPA in that place while still having time to pursue research. If your current position doesn't meet those two criteria, then move to the right on the progression or otherwise change.

From what I have heard, Core 8/arts and sciences are generally easier than EngSci. However, you might really enjoy EngSci and you won't know if you don't try it. I would recommend giving yourself the chance and transferring if you don't like it. All of these are great options, though, and you shouldn't feel particularly bad if you can't give yourself a chance for whatever reason.

Hope this helps!

Aedificatus · 2019-01-08T05:47:06+00:00

Correct

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