tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23767398838771662142024-02-02T16:01:50.242+09:00Physics as my dreamA place to share experience and moments of my life especially in Physics, Cooking, Travelling and Sporting!PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-3758741954727398492018-06-04T14:01:00.004+09:002018-06-04T14:01:43.495+09:00Travel, travel and travel I can't think of a best title to describe my recent life that is both exciting and exhausting. But after revisiting my older blog posts about the hectic time period I went through as a senior in Kyoto University, what I am experiencing now is not something completely new. <div>
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Part of the reasons why I have been traveling so frequent is because I am a postdoc at the University of Washington, Seattle and also an analysis coordinator for the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab, Batavia. As a result I need to coordinate and supervise analysis efforts of students and postdocs at both locations and hence there is a need to split my time 50:50 between these two locations. This is still fine. Just over two weeks ago, I was invited to participate and give a talk at an analysis workshop organized by my collaborators at the University of Kentucky, Lexington and was also invited to give a seminar talk at the Yale University in New Haven. To make sure I optimized my travel grant, I combined my Fermilab trip with the Kentucky and Yale trips. As a result, in 2 weeks time, I spent more than 24 hours in addition to commuting time to work in transportation like car and airplane. The best reaction I could give you is to shake my head if you ask me how was my trip.</div>
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However, I am pretty satisfied what I got out from the last two weeks. First, I managed to convinced some of the collaborators to give an update in the meeting I host every 1-2 weeks for Muon g-2 data analysis. People were being shy in the first few weeks and I had to work at 200% productivity to keep the ball rolling. I am glad that it paid off. Second, I was glad that I managed to give useful suggestions to the data analysis workshop I attended. I gave a talk regarding using modern data analysis tools like JupyterLab to perform analysis on Muon g-2 data and gave some concrete examples they could use immediately. I also contributed my knowledge on the detector to clear up some misunderstanding in data analysis. Third, I was very glad to have the chance to give an hour long seminar talk at a prestigious place like Yale University. Although there are still rooms for improvement for my talk (I had only about two days to prepare) I can pretty much using it as a template for my future talks. The talk I gave at Indiana was a job talk (focusing mostly on my contributions) so it was not really oriented for a more general physics seminar or colloquium. </div>
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More importantly, 3 important results came out as soon as I came back to Seattle this week. They are</div>
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1) Excess of electron-like events in the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab,</div>
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2) Determination of nucleon axial coupling from lattice QCD, and </div>
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3) First dark matter search result from XENON1T.</div>
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This weekend is the time for me to relax so I am glad to have a little time to read more about these exciting updates. Hopefully our collaboration can deliver the result in a timely manner next Winter/Summer so that we can confirm the measurement previously done at BNL about 20 years ago.</div>
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PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-46180201671735470602017-09-12T17:31:00.002+09:002017-09-12T17:31:27.517+09:00It's going to be crazy months ahead for me as those heavyweight tasks are flowing in one by one. First I am charged with the commissioning run task force to figure out the missing muons and then I have to co-prepare the Experimental Operational Plan (EOP) and then to give a talk for the Operational Readiness Review regarding the data analysis plan for the muon anomalous precession frequency. All these responsibilities in addition to job applications, funding applications, manuscript preparing, data analysis and student mentoring, my life can't be busier.<div>
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Ok, back to work.</div>
PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-25974409333172175712017-09-11T18:13:00.000+09:002017-09-11T18:13:05.125+09:00Revival postI can't believe it took me more than 2 years to create a new post here. It could mean I was either very lazy or very busy. It is a mixture of both.<br />
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I have gained a lot of experience working in my current group and in the Muon g-2 collaboration while I was absent from this blog. Long story short, my current responsibility is to co-coordinate analysis effort of the collaboration. I guess I will share what it means for me in the next occasion.PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-77906958576808102062015-09-02T16:51:00.000+09:002015-09-07T08:20:22.452+09:00Update from SeattleWhy Seattle? It's simple, I have been living here for almost half a year.<br />
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I have decided to take up a postdoc position offered by UW after writing the previous post regarding my interview experience. Lots of things have changed since then, and I am doing okay right now in Seattle. I must say that the culture here is quite different from what I have experienced before. For example, you are not allowed to drink on the street, alcohol is prohibited in the karaoke box nearby the university, right-turn is allowed during red traffic light unless stated otherwise, and so on ....<br />
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Research wise I am very happy to be entrusted with several important tasks for the collaboration. Having experience in both hardware and software has been my dream since undergraduate and today finally I have the chance to experience a nice mixture of 50:50 in my daily research work.<br />
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I spent a majority of time on the muon beam injection and storage studies for the first two months and it worked out quite well albeit some bugs in the geometry implementation and tracking in the EM fields. I didn't expect the injection scheme of this experiment to be this complicated but I am glad to learn many things related to the dynamics of the muon beam in the storage ring such as coherent betatron oscillation and fast rotation.<br />
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In terms of hardware development, I am working on a beam monitoring system consisted of 3 consecutive fiber array detectors. This is something I have been working on since my ETH days so it's a good continuation of work for me. And of course I have learnt much more about the amplifier circuit for the SiPM compared to before, such as the dynamic range of the VGA. I am involved also in the QC of the SiPM board for the calorimeter. This is perhaps for the first time I have to design an experiment from scratch. It's hard of course, but it is also very rewarding at the same time. Because of it, I get to expand my familiarity in the Autodesk Inventor program for mechanical drawing, to expand my knowledge in the electronic department, such as flashing LED using super narrow pulser, etc. Hopefully I manage to characterize all the SiPMs within the allocated time.PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-1725422431736260452014-11-18T14:03:00.000+09:002018-06-04T14:03:54.258+09:00Last few months as a studentAgain I am in the transition period of my life, and this is a big one: the end of my student life. Technically speaking I am both student and research assistant and more importantly, I am paying taxes. So this semi-phase transition sounds less dramatic but it's actually not.<br />
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Very often a research project is led by a postdoc or a senior scientist and usually PhD student is focusing on executing the technical tasks. When the direction is well defined, you do the job quicker as you can feel day by day that you will reach there soon. Of course depending on which type of experiment, there are also many cases where PhD students are taking the lead.<br />
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PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-87776172858456200092014-11-18T08:18:00.003+09:002014-11-18T08:18:35.681+09:00My Postdoc Interview ExperienceFinally my postdoc hunting season is over and it's time to share some of my experience. Usually to have a chance of promotion in the academic path, you will need to prove yourself in a field with different specialization than your current PhD. For example, in the field of experimental particle physics, hardware development-emphasized postdoc work if you have been working mainly in the software environment during your PhD work. But of course some of the work will still involved the current expertise that you have, so that you get to learn new skills and to polish and apply the previous skills that you have acquired. For these reasons, I have applied to the research groups working on physics different from what I am working on at the moment and also as diverse as possible in terms of the skills required.<br />
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There are about 4 topics coming up in my mind, which involved neutrino, neutron, anti-proton and muon particles. Quite wide isn't it? Each of them has different physics motivations and the similarity among them is that all of them are trying to answer the big questions about our universe - where is another source of CP violation, why neutrino is so light-weight, how symmetry are the matter and the anti-matter, and so on ...... Expertise that are required by the positions span from Monte Carlo simulation and offline data analysis to constructing an ion-trap and calorimeters. As diverse as the topics and the skills, the workplaces are also quite far away from each other, Switzerland, UK, Japan and the U.S. Even though staying at the same place will save you a lot of time moving around and settling down to a new environment, there are many unforeseen incident happening and in the end I will be going to the place furthest away from my current city. While not mentioning which university and which group I have applied to, I would like to share some of the important things that I have learnt from my 4 postdoc interviews (2 face-to-face and 2 skype).<br />
