Rix and I discussed many data analysis problems in the morning today. We have been discussing the possibility of measuring the bolometric fluxes of stars with very little (possibly vanishing) dependence on spectral assumptions. (The idea is: If you have enough bands, the spectrum or SED is very strongly tied down.) If we can combine these with other kinds of measurements (of, say, effective temperature), we can make predictions for interferometry without (heavy use of) stellar models! One constant that comes up in these discussions is 4πGσ (the gravitational constant times the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (have I mentioned that I hate it when constants are named after people?)). Is this a new fundamental, astronomical constant?
We also discussed with Coryn Bailer-Jones (MPIA), Morgan Fouesneau (MPIA), and Rene Andre (MPIA) actually putting the bolometric-flux project into practice with real data. Fouesneau and Andre seem to have working code!
I also had the pleasure of reading and giving comments on some writing Bailer-Jones has been doing for a possible new textbook on computational data analysis. This is exciting!
While it might be useful, it certainly is not fundamental.
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