e equals m c squared

Geoff is doing an excellent job of filling you in on the interesting points.

So, that leaves me the luxury of wallowing in my own obsessive experience: studying for the Boards.

Today I was complaining about our perpetual fate with one of my study partners, a Cally-bred Persian guy whose LA syntax does little to promote his true intellect. "Right, dude?!" he replies. "It totally blows."
How can it be that we are in our thirties and still cramming like a teenager for a big test? (Or maybe at least like a nerdy teenager?!)

That explains the acne.

In one month, every 2nd-year radiology resident (and anyone who failed on prior attempts) will take the Physics Boards. We learn and must prove we know how these images are made and what sequellae their acquisition has on our patients. Good stuff.

Cheezy (that's what I call him) complained "Why won't they just leave me alone?!" In his Garbo-esque exclamation, he captured the essence of our plight: How is it that we've jumped through every ridiculous hoop and still they give us more? When will it end? And to add insult to injury, they require us to fork out thousands of dollars for the privilege....

Even so, there is something really wonderful about being forced to plunge yourself into the physical world on a particle level... there is something satisfying and miniscule and surprising about it. Sometimes it is better than fiction.

There are the romances, the Bremsstrahlung spectrum produced by a rambling electron as it is drawn towards a nucleus, its path deflected by an irresistable pull that gives it pause. In its deceleration, it emits quite an electromagnetic rainbow for anyone who is watching.

And then there are the dramas...for instance, when a positron collides (miraculously!) with its infinitesimal opposite, the electron: the interaction obliterates the two, producing, in their place, two gamma rays of exactly 511 keV in perfectly opposite directions. And guess what those physicists call it? ANNIHILATION RADIATION!!! They must be existentialists at heart....

Now, if that isn't poetry, I don't know what is.