Tuesdays and Thursdays are my short study days. It helps me reset. MWF are my 7 hour days. TTH are 5 hours on average.
After studying my fluid mechanics today, and watching several videos, I feel good about my fluid mechanics path. I am so dependent on feeling good about my studies. It affects my whole day.
Although I succeeded yesterday in MITx introduction to differential equations, it was a grueling day that I didn’t enjoy that much. Was making so many tiny errors, and I got the concept right for a really difficult problem, but failed to simply distribute correctly. A simple algebra error caused me to miss a very challenging problem. Although I got some dopamine rush from getting the concept correct, I felt horrible because I made errors like that all day yesterday. I had to check and recheck my problems multiple times, which drug the day out significantly. Anyhow, it is over.
Today has been a much better day, but I did watch a really boring video on shock waves. I should have chosen a more entertaining video since I have control. Anyhow, note taking went well, and I am learning fluid mechanics well. I have to get through the book so that I can study Introduction to Turbulence.
I am spoiled with PDFs. I don’t like reading from textbooks. My computer and monitor, along with my makeshift desk, is set up for PDFs and not books. MIT Press Introduction to Turbulence is not in electronic format, but it is a great book to work my way into turbulence. Then I can study the bible–Pope’s book on turbulent flows. Most flows in real life are turbulent.
It is quite difficult to properly model turbulent flows in OpenFOAM. Especially if the geometry is complicated. What will all this do for me? Pass time. I doubt anybody will benefit from my studies, but I will have fun. I hope to get published. That way it might be used. I will share it on cfd-online and other open-access document servers. I hope to be sound mathematically and physics wise. I am excited that Dr. Jasak, the creator of OpenFOAM, has offered to supervise me and share his valuable lectures on OpenFOAM. The man is a professor at Cambridge, which has a 21% acceptance rate. Exciting!
An Experiment In Life 