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1) Keep your talk within the allocated time<br />
I did a mistake during my 1st interview where I was a little bit slow in presenting my works.<br />Even though I managed to finish 1 of the projects and in the middle of the 2nd project I am involved in, this doesn't leave a good impression to the interviewers. Thanks to this experience, I did better or to say finished everything within the time limit and everybody was happy.<br />
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2) Never put any words that you don't fully understood on your slides<br />
Usually there are not many people who is trying to test your knowledge about your field, but according to Murphy's law, anything can happen! I got a sharp question during my 3rd interview, well more than one question, and I wasn't expecting the questions to come in those directions. Luckily I managed to compensate it with my answers to many other questions but still it is destroying my mood. Thanks again to this experience, instead of taking them away, I have invested even more time trying to understand the concepts that I have been understanding only on the surface.<br />
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3) It's obvious but ask more about your future work or experiment<br />
This point I believe will give a very good impression to your future boss/group that you are really interested to work in that project with them and you have done your homework. Usually the detail of an experiment is not fully covered in the publications and thus you should be able to figure out what are the questions to be asked. Asking about the schedule of the experiment is also very important as it shows that you are considering seriously the possibility of working in the group and incorporating the time schedule into part of your life.<br />
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4) Discuss with the people around you who you are close to (be it before the interview or after)<br />
This is also extremely important to know what is the option of your colleagues regarding the future projects you are interested in. Since postdoc has the time limit and pressure to accomplish highly within 2-4 years, it is wiser to choose projects which can be done within the mentioned time span. As a fresh PhD graduates, very often it is difficult to judge where a given project can be completed within the allocated time. Consulting more senior members in the group will be the better idea and you need to be prepared that the opinions are usually 50:50 and you will have to make your own judgement. You are becoming an independent research now after all!<br />
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As a conclusion, don't be afraid of approaching people whom you are interested to work with. I have talked to more than 20 people since Feb this year and I get to know more about what's going on in my current field and also the other fields. Even if it doesn't work out for the 1st postdoc, you might be working together with them in the near future as a collaborator! So, make more friends and enjoy doing research!PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-71875843301228754892014-02-05T09:34:00.002+09:002014-02-05T09:34:25.342+09:00Next destinationIt has been almost 10 years since I left Penang to study abroad and now I am living in a place where I could never thought of 10 years ago. Osaka (1), Kyoto (4), Tokyo (2), Zurich (3) are great cities that I have lived in, and now I am again at the moment of deciding which destination to stop by in the coming years.<div>
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From Osaka to Kyoto was a tough one. Most of my friends were going or at Osaka, and I have made a decision to go to Kyoto University for my undergraduate studies instead. For the exposure I had and the colorful life I experienced living in Kyoto International Student House, I have no regret. </div>
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<br />From Kyoto to Tokyo, I was quite sad to leave a place that I have been liking for the past 4 years. I lived quite near to the University, and the surroundings were full with Rahmen shops which are my super duper favorites. However, it is still too early to say which path would be better for my scientific career, ATLAS group of Todai or T2K experiment of Kyodai. Nevertheless, I am very happy with the choice now, as I have met many nice friends in Tokyo and also my current girl friend!</div>
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From Tokyo to Zurich, this was decided rather faster than I could imagine. I was worrying that spending too much time on computing and analysis would narrow my career path, and decided to have a look on some job platforms online. I must say that I was looking at the right timing as I have the job that I am working right now, which I enjoyed very much, and also thanks to a Swedish master student in my institute for her supports and advices during my application for the position.</div>
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So what's next? From Zurich to? Even myself has no answer. Be it US, be it Japan, be it Europe, there are mountains of tasks waiting for me for the coming months. Do my best! </div>
PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-85087353232105671632014-01-20T22:29:00.003+09:002014-02-05T09:04:51.765+09:00Happy New Year 2014It has been 6 months since my last post and this shows how "busy" I was.<br />
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First of all, in July I was accepted into the Telejob group of AVETH and have been working in the IT team to support the job platform and Telejob website. Even though I am working as a researcher in Physics and aiming to continue in the academia, there is no harm to learn about the working environment of somebody outside of academia. The Telejob is like a small private business where everybody is coming from different background hoping to learn from each other on how to manage a business. This is certainly very beneficial for PhD students who are working most of the time in a small group and highly specific topics, to extend their social network and horizon. I have also learnt a lot from the IT team about PHP framework Symfony, JavaScript and also managing database using mysql. I am enjoying the work!<br />
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After spending a weekends with my high school friends in Venice, I was spending most of the time attending seminar, conference and workshops, from ETH to Linz in Austria and PSI. It was for the first time that I have presented something about my main project "Phase space compression of positive muon beam". I was quite nervous at the beginning, but managed to explain smoothly after several practices and discussions with other physicists.<br />
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After resting for several months, the season of Badminton is finally coming back again. The Swiss Badminton League is usually being played from September to the March of next year. Since last year my team was at the bottom of the table in League 3, this year we are demoted to League 4 and our target is to top the table and go back to League 3 again. Since I have stopped playing every week for quite some time, my first league game was quite rusty but somehow managed to score 2 wins in men singles and men doubles. And currently I am ranked high C3 after beating two C2 guys in December 2013 and January in 2014. B3 is my target this year and hopefully I am able to reach it.<br />
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In September when the semester starts, I have signed up for a course named Space geodesy. It was all about mapping the physical quantities of the Earth, such as gravity field, drift of the continents, etc. At the beginning I thought it was only about the GPS, but as the course going on, there were much more interesting stuffs being taught: different types of tides, different ways of measuring distance, orbits of the satellites, etc. It was really an eye opening class for me and I believe it will be of future use for me in my career.<br />
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We were happy to have friends visiting again in October, where we visited Rapperswil (3rd time!) by ship and Titlis for the first time. The lake view from ship was nice as usually, and the Titlis mountain was great as everywhere was covered with snow. We had Raclette party one night, and another dinner at the famous Zeughauskeller to show them some typical swiss foods.<br />
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In November I have attended an interesting workshop "2nd International Workshop on Antimatter and Gravity". It was held at the University of Bern which is just next to the train station, and I get to know many physicists who I have seen only their names before. The faces didn't match the names most of the time though. I wasn't giving the talk but I have prepared the talk together with my boss so it was great to receive some feedback regarding it in preparing for my thesis defense. Since I am quite new to this field, it was quite a good chance for me to have a glance of whole field.<br />
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December was quite an eventful month for me as I have attended KIZUNA meeting for past Japan scholars to share experience and to exchange information, Annual meeting and dinner for Institute for Particle Physics, visited Google Zurich for the first time hosted by a Malaysian friend working there, Christmas dinner organized by AVETH and Telejob (plus year end bonus!), Telejob retreat to Mulhouse, France, and of course year end trip to Italy (Rome, Florence and Pisa) with my dearest one.<br />
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Oh, and not forget to mentioned about the new year eve party held at my flat with my student gang in Zurich plus their friends. The foods were great, the games were fun and the people were nice!<br />
