The Asymmetric Rotor. IX. The Heavy Water Bands at 2787 cm^–1 and 5373 cm^–1

The combination band (110) of the two stretching fundamentals of D2O is reported and analyzed to yield nu0=5373.2 cm^–1 and the excited state moments of inertia 1.910, 3.931, and 5.929×10^–40 g cm^2. The same method of analysis applied to the unsymmetrical fundamental band (100) envelope gives nu0=2787.5 cm^–1 and the excited state moments 1.881, 3.876, and 5.843×10^–40 g cm^2

Effects of magnetic fields on radiatively overstable shock waves

We discuss high-resolution simulations of one-dimensional, plane-parallel shock waves with mean speeds between 150 and 240 km/s propagating into gas with Alfven velocities up to 40 km/s and outline the conditions under which these radiative shocks experience an oscillatory instability in the cooling length, shock velocity, and position of the shock front. We investigate two forms of postshock cooling: a truncated single power law and a more realistic piecewise power law. The degree of nonlinearity of the instability depends strongly on the cooling power law and the Alfven Mach number: for power-law indices \alpha < 0 typical magnetic field strengths may be insufficient either to stabilize the fundamental oscillatory mode or to prevent the oscillations from reaching nonlinear amplitudes.Comment: 11 text pages, LaTeX/AASTeX (aaspp4); 5 figures; accepted by Ap

The Merry Wives by William Shakespeare (review)

Theatre review. The Merry Wives. By William Shakespeare. Directed by Barrie Rutter. Northern Broadsides and The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, UK. April 19, 2016

Review of David J. Baker, On Demand: Writing for the Market in Early Modern England.

David J. Baker, On Demand: Writing for the Market in Early Modern England. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010 199 pp (+xviii) ISBN 9780804738569

Subjectivity in Shakespeare's sonnets

This thesis undertakes a study of Shakespeare's sonnets that seeks to locate them in the determinate historical circumstances of the moment of their production. Subjectivity in the sonnets is read as the location of a series of conflicts which are ultimately socio-historical in nature. Contemporaries identified the sonnet form as a discourse of the aristocracy, especially in its manifestation of courtly love. Shakespeare's sonnets attempt to manage the pressures that the history of the late sixteenth century impose upon this discursive formation from within the genre itself. The first and second chapters of the thesis set out the historical framework within which the generic requirements of the sonnet were played out, and discuss the tensions which result. Chapter three reads the first seventeen sonnets in the light of this work, arguing against a view of these particular poems as a homogeneous group of marriage sonnets. These sonnets set out the homosocial considerations that underpin the relationship between the addressor and the young nobleman in a way that foreshadows the conflicts that are played out in later poems. Chapter four traces these conflicts in terms of the subjectivity of the young man, noting that the historical crisis in the ideology of the aristocracy renders his subject-position unstable. Chapter five relates this result to the related subjectivity of the adressor, the poetic persona of the poems, and reads his position as noting the disjunctions in the dominant ideology, while nevertheless being unable to move away from its interpellation of his position. Chapter six notes the consequent disruption of gendered identity, both for the "dark lady" and the poetic persona himself. The conclusion argues for a materialist perspective on the sonnets' problematising of subjectivity in the Renaissance

Review of David J. Baker, On Demand: Writing for the Market in Early Modern England.

David J. Baker, On Demand: Writing for the Market in Early Modern England. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010 199 pp (+xviii) ISBN 9780804738569

Radiative instabilities in simulations of spherically symmetric supernova blast waves

High-resolution simulations of the cooling regions of spherically symmetric supernova remnants demonstrate a strong radiative instability. This instability, whose presence is dependent on the shock velocity, causes large-amplitude fluctuations in the shock velocity. The fluctuations begin almost immediately after the radiative phase begins (upon shell formation) if the shock velocity lies in the unstable range; they last until the shock slows to speeds less than approximately 130 km/s. We find that shock-velocity fluctuations from the reverberations of waves within the remnant are small compared to those due to the instability. Further, we find (in plane-parallel simulations) that advected inhomogeneities from the external medium do not interfere with the qualitative nature of the instability-driven fluctuations. Large-amplitude inhomogeneities may alter the phases of shock-velocity fluctuations, but do not substantially reduce their amplitudes.Comment: 18 pages text, LaTeX/AASTeX (aaspp4); 10 figures; accepted by Ap