(a.k.a. Bradley Thomas Marts, Bradley T Marts, btmart (AIM), Loomis (internet chess: FICS, USCL)
Quotable: "It's really simple. It's a bunch of
magnets and a lot of cavities and that's it."
--Dr. Seog Oh explaining particle accelerators to his High
Energy Physics class
This is a picture I made of myself intending to be a sort of self caricature. It actually came out more realistic than I imagined it would, but not if you look closely. If you look too close, you may become fightened and this is not recommened. Try to just get an overview. This is, essentially, what I look like. Tres Artistique Monsieur Marts!
Now I know what you are thinking, "When did Brad become an artist!?" Well, I've put in many hours
honing my skills as an... ok, you stopped believing me already. Truthfully, I can't take most of the
credit for the image on the right. I did make it myself, but with some computer assistance. I Started
with a photograph. I then used The Gimp (gimp is linux's version of photoshop)
to remove
the background. Then I used autotrace to generate essentially
what you're looking at
now. Autotrace is a program inteded to convert bitmap and jpeg format images in to vector graphics. So
the image at the right is an attempt to make a vector image out of a jpeg picture. Also, I instructed
the program to use only 12 colors in the output, this adds to the fakey looking nature of the picture.
Unfortunately I have to convert the image back to a bitmap or jpeg form to display it on the internet
(at least until SVG becomes a standard). But I do have the image in postscript form, so I've got that
going for me.
This is what I do "professionally" but I don't have much to say about it here. I just finished my 6th and final year as a graduate student at Duke University Physics. I defended my dissertation April 12th, and graduation is May 13th. I did my thesis work with Dr. Anna Lin on chemical pattern formation. You can check out her webpage about the physics research done in her lab. Next I will work as a postdoc with Oliver Steinbock
You may have heard me say "grad school is hard" or at least you're seeing me write it now, so I'd like to offer another opinion on surviving the rigors of grad school from a math grad student at Notre Dame. I'd like to, but I can't because that link is no longer active. Apparently that grad student graduated! According to my spying is now at Penn State as a lecturer, maybe I can track down this essay.
Check out the Duke University Chess Club webpage for club meeting times and other news. Last Spring Duke played in the National Collegiate Chess League. This internet league is in its third year after being resurrected from the old ICCL. Hopefully it will continue to grow as there is very little opportunity for colleges to compete against each other. Duke won its first round against Texas Tech's B team, 4-0! Duke took a second round bye because the round fell on our spring break. We fought hard against UTD, but couldn't stand up to their highly titled team. We scored a full point against Michigan state in the final round to finish with 2.5/4. Unfortunately I don't know the final standings, because the website is not up to date.
"Many [people] are obsessed with hobbies that have little or no objective measurement of success. People who assemble train sets and visit train museums and buy countless train books aren't worried about being good at it. They like it and that's enough, and it's also enough for chess." -- ChessNinja.com
When I was an undergrad at William and Mary I wrote a letter to the editor of the school newspaper. Occasionally I have a moment of vanity/boredom and search for "Brad Marts" on the internet and this thing pops up. I am essentially defending the belief that students who received advanced placement credit should receive advanced placement. Check it out if you like! I hope it remains posted for some time.