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A few days after the new year came my first Ski in Switzerland in Sattel, and I managed to recall what I have learnt last time at Nagano in Japan during the ICEPP symposium 2010. Hopefully there will be more snows this year and I can ski until May to minimize the cost/use. :)PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-82454411027547399452013-07-21T07:53:00.000+09:002013-08-13T07:54:07.226+09:00Hiking at St. MoritzIt has been quite awhile since our (a gang of phd students) last hiking trip together. Initially planned for Creux du Van which requires very high physical fitness, we have decided to change our trip to something moderate, St. Moritz Emerald trail, Grisons-Lombardy stage 1, due to the rainy weather recently.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWInGfUaWAGDpYOFMxMYr95r8cwarG1UcLaXlU9kwFEBFFJmRRD4L0Qk7y2L_T0zs-qmFBugOnrmXAqRv2qviQY1ZKWNSi5cXcmjNPMXeV36MTCazwxPCPmnb3p5qugnUHFhtmlH5Zjn4V/s1600/IMG_0712.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWInGfUaWAGDpYOFMxMYr95r8cwarG1UcLaXlU9kwFEBFFJmRRD4L0Qk7y2L_T0zs-qmFBugOnrmXAqRv2qviQY1ZKWNSi5cXcmjNPMXeV36MTCazwxPCPmnb3p5qugnUHFhtmlH5Zjn4V/s320/IMG_0712.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Moritz lake</td></tr>
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Woke up 5 in the morning, (perhaps the earliest of the year) we departed from Zurich HB heading towards Chur and then St. Moritz, and it took us 3.5 hours! Since we were moving in a large group (of 9 people), it was quite an challenging task to get the seats where we can sit together. We managed to do it for the Zurich-Chur trip, and almost did it as well for the Chur-St. Moritz leg, only to find out that the seats were reserved. As the train was quite short, we had to separate into 4-5 groups and were sitting with our backs facing the front, for 2 hours! I spent most of the time sleeping though, as it was quite uncomfortable and I was sleepy anyway.<br />
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Soon after our arrival, I was certain that this hiking trip is going to be a great one - what picturesque scene of mountains, lake, and gentle sun. We started our hike by walking around the St. Moritz lake before going slightly uphill to the mountain lake, Lej da Staz.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJw75RiumQ5eoLrFm548Kt91h8DMrir4DFb29fLQ_avGYnOGMonxA290RK8tf5IFzQw2CTmY2pboFE5ja6GfY43Yqm9dCzPExiFkYryCcfD1yJ-Gx1O0RXn_yaZzO9Syu8qLH2nEABduQl/s1600/IMG_0723.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJw75RiumQ5eoLrFm548Kt91h8DMrir4DFb29fLQ_avGYnOGMonxA290RK8tf5IFzQw2CTmY2pboFE5ja6GfY43Yqm9dCzPExiFkYryCcfD1yJ-Gx1O0RXn_yaZzO9Syu8qLH2nEABduQl/s320/IMG_0723.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lej da Staz</td></tr>
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Its color was almost black, in a contrast with the St. Moritz lake which was blueish. We spent some time for technical breaks and followed the route suggested by the website towards St. Moritz Bad. The landscape was a great remedy for us who have been living in the cities for a long time, and the forest was full with lots of interesting flora and small animals. We kept on going for like one hour and reached an Olympic ski jump site. It looked like an abandoned place with the grasses growing wild, but should be awesome when it is covered with all the snows during the winter time. After a few minutes walk, we arrived at Lej Marsch and conquered an area near the lake to begin our picnic. The floor was very soft and the soil was somehow wet. We can even trigger an earthquake by just stomping on the floor.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ZhBVUNG5N_uciLEd1xWJ86D0y84xlADS1f1JTR58eVP4xOOLk-yAsiO2dspcTD7aTEnvA5LBK-QxEMUqzZIK4qEdyqlTABM4qHwYqnMFsGBLo_VgoRp2wKP61ogYrdykBx3QV_msSsyx/s1600/IMG_0734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ZhBVUNG5N_uciLEd1xWJ86D0y84xlADS1f1JTR58eVP4xOOLk-yAsiO2dspcTD7aTEnvA5LBK-QxEMUqzZIK4qEdyqlTABM4qHwYqnMFsGBLo_VgoRp2wKP61ogYrdykBx3QV_msSsyx/s320/IMG_0734.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Olympic ski jump</td></tr>
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After our lunch break, we moved on to the next lake, Lej Nair, which was pretty small. Along the route we started to see more "civilizations" and beginning to return to the normal world. Since we still had some time to spare, we jumped into a local restaurant to enjoy some ice creams and beers while enjoying the sun and mountains. It was really a nice place to enjoy your life after retirement and we even joked that everyone of us can buy one unit each of the apartment there. Then we can become neighbors and do hiking together. Ha, I am not sure if I could afford a house at a place like this in Switzerland!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwt6DWnKEee2BZauNa7GEsCzXrJh6ysdWNZzP3eBDmJIY3DcwpTDkKYhyDH6p5R7eEvjPe5myfCQtk8lGlXafG3hF9AXXnVX4WJreMQWJwtinBOs5pGom39tnUSJf4CROTaodKdmvbOXaZ/s1600/IMG_0778.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwt6DWnKEee2BZauNa7GEsCzXrJh6ysdWNZzP3eBDmJIY3DcwpTDkKYhyDH6p5R7eEvjPe5myfCQtk8lGlXafG3hF9AXXnVX4WJreMQWJwtinBOs5pGom39tnUSJf4CROTaodKdmvbOXaZ/s320/IMG_0778.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">small waterfall with stones around</td></tr>
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Recharged with energy, we continued our journey to the lake Silvaplana and walked past Crap da Sass castle. There was also a small waterfall with lots of vertically aligned stone arranged by somebody. As the rain started to pour, we have decided to get back to the St. Moritz station instead of walking for another hour to Sils under the rain. Everybody was tired like hell and even fell asleep on the way to the train station. We used different route back, passing Lanquart before reaching Zurich.<br />
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Since we have spent "lots of energy" for the hike, we have decided to award ourselves with a dinner at Ah Fatt's place. As usual, we finished a tableful of foods within an hour and finally reached home after spending 18 hours outside.<br />
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<br />PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-35887316220684894912013-07-14T08:05:00.000+09:002013-08-13T07:57:47.491+09:00Geneva day tripThis trip was kind of decided 2 months ago, but I just realized about it one day before. And it turned out to be a great one. Instead of visiting the place, it was actually to meet my ex-colleagues from Univ. of Tokyo who are now working at CERN on the ATLAS experiment.<br />
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Life is really unpredictable I must say, as I would have ended up working at CERN for my PhD under the same group as my master's lab. Due to my eagerness to try out something different and also my tendency of moving around (like from Osaka to Kyoto and to Tokyo in Japan), I have gambled my future to do my PhD at a place unknown to me at the time, Zurich in Switzerland. And of course I am glad that I have made this choice as it has changed me tremendously in terms of my perspective about physics and society and also extended my network over the world.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUCN0sV8yUxbI_lDvG5riuwHj92xhquJzEBfuKt-QbFr6QvwUa1yTSqnPBTGqUpqnPIQ7SJeiv-3QNu7Find7cpFcYVgSMLhEjDRdPtqJNJ4C3Bwawn3mZxgEqY7KoKZFOTdpDBj2PLoN/s1600/genevalake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUCN0sV8yUxbI_lDvG5riuwHj92xhquJzEBfuKt-QbFr6QvwUa1yTSqnPBTGqUpqnPIQ7SJeiv-3QNu7Find7cpFcYVgSMLhEjDRdPtqJNJ4C3Bwawn3mZxgEqY7KoKZFOTdpDBj2PLoN/s320/genevalake.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Geneva Lake</td></tr>
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After meeting them, I am glad that they are doing well in their researches and going to graduate soon. Even though I will be later than them as I am not in a hurry or so. And I am not regretting as well to be not involved in the Higgs boson searching group, which I was assigned to during my master. I am not working on something BIG either at the moment. But I am enjoying it, so do my friends enjoying their analysis works.<br />
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We had a great time having lunch together talking about our labmates when we were at Tokyo. It is pretty amazing that everybody is still working towards what they planned to do a few years back, and nothing is stopping them right now. This is truly scientist mentality or Japanese tamashi?. :) After the lunch, out of the sudden, we walked towards the Geneva lake and entered the public swimming area. And guess what? We rented swimming trunks and jumped into the lake! This is perhaps the 2nd random stuff I have done after the 5-minute-decide-to-go-Vienna trip. It was freaking hot these days and I was completely relaxed after the swim.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggy-IRSdWD84D3mrxVhfcsc3Z8EPiLFx7U7IFcjZ0rAOBKRAxMrbC7Qfx9J6URwpt5iLV2M5C8yWVagbXFbvbmiW4NUAzigXW0njkLzRCSc0l_uSxLjG8PeKTlwgZ5PuJ0yhdDZXOW7opm/s1600/lakefestival.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggy-IRSdWD84D3mrxVhfcsc3Z8EPiLFx7U7IFcjZ0rAOBKRAxMrbC7Qfx9J6URwpt5iLV2M5C8yWVagbXFbvbmiW4NUAzigXW0njkLzRCSc0l_uSxLjG8PeKTlwgZ5PuJ0yhdDZXOW7opm/s320/lakefestival.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lake Parade</td></tr>
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On the way back, I was lucky? to bump into annual Lake Parade of Geneva and had some fun time screaming together with the crowds while watching those fancy parade tracks. Next time it would be them coming to Zurich visit me, as they are leaving to Japan soon for their thesis writing. They will most probably be at CERN again next summer but God knows where I will be next year.<br />
