Swiss Physical Society Meeting 2011, Part 1

I spend most of the week in Lausanne, French speaking part of Switzerland to attend this conference. Although hoping for oral presentation, where I don't have to carry a poster all the way from Zürich, I ended up got selected for poster presentation. Well, it was not bad at all, as I can describe my work while drinking wine in front of people who are interested on it.

While thinking I am probably one of the minorities who use LaTeX for making posters, I found out alot of people are actually doing that, and I even saw some with the same layout as my first draft. After all, we are doing the same business, Physics!

Although the official language for this conference is English, I could hardly listen to any English conversation, as most of the people here are the mother tongue of German or French. And the president of SPS even switching the language according to his will during the general assembly of SPS.

to be continued......

Second month of PhD

Time flies really fast and one month has passed without my notice.

My first month was actually full of administrative works, and also meeting up some fellow Malaysians in Switzerland. Other than spending a lot of money, the rest are still good, pretty good start so far.

My "real" PhD life will start next month, where I will do a poster presentation regarding my research work on muonium production at Swiss Physical Society Conference 2011 at EPF Lausanne. As I am using only Ubuntu, terminal only all these days, I challenged myself to create that poster using LaTeX. The design is not that good but I would rather put more time on my research than poster.

After the poster presentation, I will need to prepare for the MuSR experiment, as I have only beam time of four days. A few samples needed to be tested, and also different configurations of magnetic field have to be decided in order to extract both information regarding muon and muonium.

Then a week later I will be going to Strasbourg, France for European Summer Campus 2011. It is a summer school organized by the University of Strasbourg on three topics, particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. They actually have different focuses every year, and I am lucky to have this topic related to my research field. Else it would be hard for me to join.

After the summer school will perhaps be the discussion of the MuSR experiment. Of course, publication will be the best but lots of work has to be done in order to achieve that.

Starting my new life at Zurich

Sorry for being lazy to update this blog.....I enjoyed my vacation in Malaysia for 1 month and now I am back to ETH Zurich again to officially start my PhD and scientific assistant job..... this might be confused but PhD position is really a job here in university in Switzerland.....

Anyway, I am still working hard to look for a permanent place to stay as the rooms in Zurich are very limited and takes a long time to settle down.....

Will share more when everything is stable and I feel comfortable with the life here...

Sunday

When I was in Tokyo, Sunday used to be the most crowded day for trains and streets. As I will be staying in PSI guest house for about 50 days, I guess it is better for me to get some groceries to cook, so that I can save some money for living.

Baden

Taking a bus down to the nearby city, Brugg, I found out that none of the stores are actually opening! Oh, I need to go somewhere else. But still, I am afraid that it would be the same for other cities as well, so I opted for a bigger city, Aarau, which is the the capital of Canton Aagrau. However, the train is not so frequent so I went to Baden, slightly bigger than Brugg, first instead. And I was right. The shops there are opening until at least 5 pm. Cruising into MIGROS, I bought some vegetables, juices, and some "prepared food"s. Not so pricey as compared to eating out, and also much more healthier, I hope. Have been eating lots of oily stuffs when I was in Japan, and it is time for me to change the habit.

Clock Tower in Baden

Later on, I went to Aarau as planned, bought some stuffs as well and grabbed something to eat.

As the bus to PSI ends quite early, I headed back after a short stay. Coincidently, I met one of my Japanese friends on the bus! I thought he is not coming to PSI this month! We had some nice chat and said bye bye after knowing that we will be staying at different guest house.

"Trophies"

A quite relaxed day, except I need to spend more for the transportation. LOL.

Switzerland, I am back here again!

Perhaps one of the greatest academic year in my life, in terms of travelling frequency. Started with my first trip to CERN, Geneva, Switzerland on April, I then went to Uxbridge, London, etc in UK during summer and then Zurich, Bern, etc during autumn for the interview of PhD position in ETH Zurich. Today, I am writing this post in the guest house of PSI, where I will be working as a trainee on the research topic related to muonium beam. And oh, I went to Hokkaido with my dear for the first time just last week!

