User:Fineline

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I'm a theoretical physicist, software developer, and musician, currently living in Austin, TX. I'm out in SF quite a bit though.

I have a PhD in theoretical physics from UT Austin, and a BS in physics from UC San Diego. My doctoral research dealt with building string theoretic models of QCD-like quantum field theories at strong coupling, via the AdS/CFT correspondence. You can read all about it here (warning: hella taylor expansions).

Contact

fineline@gmail.com

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Projects

  • vForms is a virtual environment for information organization for Windows 8 (sorry like 99.999% of the people reading this). C++ and DirectX. Ask me about it!
  • I'd like to investigate the feasibility of using techniques similar to Loop and Blinn for a) rendering bezier splines, in particular digital ink strokes. b) making a fast, resolution independent pdf renderer. Both GLSL and HLSL versions. If this sounds interesting to any DirectX/OpenGL/CG hackers out there, it'd be great to see if we could release something substantial as open source.
    Update 5/6/2014: I found this, which should be good for study.
  • I'm also often working on some sort of quantum-gravity-related research project or other. If any of you guys wanna check my math that would be tight.

Interests

  • String Theory
  • AdS/CFT
  • The holographic perspective on quantum entanglement entropy, and its implications for space/time emergence (ie the program spearheaded by Von Raamsdonk, and of course EPR=ER)
  • Machine Learning
  • Statistical Mechanics (I'm particularily interested in learning about/implementing boltzmann machines, and their applications to real-world systems -- eg work by Bialek. See also his textbook)
  • Kundalini Yoga
  • Rational (ie phenomenological) discussion of mysticism in general
  • High Explosives
  • Saxophone
  • Learning Python
  • Cinder (creative coding library), and its application towards virtual workspace environment design on tablets and in augmented reality.
  • Hiking
  • Mountaineering
  • Cooking (mostly Chinese and Mexican)
  • Open Access Publishing
  • Co-operative living

Some Publications

Evolution of non-local observables in an expanding boost-invariant plasma (forthcoming)

The Stability of Non-Extremal Conifold Backgrounds with Sources

The Non-SUSY Baryonic Branch: Soft Supersymmetry Breaking of N=1 Gauge Theories

Plasticity and learning in a network of coupled phase oscillators

Multi-user communication using chaotic frequency modulation


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