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PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-36321067127920558472013-07-10T07:33:00.000+09:002013-08-13T08:05:40.896+09:00Summer break 2013<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What comes after a hectic schedule? Yes, you are right, it's holiday! Two months earlier than last year, I have planned my holiday with my gf. Because I will have another hectic schedule from the end of August to the mid September, presenting my projects on muon compression. Since we have organised everything two months in advanced, basically all the tickets were cheap if not the cheapest.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLBQDKXwqwIYYC85RklSDCIvj4TdMVkEq91RwG_ez_IClIZ3GQrN6Em4QYgoLjhLIUc6OnINwRRt5M4Hk-N83gVqAGx6Xs384QAOcB10ILZtxqL3tM5H_egvlAlwWYCwxGw-u8KbR_cCMJ/s1600/versailles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLBQDKXwqwIYYC85RklSDCIvj4TdMVkEq91RwG_ez_IClIZ3GQrN6Em4QYgoLjhLIUc6OnINwRRt5M4Hk-N83gVqAGx6Xs384QAOcB10ILZtxqL3tM5H_egvlAlwWYCwxGw-u8KbR_cCMJ/s320/versailles.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Garden and Park of Versailles Palace</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>Our first station was Paris, which has taken us about 4 hours by TGV from Zurich main station. We have spent a few days in the winter over here last year and decided this time to visit some of the places that we have missed and also to experience the summertime Paris.<br />
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We had a really nice french cuisine at a restaurant nearby our hotel on the first day. During the 2nd day, we spent almost half the day at the Versailles palace which is extremely huge, both the palace itself and the garden. Then headed back to Paris downtown to search for Japanese <span style="text-align: center;">rahmen</span>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Night view of Louvre Museum</td></tr>
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Then we went to the Louvre Museum to wait for the sun to set, and took some night pictures of the "pyramid". We came back to this museum the next day early in the morning, spent a couple of hours visiting before going for another round of rahmen. Those 2 Japanese rahmen were perhaps the best we have had before in Europe, and there were inexpensive (7-10 Euro). After filling up the stomach we went to the Arc de Triumph and shopped around the famous street, The Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Before departing to London the next day, we spent some time at the Montmartre and the fun part was trying hard to avoid those "bracelet tying experts".<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFVwPFBzi6Gp8mChBF0LHNd0BattF4xFy5kK-95wgYoGoKhCg3oiXSxx_ui8glKOMyaqL8xRjdNkAIrmPHyLv-qs2sw4nxJ3l34lnsCOK5cLoZFVxL0tv2NON_u31o3IsL9KNzXITP5wIn/s1600/gmt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFVwPFBzi6Gp8mChBF0LHNd0BattF4xFy5kK-95wgYoGoKhCg3oiXSxx_ui8glKOMyaqL8xRjdNkAIrmPHyLv-qs2sw4nxJ3l34lnsCOK5cLoZFVxL0tv2NON_u31o3IsL9KNzXITP5wIn/s320/gmt.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greenwich Meridian</td></tr>
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Arriving at London in the evening, we were informed by the hotel reception that there is a large shopping mall called Westfield nearby. Without second thought, we rushed there for our dinner and were amazed by what it has in this complex. We had Nando's since 10 months ago (also at London) and spent some time surfing Internet in the mall (since there was no wifi in the hotel). We spent our second day around Leicester square and had dim sum as our lunch. Found Thai durians at only 8 pounds and also visited M&M for some goodies. Then finally visited Harrods that we have missed last time and were astonished by the grandness of this department store. We decided at night to go to Greenwich the next day and it was a completely satisfied day trip.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Penang! restaurant</td></tr>
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First we went to Canary Wharf which is like Wall Street in the States in terms of function, and feels like Odaiba in Tokyo in terms of the view. Moving to the south we have visited a farm with lots of animals to play with. From there we walked through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel (under the Thames river) to Greenwich where we have visited some museums and the Royal observatory and most importantly Greenwich Meridian which defines the zero of the Longitude.<br />
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On the way back we went to a Chinese restaurant and had a simple dinner with sour spicy soup, wan tan soup, roasted duck and fried vegetable. We realised that there is a filming going on nearby our hotel and stopped there watching for a while. Hopefully we will find out which film it is next year since it looks like a big budget filming. On the final day, we have decided to try out Penang! restaurant at Westfield and have ordered Curry Laksa and steamed Siakap fish and Teh tarik. The foods turned out quite good and the prices were reasonable. Then we went to Victoria and had our dinner in a Spanish restaurant which is included in our Wicked theater tickets. Great dinner and excellent performance of the Wicked!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Manneken Pis (Warning! It is really small)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Place</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The next day morning we had a very trip to Brussels (90 mins transfer time) before going to Amsterdam. After spending some time lining up at the tourist information counter, we managed to get a map of Brussels city and also the estimated time from the station to the main attractions. After depositing our luggages, we rushed towards the famous Manneken Pis (a small kid peeing) and Gross Markt. The place was filled with lots of tourists and artistic buildings, and also a couple of expensive waffle cake shops (about 4.5 euro with strawberries and cream). We managed to come back to the station on time and grabbed a box of Godiva chocolate.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqp76QwmhMKyRb2AHk_OaUR8bbXyngMM2EjwWQ3GFInj1i8IIX7u_OMFOxl1wgVu9b16dIFXNq4VZNsHFNKAlyfDshnjK_K2RfBJTB3Pf3ZIEyfeqUUsf_G377qWbkdrQhdsI-OeBpp9uO/s1600/canals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqp76QwmhMKyRb2AHk_OaUR8bbXyngMM2EjwWQ3GFInj1i8IIX7u_OMFOxl1wgVu9b16dIFXNq4VZNsHFNKAlyfDshnjK_K2RfBJTB3Pf3ZIEyfeqUUsf_G377qWbkdrQhdsI-OeBpp9uO/s320/canals.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Typical photo of Amsterdam canals</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx3HI1Q8X3kbGCan-v1wJ2oV3Pqo0wMzEw-3rQbhCaJZcqEjo5zHKY9oVs1VIZ89js5p6FDtk-DMt7T4QH0OXivABRrt9E-sOf3wfwnJCD6OWmHj5gJTzMLvIGP1FAETLNlynt45K98XKZ/s1600/amsterdam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx3HI1Q8X3kbGCan-v1wJ2oV3Pqo0wMzEw-3rQbhCaJZcqEjo5zHKY9oVs1VIZ89js5p6FDtk-DMt7T4QH0OXivABRrt9E-sOf3wfwnJCD6OWmHj5gJTzMLvIGP1FAETLNlynt45K98XKZ/s320/amsterdam.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I amsterdam"</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqp76QwmhMKyRb2AHk_OaUR8bbXyngMM2EjwWQ3GFInj1i8IIX7u_OMFOxl1wgVu9b16dIFXNq4VZNsHFNKAlyfDshnjK_K2RfBJTB3Pf3ZIEyfeqUUsf_G377qWbkdrQhdsI-OeBpp9uO/s1600/canals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">Arriving at our hotel after spending an hour figuring out the transport system in Amsterdam (which in the end pretty much the same as in Zurich, but with gates). Decided to have buffer dinner they offer and it was fantastic. With about 25 euros, we had something that cost more than 300 chf in Zurich, and we still can't believe it. The next day we have visited some famous places like the dam square (and had a box of freaking huge french fries), the flower market (colorful and wonderful!), and went to Heineken experience (main factory until 1980s) to learn about beer brewing and of course had a few glasses of Heineken! </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Windmill at Zaanse Schans</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuyGFDtSMlqR3e-Ru7IJvteiP9IVEaeaTS3H-4jH-Mg3Y8F0zu-vRyugOWtGSShqsYcy86O08vH5iP_p4UG-wf4wT11ObmzqwmrinfRzAJVRSyZ5yb2Ex8HCt4r4vp6VdyYXNd70d749kU/s1600/flowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuyGFDtSMlqR3e-Ru7IJvteiP9IVEaeaTS3H-4jH-Mg3Y8F0zu-vRyugOWtGSShqsYcy86O08vH5iP_p4UG-wf4wT11ObmzqwmrinfRzAJVRSyZ5yb2Ex8HCt4r4vp6VdyYXNd70d749kU/s320/flowers.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wonderful flower market</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The next day we went to Zaanse Schans, a village where the windmills are still working. On our way there, we have met an artist who is working there and he has been learning Chinese himself and from the tourists. It was fun chatting with him and we have bought 1 of his drawings (he better becomes the next Picasso! LOL). Since it is a village and not so crowded with the tourists, we could really enjoy the scene there and felt really relaxed. We had even the chance to rent bicycles and cycled around the village. Visited as well the cheese factory and Clog (wooden shoe) factory, we were amazed at how many types of wooden shoes they can make. I had the impression that it is going to be very painful to wear those shoes but it turns out it is not the case and they are water-proof and very warm to wear. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Returning to the Amsterdam station, we had a canal city cruise and it was extremely worth the $$. And then we had our once/twice a year KFC! Oh, hot and spicy! On the last day finally I found the "must eat" raw Herring fish (Mackerel with onions and pickled cucumber). My first immediate response after eating was ..... Penang asam laksa! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">END OF THE VACATION ......</span>
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PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-65463758158234327452013-06-27T07:12:00.000+09:002013-07-28T07:17:30.074+09:00Meeting at SurseeCHIPP is the acronym of Swiss Institute of Particle Physics, which I belong to, since the beginning of my PhD. The CHIPP annual planery meeting is usually 2 days long, but since there are many things going on this year, it was a 3-day-meeting at Sursee, in the Canton of Lucerne. Even though most of the students were not attending the meeting, I was pretty impressed by the number of particle physicist in a small country like Switzerland. Perhaps less than a dozen back in my howe town.<br />
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Along with updates from phenomenologist engaging with LHC physics, current status of the LHC experiments, ATLAS and CMS were also reported, neutrino updates, along with several planned experiments at CERN and PSI regarding anti-hydrogen and positive muon. While most of the items above were known before I arrive at the meeting, there were several "new and interesting" proposals going on at the moment.<br />
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First, LONG baseline neutrino experiment from CERN to Finland. Yes, no kidding,<br />