Frankly, I have never thought of my life would be like that. But course, I am in debt to many people who has supported me throughout my life, without them, without me. Although I seem to be very motivated in doing Physics, it was not my strongest subject, as I had better records on mathematics and chemistry in terms of time i devoted on and the results. Indeed, I was thinking of doing theoretical particle physics until my third year in undergraduate studies.

Physics must be based on concrete experimental results. Else it would be purely philosophy (please forgive me, theoretical physicists, :p) And, common sense sometimes is preventing us from making an important discovery. An apple fall down from the tree...Oh, that is common sense..everything will fall down...don't think too much; gravity? I can't think of things other than attractive force....what else can you think of? anti-gravity with repulsive force? you gotta kidding me..but yes, I am working on that, by using "muonium atom" to measure for the first time, gravitational force in between matter and anti-matter. I am sure everyone is expecting null result, but, can you really say it is the same as matter-matter gravity without really measuring it? No for every physicist I hope.

瑞士面试记

2010/10/17-2010/10/24

转眼间，已经在东京住了有一年半之久。在这个时期，我和研究室的同伴们都在忙着撰写硕士论文，为博士课程做好准备。一般上日本的学生都会选择留在现在的研究室。然而，我却大胆地选择了另一条路。

苏黎世联邦理工学院(ETH Zurich)

苏黎世市区校舍

Hönggerberg校舍

我原本将会以东京大学博士课程学生的身份留在瑞士的欧洲核子研究中心继续进行研究。
但是，为了使我的人生多样化，我报考了爱因斯坦的母校，苏黎世联邦理工学院(ETH Zurich)的物理学科，低温严密测定研究室。它的研究课题非常有趣。万有引力对大家是理所当然的事情。不过它只限于物质与物质之间的作用，从来没有人测量过物质与反物质的重力作用。由于我一直以来都很喜欢一些新奇的研究，于是就做了这一个决定。

杜拜机场的商店

苏黎世车站

物理学的话题就讲到这里为止。其实这一趟的瑞士之旅是为了博士课程的面试和参观研究所。由于在临时的情况下决定了此行，在买不到直航机的情况之下，就在杜拜(Dubai)转机，才到苏黎世(Zurich)。杜拜最著名的就是那座阿拉伯塔“Burj Al Arab”,外形犹如阿拉伯式帆船。同时我也看到很多骆驼的玩偶。我想，它们也一样很有名气吧。

酒店

布鲁格小镇的街景

一般上机场都是建在郊外地区，如日本东京的成田机场。但是苏黎世的机场就恰好相反，它距离市中心只有区区的十分钟。最让我感到意外的是车站里竟然没有检票处。我在机场的车站买了电车票之后，不知不觉中就走进了电车。没有检票处的感觉，有点莫名其妙。由于我已经坐了近乎二十四小时的飞机，一到布鲁格(Brugg)小镇的酒店我就呼呼大睡了一整天。

PSIの航空照片

PSI的食堂

隔天早上我搭了巴士到PSI(Paul Scherrer Institute)研究所去拜访。巴士的系统也和电车一样，都是自己买票。不过，我起初不知道，没有买票就模模糊糊地在PSI研究所下了车。PSI研究所建立在山上，环境优美，而且还有一条很大的河流，叫做阿勒河(Aare River)。它是瑞士中北部的河流，发源于首都伯尔尼州阿尔卑斯山区。

在这里我第一次与研究室的教授，克劳斯(Klaus)教授见面。他来自德国，每天越过国境来上班。起初我以为这里的博士课程的面试形式和日本的大学一样。结果并没有想象中的严格，除了参观研究设备，和其他研究员打交道和用餐之外，就是我的研究发表。算是非常轻松的“面试”。幸好我在本科的时候有广泛地学习，在实验方面也有一定的知识和实践，所以被肯定了有做研究的能力。克劳斯教授在我的研究发表之后突然告诉我，他有兴趣和我合作。这个突如其来的好消息让我有点惊讶。不过也同时让我放下心头大石，因为顺利地通过了面试，明年可以继续在物理研究方面发展。

