Let me start with a little personal information, for those fortunate souls who don't know much about me...

After earning a MSc degree in Physics (my second, this time from an American university), I gave up the idea of getting a PhD in Astrophysics and, instead, changed fields. I am now a Computer Science graduate student, as of Fall 1998 (check out my web site at the ICS department by clicking here). I have not abandonned Physics, however, since I am still a teaching assistant for the Physics Department here at UCI.

Naturally, the information below is somewhat outdated now, and I promise I'll update it as soon as I find the time.

I have been a graduate student at UC Irvine, since Fall 1995, and am now working towards a PhD degree in Astrophysics. The research I am involved with deals with trying to model the evolution of our solar system, with an emphasis on how the giant planets (Jupiter and Saturn) came to be what they are (gas giants!). Since we can't recreate the conditions of the early solar system in a laboratory, the primary tool for this kind of research is the computer.

For those interested in Computational Fluid Dynamics, which is the science (and art!) behind the research I am doing, check out this really cool web site: CFDOnline. For some excellent introductions to Computational Physics in general, check out these three books: An Introduction to Computer Simulation Methods, A First Course in Computational Physics, and Numerical Recipes. By the way, for those who love books of any kind, this online bookstore should prove to be a treasure!

(April 19, 1998) If you want to see some cool plots relating to the quantum mechanics of the Hydrogen atom, click here.

(Sep 5, 1998) As a result of a class that I was a teaching assistant for during this summer, I became interested in simulating the refraction of light waves through optically dense materials and the associated phenomenon of chromatic dispersion. Rainbows and Newton's experiment with a prism are the best known examples of these phenomena. If you want to see a brief explanation of how rainbows are formed, click here and for a really cool animation of light passing through a prism, click here. (the prism animation is a QuickTime movie 1272 Kb in size; it may take a while to load on slow computers and/or slow connections). You need QuickTime software installed in your computer to be able to see this animation. If you're unable to see it, go to Apple's QuickTime download page, download and install the latest version of QuickTime appropriate to your computer (a Macintosh, or a PC running Windows), then try looking at the animation again.

(Oct 22, 1998) This quarter I am teaching an introductory course in Astronomy, so I decided to create some animations to help my students. Click here to visit the page I created dedicated to those animations.

(August 22, 1998) If you want to know more about me, click here.

If you want to see a list of links that I think are cool, click here.

Finally, a bit of bragging... click here, and find out about an award I have been given for excellence in teaching.

Okay, enough!
Now, for the good stuff, the stuff that most everyone likes: pictures!

Choose a path below and have fun!

This site has been visitedtimes so far. Yeah, right!

My Son Alex

Sunsets, Sunrises, Landscapes & More

Some Good Friends

Please send comments to wtruppel@uci.edu