read <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/06/europe-picks-a-neutrino-machine.html" target="_blank">here</a> for more details. Next, a 100 km tunnel for e+e- collider at CERN (read <a href="http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/54036" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
Considering the time needed from planning to actual physics run of LHC experiments,<br />
the plans were quite reasonable and sounded plausible from what we have achieved currently in the LHC and neutrino experiments. Hopefully all these projects get funded and receive huge international supports.<br />
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Other than physics related projects, it seems that plastic scintillating fibre detector is a hot research topic at the moment. A professor from Geneva University claimed that it was his idea to start with, and now everybody is following the same path. Other than application for LHCb experiment, it is also intended for mu3e experiment where timing and very high rate are crucial for the reconstruction of muon decay vertex. Several type of MPPC arrays were also developed together with Hamamatsu and I hope that I am able to build something nice for my coming project in the muon compression experiment.PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-36793868912058537172013-06-20T06:37:00.000+09:002013-07-28T06:40:38.464+09:00Learn to TeachSome of the people are born as teachers but to teach is a skill that you have to go through intensive training and accumulate experience to excel. To teach is not only to stand in front of the stage and to give a talk. It is much more than that, and of course depending on which type of course or thing that you are teaching, theoretical or practical.<br />
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I have registered for this course "Learn to Teach" which is offered by the Learning Center of ETH Zurich and University of Zurich. And I am glad that I have attended this course. It was a 3-day course targeted at PhD and PostDoc who has teaching assignment now or plan to do so in the future, and only limited to 10 people.</div>
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On the first day, I was informed through the email to bring a thing that is related to your life or that could explain what kind of person you are. I brought my Japanese electronic dictionary which was with me most of the time when I was in Japan. Others have brought things like book, spoon, crystal and pencil, and each has an interesting story linked to the life of its owner. Then came the fun part; everyone has to give a 3 minutes presentation explaining their research works and they will be recorded! It was the first time I had such thing and I found looking at myself in the video very funny. Maybe I should have tried it before as I could see many of my habits, quite a few of bad ones, and also how my voice and accent were during the presentation.<br />
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After the presentations, we were taught about the important points when giving a presentation, especially the short one. Those are like understanding the level of your audience, speaking with confidence, engaging audience, etc. Also we have learnt about how to give feedbacks to our colleagues. While there is no strict rules, usually they are grouped into head, hand, heart and other observations. At the end, we reviewed all the videos taken and gave feedbacks one by one in details to everybody. I won't tell the details here but there was a lot of "aha" moments for me, and I will keep all of them in mind when preparing for my next presentation.<br />
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Second day started with the introduction to teaching portfolio, which is kind of similar to a documentation of your teaching, but including also your teaching style and what kind of teacher you aim to be in the future. This is particularly important when you are applying for a job with teaching assignment, and I believe this is also important for non-teaching positions because this shows that you have the experience of teaching and also communicating with the other people, unless your teaching is one-way-traffic. There was also a section about how to plan a lesson and it was very useful for my teaching duties in the advanced student laboratory of institute for particle physics.<br />
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The final session of the day was about "Use of media" and it was really interesting to find out the pros and cons of every available media nowadays, such as blackboard and whiteboard, flip chart, Overhead Projector (OHP), and the digital version of it (like a camera). We were being told to tell a story about using the media, and some of the groups did it really well and creatively. I was working with two others on the blackboard, and we have shown that blackboard is really good for teaching subjects like mathematics and physics where equation derivations are heavily involved. However, it is not so nice to use when you are teaching subjects like biology because it takes time to draw the cell, etc and a bad drawing often confuses the students. Also, as I have experienced it before, it is really bad for the students in the front row as they have to inhale a lot of chalk dusts.<br />
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On the final day, we were given some tips on how to deal with stress during teaching, and I am eager to try them out during my next presentation. Then I will tell you if it works or not. :) Finally, 10 of us were asked (a day before) to present something based on the topics discussed (Use of media, teaching portfolio, presentation, lesson plan, etc).<br />
I spent my whole night preparing a teaching plan for my student lab and I received very helpful comments and also compliments from the others. Hopefully I can make my lab appear more interesting to the students and they learn more effectively with some guide from the plan as well.<br />
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The course ended with a final feedback session among the teacher and the students. I have complimented her for the well prepared course and also her concentration ability to absorb the content of the presentation and at the same time observing the "head, heart and hand" of the presenter. To me it was very difficult, as I could only focus on either one. Overall, this course was very successful as I can everybody was very happy with it, and I hope that everyone will continue to improve their teachings and to make this world more wonderful with their researches!</div>
PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-44614808793174144802013-06-09T03:21:00.000+09:002013-07-12T03:21:25.590+09:00CERN Computing School at Split, Croatia<div dir="ltr">
About three years ago, I went to the Computing school co-organized by CERN and Brunel University at Uxbridge, London and enjoyed it a lot. This year I had the chance again to participate in the smaller version of it - thematic school, which means instead of focusing on network, computing and data analysis, it is now focusing on one single topic, which is computing technologies for this year. The school director is a very wonderful guy and his passion has bring the summer school to a higher dimension - study hard, play hard and social hard! I have been to many summer schools and have never experienced something like this. And this is going to be his last year organising such schools and he is retiring by the end of this year. :(</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Port of Split, Croatia</td></tr>
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The venue of the school was at Split in Croatia, and is a tremendously scenic city alongside with Dubrovnik. The city lies along the coast of Adriatic sea and within the region of Dalmatian. It has a very rich history, from Roman period until Communist period just 20 years ago. As they have became part of European Union (EU) since 1st of July, the country is developing fast and the standard of living will be improved over the coming years. The living cost now is just slightly higher than in Malaysia so act faster if you wanna enjoy this country with less $$.</div>
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Back to the school, we spent the whole week learning about the front end of computing technologies. Basically our situation now is different from like 15 years ago where every few months you will see a new processor with higher and higher frequency. The era of parallel computing is evolving very fast, not only CPU but GPU and accelerator are heavily involved in delivering high performance computing. Of course, without the software part, hardware is nothing. Currently there are several ways of parallelise your program such as OpenMP and Intel TBB. The former parallelise your program at compiler level whereas the latter is library-based. OpenMP is currently the standard and I have started to implement it in my simulation and analysis programs. It's pretty simple.</div>
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We had also other lectures about comparison of different compilers, awareness about memory when programming something, and data oriented design. Overall I have benefited a lot from it and got to know more people in the physics computing field. I am also very fascinated by the development of the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor, which has 61 cores and 244 threads. This was unimaginable for me a few years back.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Closing dinner of the school (my table)</td></tr>
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PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-6068309849475808782013-06-02T06:53:00.000+09:002013-07-15T07:07:22.474+09:00First time living in a hostel with strangersArrived one day earlier at Split, I have chosen to live in a hostel, in a 6-bed room. (Well, for cost reason obviously! It was about 15 CHF) Many have done it before, some even frequently, it was the first time for me! Living with somebody else in a room is nothing new for me, as I had experienced it before in the past when I was participating in training camps and summer schools, where I knew who will be my roommate before hand. However, it was totally unknown this time and I felt both excited and anxious.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tchaikovsky Hostel</td></tr>