五十公分长的香肠

国会会议厅

我也认识了不少研究室的成员。他们都非常地友善，带我到附近的温泉，餐厅，和酒吧等等去见识瑞士的文化。也带我观赏了苏黎世优美的夜景。当初我还担心能不能够适应瑞士的生活，但是在认识了苏黎世一番之后，我也对将来在这里的日常生活方面放下了心。周末时，为了不麻烦他们，我就一个人到首都伯尔尼和苏黎世观光。

在人生中，偶尔做个不同的决定可能会为你带来好的事物。当然，你必须要有充分的准备。首先，无论做什么都要保持好奇心，踏出第一步！

英国旅游记

2010/8/20-2010/9/5

今年夏天，我参加了由欧洲核子研究中心(CERN)和英国的布鲁内尔大学(Brunel University)共同主办的电脑计算学的夏日校。从小就很想到英国去参观，没想到竟然成真了，感觉就像发梦一样。布鲁内尔大学的校舍在伦敦西北的郊外的乌克斯桥镇(Uxbridge)，是一个成长迅速、人气旺盛的商业与居住区。

虽然我到访时还是夏天，不过气温却只有区区的二十度左右。而且每天还下着雨，感觉有点寒冷。欧洲人还幽默的称之为“英国的天气”。

乌克斯桥镇的巴士车站

布鲁内尔大学校景

最让我感到意外的，莫过于校内的交谈语言。起初以为来到英国可以好好的训练耳朵聆听英语的能力，没想到校舍里的竟有那么多中国人和华裔，时不时都可以听到汉语。然而，最近的东京大学也有着同样的现象。虽然布鲁内尔大学并没有很大的校园，日常生活中所需要的，银行，体育馆，便利店等等都齐全。虽然英国著名的是难吃的食物，但是对我来说却是蛮不错的。可能因为我是来宾，他们才准备了最上等的佳肴吧。而且，当中有很多食物都是我在马来西亚时常吃的，暂时减轻了我的思乡病。(注:马来西亚曾是英国的殖民地，应该是受到了英国的饮食文化的影响吧)

早餐(烘面包，番茄)

午餐(烤鸡肉和番薯)

　　与其每天呆在学校里，我和朋友们到了伦敦和牛津去参观。伦敦最著名的莫过于伦敦桥(London Bridge)。它是英国伦敦泰晤士河上一座几经重建的大桥，在1967年到1972年期间建成,全长283米。另一个景点则是大本钟(Big Ben)，乃英国国会会议厅附属钟楼的大报时钟。

笔者与伦敦桥

大本钟

牛津是是英语世界中最古老的大学，牛津大学的据点。该校包含36个学院，除了各自有不同的建筑特色之外，每个学院为独立自主的教学机构，提供学生课业及生活上的指导。只要能够考获学院的入学门票，就能成为牛津大学生。由于大多数的学生都在图书馆或者宿舍里学习，再加上古老的建筑物，整个城市显得很宁静，并且散发出神圣的气息。从以下的照片也能感觉得到吧。

牛津拉德克利夫相机（The Radcliffe Camera）

牛津市街景

　　第一次到访英国让我得益不浅。除了学到了研究所需要的技能之外，也同时推广了研究学者的网络。并且更加认识了英国的地理和历史，留下美好的回忆。如果大家能够通过自己的兴趣，到世界各得去参观的话，那一定会更有趣。

Interview

Screen for Emirates

Interview for a job? No, it was actually an interview for a PhD position in ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Well, you can say that PhD is actually a job, however, many often quote it as "cheap labor", chuckles.

Initially I didn't put much hope on it as the requirements seem high and I had no actual experience in building apparatus for experimental particle physics. However, I am really motivated to do so, and with my previous experience in various fields of physics, I think it should prepare me well to take the challenge.

Shops at Dubai Airport

Zurich airport

Buildings in Brugg

Synchrotron at PSI