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Fortunately it turned out great and I got to meet a few young Asia students currently doing academic exchanges with European universities in different countries. What an exciting way of knowing new people! Perhaps I should try more in the future. :)<br />
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We hanged out together during the night and had dinner together as well. I particularly enjoyed the conversations regarding their experiences travelling in Europe during their 6 months stays over here. It was kind of luxurious to come to Europe when I was still studying in Japan but it seems that it is pretty common nowadays as the cost for travel has gone down. Also with lots of travel blog, offline phone map and Trip Advisor-like apps, it has became so easy and convenient to travel anywhere in the world.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After dinner</td></tr>
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PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-36054581403013204832013-05-26T07:48:00.000+09:002013-06-26T07:49:05.269+09:00Entering 3rd year of PhDTime has flied so fast that now I am entering the 3rd year of my PhD. After upgrading myself at the EDIT 2013 school at KEK and J-PARC, I am back in ETH taking some courses to improve myself and also spending time on teaching the advanced student laboratory. At the same time, since a postdoc from PSI is leaving to the United States, I was travelling a lot to PSI to have more discussions and had some kind of technical and knowledge transfer about one of the projects that I have to take over from him. It was a waste that I didn't spend more time before, to work together with him. However, that whole month was really fruitful and I had a better idea of how this project is going forward.<br />
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Not related to my PhD but on 5th of May, there was the 13th General Election of my country. As I have already went back during the Chinese New Year, I have decided to vote by postal and therefore one week before the election, all the students went to Bern to vote at the Embassy of Malaysia. The voting process was not so complicated and there was around 30 people who were there deciding the future of our country. And we were following the announcement of the results the next week while having party at one of the students' house. The outcome was disappointing for a lot of people but it was moving into a good direction I would say, as a democratic country.<br />
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Something worth mention about this year was that, IT IS REALLY COLD! Seriously, the weather has been very cold (than normal years) since October last year, and while other European countries are having > 30 degrees, it was around 10 degrees in Zurich. And during a long weekends (+Monday), I escaped with my gf to Milano and Cinque Terre in Italy, because the weather forecast said that it WILL BE SUNNY over the WEEKENDS!<br />
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It turned out that the first day in Milano was rainy but not so bad. I had to spend 4 hours taking a train there though. However the shops over there were too high end that I managed to buy only the postcards and an Italian basic conversation book. Looking at how people spending their money, I was very suspicious about the economic crisis mentioned in the newspapers. Next day in the morning we took the early train departing to Cinque Terre, the town Monterosso to be exactly, which takes about 3 hours. On the way the train went through Genova and started from there we had a nice view of the coast from the train.<br />
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As we arrived at the Monterosso, the first town on the North of Cinque Terre (5 villages), we were overwhelmed by the tourists, mainly coming from America. But still, it has been a long time we have been to a beach and we completely forgetting about the other tourists. After checking in, we took the train departing to the last village, Riomaggiore. Unfortunately, it turned out that there was a landslide a few days before and they have closed the hiking trails linking the 5 villages. So we had to take a train from there to the 4th village from the north, Manarola. And this was the best of all, and one of my favorite travel locations so far. The sky was super blueish and the seafood in the restaurant was perfect, if not too much. We couldn't eat until the next day basically, after having 6 appetizers, 2 main courses, fine wine and desserts as lunch sets they offered.<br />
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Then we spent some time walking around the village and took some nice pictures. And if you like photography, this is definitely the place you should visit in the future. Afterwards, we went to the other villages as well and there were very nice as well, although not as much as Manarola. Then after having a night walk in Monterosso with delicious local ice creams, we were completely exhausted. The next day, we spent about 8 hours on the trains, with a break at Milano while waiting for the train, and finally reached Zurich in the night. </div>
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This trip was really random but I am glad we have made it! :)</div>
PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-88339445814612721332013-03-23T07:57:00.000+09:002013-06-25T07:58:30.670+09:00Japan trip spring 2013A few weeks after coming back to Zurich, I had a trip to Japan to attend a detector technology school. It was my second time going back to Japan after graduating and the longest one as well for more than 2 weeks. Basically I spent 1/3 of time in Tokyo, 1/3 in KEK and 1/3 in J-PARC. First time to do was of course to meet my fellow Malaysian friends in Tokyo (quite a lot were from Osaka but now working at Tokyo) and then enjoy Japanese Rahmen! (was eating it almost everyday when I was at Kyoto) Seriously, my life won't be as interesting without them, and some of them were with me during my ups and downs in Kyoto and Tokyo. I am very glad to have them, and it was a hard decision to leave Japan and to go to Switzerland.<br />
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Before starting of the school, I had the chance to visit my lawyer friend at Roppongi for lunch in a Chinese restaurant nearby. He was my badminton buddy back in my dormitory at Tokyo, TIEC. Even though we are from completely different background, we had good time together and were competing in a badminton team tournament together as one of the men doubles.<br />
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Back to the real business, I was thinking of participating in EDIT since last year. However, I had not much experience with the latest detection technologies that time hence has postponed it until this year. It was being held at Fermilab, United State. I have chosen photon detector and neutrino detector courses for the school and was glad to be given both my first choices under tough competition. I spend my first week at KEK for the photon detector, and have learned a lot regarding it. (I am working with it as well in the advanced student lab and realised from this course that there are several flaws in my setup at ETH.)<br />
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There was a free day during the course which is sunday, and I visited a Japanese badminton family at Kitamatsudo. I knew them through my senior in Japan and have been keeping in touch with them since 4 years ago. I would visit them when I was in Japan to play a few rounds of badminton and this time he presented me with a Yonex racket that I was dreaming of getting one (It was about 285 CHF! and I had given up buying it). At that moment, I was completely stunned and said no, no, no, I can't accept this. However, in the end I was being persuaded somehow. What a gift!!! After the badminton session we had lunch together and I shared with them some stories of mine in Zurich. Sometimes I felt that myself is very lucky to have met so many nice people in my life. This is also the reason why I have been working so hard, hope that one day I would make them very proud of me.<br />
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For the 2nd week, I went to J-PARC for the neutrino detector course. Coincidently, my coursemate at Kyoto University is my teaching assistant! (I was supposed to be working together with him during the master course but I have decided to go to University of Tokyo to challenge myself.) I had fun working there from early morning until the evening, and then dinner together in the somehow rural Tokai village. But it was fun, with lots of great foods, especially seafoods (well maybe with lots of radiation as well). We were partying until quite late in the last dinner, and it was such a wonderful school that I will miss for some time.<br />
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As the semester was already started, I couldn't spend any extra time here and had to leave the next day to Zurich. As my gf is missing Japan very much, I am pretty sure you will be reading my 3rd trip to Japan very soon. :)PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-6968143720878861172013-02-18T07:17:00.000+09:002013-06-25T07:19:14.876+09:00New year 2013Finally I have my own time to invest a little bit to this blog, after 6 months. So this is basically how I was in the past few months.<br />
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As I have mentioned before in my previous post, together with JE, ZY(F) and CL, we went to Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary for our year end holidays! It is worth noting that I have decided to buy the ticket after looking at the SWISS advertisement for just 5 minutes. CHF 120 for return direct flights was for sure a good bargain and I managed to convinced my crazy friends to tag along. And the next next day after sending off ZY(M, hope to have him back but well, he doesn't like Zurich, haha) at the Zurich Airport, we were back there again flying to Vienna airport. We were eating like hungry ghosts everyday at Vienna, from Schnitzel, Spare ribs to dozens of desserts at famous cake houses. Visited a couple of palaces, museums, and christmas markets in the city.<br />
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After 2 days in Vienna, we took a train to Budapest and arrived there with highly alert mode, as we have heard that pickpocket rate is very high there. Although our plan was to look for suspicious people and avoid them, in the end I think we were the most suspicious people there. This was for the first time I have been to an ex-communist country and I could really feel the difference compared to cities like Zurich, Vienna. As Hungary is in the middle of Germany and Russia, they suffered a lot during the World War and it took them quite some time to recover. For that reason, the living standard here is not as high compared to western Europe and the living cost is also much lower than in Zurich. 100 CHF was basically enough to survive there for 2 days including hostel and foods and souvenirs. The best view in Budapest was perhaps the Parliament that is situated next to the Danube river.<br />
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It took me a few days to recover from the travels and then it was 31st of December 2012. As usual, together with a bunch of crazy PhD students we went to Ah Fatt's place at Dietikon and had our new year eve party over there. On the way back, we did our count down in a bus with many strangers and that was superbly amazing! Afterwards we went to Rigiblick to enjoy the view of Zurich downtown and fireworks, of course not without beers and snacks. Different countries, different locations, different friends every year. Time is ticking away from us .......<br />
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Before I could spend time flashing back all the previous events, busy life started again in the new year. After several meetings at PSI, I had also a demonstration of advanced student lab for physics teachers in Switzerland. Then a special lecture on Bayesian analysis in a particle physics experiment by my boss's PhD supervisor. Then I was back in Bolehland again together with CL. Oh, and before that, I have won finally 2 single matches and being promoted to D1. However, my team fared badly and was last in the 3rd league. Will be dropped to 4th league in the coming season and hopefully we can get back to 3rd league again next year.<br />
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Back to my back home trip. Celebrating my birthday on the arrival day's evening (haha, on purpose!) was perhaps not a good idea because of jet lag. The foods were really nice but my stomach wasn't in fully enjoy mode. But still it was great to be back at home. Maybe it is because of me getting older and the limited time I could spend with my family, I started to appreciate time together a lot compared to last time. My parents are in their 50s, and I am soon 30s. No matter how far apart, I love you Mummy and Daddy! and of course my sister as well. (else she will kill me, :p) In this 2 weeks, I have accomplished almost everything that I have planned to do, such like hair cut (bloody hell RM 7 only!!! compared to RM 150 in Zurich), car driving lesson (yes, I still don't have my license yet, T.T), new specs (luckily the eye sights are not getting too bad), meeting elementary (after 17 years! everybody still the same. What a miracle!) and high school friends, etc. Chatting with them reminded me of how little I still remember of the past.<br />
This is most probably my brain is full of information about new location and friends each time I moved to another city. (Penang->Osaka->Kyoto->Tokyo->Zurich) And I am sure the list will continue to grow. Two weeks were really short, I wished to have more. Perhaps after my PhD, I can think of spending 3 months with my family.PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-80941862852457954622012-12-24T08:23:00.000+09:002012-12-24T08:24:13.478+09:00End of the year 2012<br />
2012 is quite a fruitful year and "luckily" the "End of the world" didn't turn out to be true. Even though there is still a year end holiday trip to Vienna and Budapest to follow, I am quite satisfied with the overall performance this year and managed to identify a few sections to be improved.<br />
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Celebrating CNY at home was very rare for me in the past few years due to the crashing dates of CNY and examinations in the Japanese universities. For the first time I went back to Penang together with my GF for CNY taking SQ. It was always happy to be back in your hometown and meeting family, relatives and friends. Visiting each other during the CNY, BBQ at high schoolmate's house, Karaoke, Futsal with old time friends, Birthday party in a hotel restaurant, and more .... all are good memories, considering I would not be going back for good in the near future.<br />
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On my flight back, we have a transit at Paris and we spent several days touring around the city. However, it was damned cold! At the moment we left Zurich, the temperature was around 5'C and we expected it to go up once we returned. Hence all the clothes with us were not so strong against the below zero temperature. Fighting with those crazy cold winds, we managed to go up the Eiffel Tower, only to find ourselves shaking like hell the moment we walk out to take some pictures. Due to the extreme cold, most of the time were being spent in the hotel room or cafes. On the last day we took TGV back to Zurich and felt relieved when we reach home! Paris, see you next time during the summer.<br />
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Perhaps the most encouraging event in terms of academic is the acceptance of my first co-authored paper by PRL. It was not the kind of breakthrough in Physics but still I felt proud of it after putting lots of effort onto it.<br />
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The most "exciting" moment of the year was the trip to QED 2012 international school at Corsica. Started with the delay of flight from Zurich to Paris CDG (well, Air France), then I missed my connection flight from Paris Orly to Ajaccio. I had to wait in the airport for 8 hours and I fall asleep for at least 3 times during the wait time. Luckily all my belongings were still with me. It was already 12 am in the night by the time I reached Ajaccio and had no choice but to take a taxi to the Institute of Scientific Research Cargese. Fortunately the arrangement was being made by the organiser and I just had to wait for the taxi driver to pick me up at the airport. There was another Hungarian woman sharing the taxi and thanked god she could speak some French and communicate with the driver. Imagine 90 mins of drive in the completely dark island roads without any conversation! Despite all these bad starts, the QED school turned out to be a great one and I managed to learn a lot and made some geek friends. And for the first time I have prepared both oral and poster presentations.<br />
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Soon after I came back from the school, I started my football training for the MSA 4 nation football competition. After weeks of exercising with a group of African football teams, I managed to contribute a bit to the 2nd place won by MSA.<br />
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I attended Swiss Physics Society Meeting this year which was held in my university, ETH. I gave a talk this time (last year at EPF Lausanne which was poster)<br />
and it was not bad I guess. 2 months later I gave another one during the Zurich Particle Physics PhD seminar after I came back from another school at Zuoz. This was the one organised by PSI biennially, and I managed to met up my junior in Tokyo during the school. In fact he spent some days at my place and I brought him to some places in Chur and Zurich. I guessed he was quite shocked with the living cost here.<br />
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At the same time, I was busy on the EM field simulation for the beam time at MuSR, PSI. After working most of the time on COMSOL and GEANT4, finally I got to identify some mistakes in the simulations done by others last year and did some corrections to the data analysis last year as well. The beam time turned out to be successful as well as there was no serious problem during the run and the data looks okay. The analysis is still on the way but should be finalised soon.<br />
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In September, I re-visited London again to renew my passport. It was a kind of coincidence as my last trip here ended on 5th Sep (2010) and this time I arrived on 5th Sep (2012). The process of passport renewal was quite simple and the nasi lemak sold at the Embassy of Malaysia was very nice as well. This time I managed to visit some of the places that was missed last time, such as Hyde Park, Oxford Road (don't come here unless you want to have an empty pocket or wallet), and more. Also I have visited my physicist friend at Cambridge and joined a punting trip around the river.<br />
He had given me the wrong number but somehow we managed to meet each other on the street (Penang lang faces, haha.) thanks to a time window discussed beforehand. Did a lot of shoppings and eatings (Dim sum, Rahmen, Fish n Chips, etc) Gonna come here again next year when my GF has to renew her passport. :) <br />
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This autumn marked my first participation in the Swiss Badminton League, 3th league. Even though it is quite expensive to get a license, I like the system here where they record all your played matches and even has a ranking system just like the one of Badminton World Federation. The classes are from D3 to A1 (D3,D2,D1,C3,... until A1), and you get points by beating the players ranked above you. Points gained through tournament and interclub are being calculated together. Throughout the autumn and winter, I managed to win a few matches in the tournaments but however I lost all my 8 matches (singles and doubles and mixed) so far. There are still 8 league matches next year and I need to put in more effort in my training. Even though I have joined a training course at the beginning of December, it will take some time to fully utilised what I have learnt there.<br />
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So, bye bye 2012 and hope that you are a good one, 2013!PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-82903186863824741432012-06-29T07:12:00.002+09:002012-06-29T21:56:35.162+09:00FootballAlmost every student from my high school (it is an all-male high school and hence Shao Lin temple) has played football before. I am not sure if it is a good thing or what, it is the only sports activity that we have for "Pendidikan Jasmani" (Physical Education) throughout five years of secondary school.<br />
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It sounds like we are well equipped with all the attires and accessories. Actually the opposite! There are many restrictions on our attire during the match; only school shoes (white!) and house T-shirt ( R,G,B and Y colors). Some even wear that duck-shit-green school short, orz. However, the football is even worst; it does not look like football, but like a volleyball. When you kick it, it feels like a balloon. Until now, I have no idea it was actually what ball. The sad case is when the field is muddy, our parents had hard times washing our shoes.<br />
(To be continued......)PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-39876425723275243762012-06-28T23:53:00.002+09:002012-06-29T06:54:41.446+09:00QED International School 2012 @ CorsicaTime elapsed really fast as I have now headed in to the second year of my Ph. D. studies. Life is of course, as interesting as usual. From mid to end of April, I had the chance to participate in an international school and workshop on quantum electrodynamics (QED 2012) at Corsica, France. It is a beautiful island situated in the Mediterranean sea and also the place where Napoleon was born. The school took place at Cargese, a small village near the seaside with mesmerizing views.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6tZdJ3aFmVCMnEw8-nWM8luUK5oKQlFLg-2avUMOoSfhlpjvbecMUa2N_4UXNTCco2JCUJlOKOmzgcJ8k4vsdLYfZWSARd9gTdXbYGjYbKIKAytrqO71Yfe2MV0yeyCafGTd2y1NPbyNy/s1600/527357_10151601055930054_175640509_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6tZdJ3aFmVCMnEw8-nWM8luUK5oKQlFLg-2avUMOoSfhlpjvbecMUa2N_4UXNTCco2JCUJlOKOmzgcJ8k4vsdLYfZWSARd9gTdXbYGjYbKIKAytrqO71Yfe2MV0yeyCafGTd2y1NPbyNy/s320/527357_10151601055930054_175640509_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I have booked the flight two months in advance from Zurich to Paris CDG and then from Paris Orly to Ajaccio airport. However, no matter how well you have prepared, there are dozens of ways to screw up your plan. I woke up earlier in the morning (5:30 I guess) and arrived more than one hour before my flight. Everything went well and I was on board punctually waiting for it to take off. Only then I was told that the flight has some technical problems and it could not be operated. After a while they announced that the computer system hanged and they need to start it and redo all the necessary procedures. By the time the problem was solved almost two hours has passed and I told myself I am gonna miss the next flight.<br />
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Arrived at the Paris CDG airport, quickly I rushed to the counter to ask for the direction to the Orly airport. Since I have checked the bus option beforehand, so I took it but found myself stuck in the hectic Paris traffic. OMG ....... As expected, I arrived at the Orly airport one minute before departure. Needless to say, I missed my flight and the person at the counter even laughed and said "oh! you flight has just taken off ~". Experienced this for the first time in my life, I had no idea what to do, other than to think that I need to buy another air ticket to fly myself to the destination. Luckily the airport staff suggested me to go to the Air France customer service counter to seek for assistance. I made myself look very sad and explained everything to the "big boss" in the office and after calling several phones he decided to issue me with a boarding pass at the night to Corsica! Phew!!! I was lucky but then needed to wait for eight hours at the airport (after rushing here and there I had no more energy to walk around Paris anymore of course). Even worse, it was just a small airport and within 20 minutes I have went through every corner of it. Finally I sat down at a place where there is a clear view of all the airplanes taking off and even fell asleep a couple of times before this damn long 480 minutes has passed.<br />
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(to be continued ......)PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-4011870175657080182012-04-11T23:58:00.001+09:002012-04-12T01:09:56.050+09:00My first ever publication!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNFx0zxs8VXsEJT3n1lAysfTOKBch4wzDdIIZ8MBT8FbzUiOUFk4ogb6_JhdknwkfsVzu0Uyir56V4IPiIMdCVEmJy3j5zeMIm3avS2qImKsPCj-zoVGJFyUZM9LKo0DaSGpo4rGjnl5cV/s1600/prl.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNFx0zxs8VXsEJT3n1lAysfTOKBch4wzDdIIZ8MBT8FbzUiOUFk4ogb6_JhdknwkfsVzu0Uyir56V4IPiIMdCVEmJy3j5zeMIm3avS2qImKsPCj-zoVGJFyUZM9LKo0DaSGpo4rGjnl5cV/s400/prl.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My first paper in Physical Review Letters (PRL)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><br />After working in Physics for so many years, finally my name appears in one of the most prestigious journals in Physics, Physical Review Letters (PRL) and its title is "Muonium Emission into Vacuum from Mesoporous Thin Films at Cryogenic Temperatures". <br /><br />This research topic was actually not mentioned when I applied for the PhD, but I started to work on it since February last year for about half a year. Then most of the time was spent improving the data analysis and polishing up the paper. Everything is explained in the paper but for non-Physicist, I would explain it as below;<br /><br />The main idea of this work is to test a material which could be used for next generation precision experiments that allow Physicists to extract even more precise values of particle masses, and to test the charge ratio between particles. <br /><br />Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me. :)PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-632280812183510772011-11-09T09:08:00.002+09:002011-11-09T09:27:46.647+09:00One year after the decisionAs usual, time flies at the speed of light and one year has passed since I have made the decision to come here for PhD. Compared to what I had anticipated if I followed the previous path, I would say that I have made the correct decision. <div><br /></div><div>Working at ETH with the current group, I have the chance to improve what I was experienced at, such as data analysis and DAQ electronics and also to develop some new skills such as working on plastic scintillating fibers, DRS4 waveform analysis, Inventor Mechanical Design and Comsol Physics simulator. And of course the most challenging one is perhaps German language that takes infinite time to master. It is fun to learn it though. Spending some time attending lectures of advanced scientific programming and quantum information theory also proves beneficial, as I could learn more arts in programming and use more advanced tool and also have more new ideas to aid my research works. </div><div><br /></div><div>I have my trip to PSI increased recently due to the beam time for Muon related experiments.</div><div>It is great to work there with many interesting stuffs but it could be painful to work on those hardware and to do strength demanding works such as moving Lead blocks (~10kg per block!!).</div><div>You have to be careful as well as the surrounding is always full of notices of HIGH VOLTAGE, HIGH CURRENT, HIGH MAGNETIC FIELD, etc...... and sometimes you have a huge bottle of liquid helium travelling across your head... that's how it is to work in a particle physics research center...LOL</div><div><br /></div><div>My freetime is of course as fantastic as my working life. (^-^)p</div><div>I have participated in two badminton tournaments, one was organized by Malaysian Swiss Association and another one Zurich Academic Sports Association. I was lucky enough to have won in both occasions, earning myself a MIGROS cash card and an invitation ticket to Swiss Badminton Open at Basel next year for the whole week. But still I feel that myself is still very inconsistent in terms of basics so I have decided to join a club in Zurich. I am still visiting at the moment and perhaps will join soon.</div>PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-50271543714015170972011-09-23T06:14:00.000+09:002011-09-23T06:14:36.003+09:00Start of Fall Semester 2011It has been a long time since I last had the feeling of the beginning of a semester. And I am feeling good with it, definitely a good sign!<br />
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As the seniority goes up, instead of only learning, I have to do some teaching as well, for the student labs, teaching students how to perform proper scientific researches and guiding master students until they finish their master theses.<br />
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My current main research is finally coming to an end, where me and collaborators are preparing a paper for a journal. Finishing this will actually open up a lot of free time for myself, to conduct other things that I was hoping to do: design and construct detectors, design data acquisition system, and attend some out-of-my-field lectures.<br />
But of course I am not forgetting the most important one: German language! Yes, finally I have taken the German language course. Hopefully I will be able to catch up the conversations of all my German colleagues soon......PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376739883877166214.post-86350877113642302392011-08-09T07:15:00.003+09:002011-08-09T07:22:41.696+09:00Luzern<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-H2Mef7bjfDeQzvjyNYhNOdif8RKvggi7Z4rIWb8hFIt6DBd_LXSitw6iszkYjfep-bTBVF2zKuH-qWWUYRXk1eHIApbqLoyirqHgbPDXg-h8dh2z6jCdhN6s8YX2noErtGQWLPzxcoE4/s1600/254750_10150343113521001_650841000_9806651_1100691_n+%25281%2529.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-H2Mef7bjfDeQzvjyNYhNOdif8RKvggi7Z4rIWb8hFIt6DBd_LXSitw6iszkYjfep-bTBVF2zKuH-qWWUYRXk1eHIApbqLoyirqHgbPDXg-h8dh2z6jCdhN6s8YX2noErtGQWLPzxcoE4/s320/254750_10150343113521001_650841000_9806651_1100691_n+%25281%2529.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5638614134737820610" /></a>
<br />Luzern has been in my mind for half a year since I started to work at PSI and ETHZ. Finally I made a trip to it last weekend, and it was really a nice place with mesmerizing scenes.<div>
<br /></div><div>to be continued..... </div>PhysicsDreamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072471408682564837noreply@blogger.com0