It's Family Weekend at MIT! The parents are everywhere, and I had the pleasure of making a presentation to a bunch of them (specifically the bunch associated with physics-lings) on Friday about my research in Neutrino Physics. Click the image below to see the slides. The images of the smiley neutrinos come from Particle Zoo - where you can buy plushies of the Standard Model and beyond!



The talk was a lot of fun. The parents had questions about the CERN-OPERA neutrino result, why neutrinos oscillate, how long have we known about neutrinos, and many others. Alright, bed time for me. I took the physics GRE this morning and am now starting to feel the effects of my 7 o'clock wake-up.

Peace. Love. Neutrinos!

Labels: Fermilab, MIT, physics

Posted by Tess |

This post is dedicated to Anonymous of the previous post and the Pummelo I am currently trying to demolish. 1/2 of the pummelo has been conquered and the other 1/2 is glaring at me with hostility.

Pummelos are by far the most unruly of citrus. In taste, they are everything I wish a grapefruit would be, but they are a real hassle to peel. Apologies to grapefruit enthusiasts - the bitterness gets to me. But my eating of grapefruit provides ample amusement for others since the bitterness causes me to make twisted sour faces.

Like celery, pummelos must have the "negative calories" deal going for them, just because it takes that much effort for me to get them open. Then again, I have a history of having trouble with peeling things. A great example of this was when I tried to unshell a hard-boiled egg by making the holes on the top and bottom of the egg and blowing through one of the holes. In case you've never seen this done, I refer you to here. Needless to say, it didn't work too well for me. Problem 1, didn't use baking soda. Problem 2, it was a soft boiled egg. Messy.

Thankfully, I have been more successful in other efforts of mine. I've been back from break for two weeks now doing some classwork and working on a healthy amount of outside projects. Semester hasn't actually started yet so it's a more relaxed atmosphere on campus. MIT has winter break for two weeks and then an optional 4-week Independent Activities Period (IAP). We're currently on at the beginning of week 3 of IAP.

IAP has been often compared to rehab since during IAP students can take classes that they wouldn't normally get a chance to take during semester (Ex: Build Your Own Electric Guitar, Make Your Own Decorative Paste Paper, Play StarCraft 2...more here).

I'm currently taking architecture classes for credit, which has been quite a bit of work so far, but plenty of fun. I'm taking an intensive version of the 2nd undergraduate studio course and a free-hand drawing class for architects. Those of you who have taken studio probably think the term "intensive" is redundant.

Besides classes, I've been working on an art installation project with a few friends and plotting schemes of modifying old blondegeek code. I keep mentioning the art project in posts, but I won't say more about it as to not ruin the surprise. :)

I haven't been working on physics since semester ended, but the research group I work with just published a paper! Check it out on arXiv. The paper addresses to how to extend physicists' ability to detect light in detectors (specifically Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers) that utilize strong electric fields. The issue is our light detectors (photomultiplier tubes - PMTs) cannot be used in a strong electric field, since PMTs use their own electric fields to create a signal cascade which creates a signal of approximately 10^10 electrons for every photon detected. Our solution is to use an acrylic lightguide which guides the light through internal reflection from an area in a detector where a strong electric field exists to where the PMTs sit, where there is no external field. The acrylic lightguides are coated with a chemical, TPB, which serves the purpose of shifting the wavelength of signal photons from UV, which our PMTs are horrible at seeing, to blue.

Back to pummeling the pummelo. I'll be sure to post some pics of my architecture projects soon.

Labels: architecture, IAP, MIT, physics, procrastination of homework, projects, pummelo

Posted by Tess |

Hello! Hello! I'm quite a bit late for checking in this semester; it has been a busy one! I've declared Architecture as my second major and am now no stranger to pulling all-nighters with AutoCAD. Physics has also been really fun/stressful this semester with the notorious (at least among MIT physics undergrads) Junior Lab and a second helping of Quantum Mechanics.

But enough about school, and more about shirts. There's a new one coming in and it's a shirt about everything, seriously. Physicist and friend, Garrett Lisi, has an "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" based on the Lie Group, E8. It's a beaut so naturally it need to be on a shirt! We're taking pre-orders at the moment and expect the shirt in within 2 weeks. Be sure to take a gander at the shirt, Garrett's site and the Scientific American article about Garrett's theory.

Labels: E8, Garrett Lisi, MIT, new t-shirts, physics

Posted by Tess |

Howdy!

I'm at Fermilab for the month (just got here last Thursday), working on MicroBooNE (click for link). I've been programing, helping design a frame to hold some of our detectors, and trying to avoid the ill-tempered, hissing, government-owned geese that flock around the High Rise (picture below). The novelty of living in essentially a town of physicists still hasn't worn off and I'm having a blast.

I'm staying on the Fermilab campus in one of the Fermilab Village dorms where I'm living with many different physicists from all around the globe. Since I forbid myself to take any of my office work back to the dorm with me, I've been spending the evenings socializing with my dorm-mates, playing my guitar, and concocting devious plans of art installation. (Hopefully more about this later, in another post.)

But! Four weeks have past without a peep from me, so I must "tell" you what has happened during this blogging gap. That's right. You know what time it is. It's picture time.

*cue your Flight of the Conchords groove*











That's all folks!

Labels: architecture, exciting times, Fermilab, geese, howdy, photos, physics, pictures, summer

Posted by Tess |

Two students are working at two adjacent computers in the Athena cluster in building 12. One of the students, currently taking 8.04, is enjoying a cup of soup from Cafe Four.

The hungry, soupless student turns to the student with the cup of soup and says, "You know you're not suppose to have that in here. The sign on the wall clearly says 'No Food. No Drinks.'"

The student with the soup briefly ponders this and replies. "You know, soup's a funny thing. It's not food and it not a drink."

The other student retorts "That's because it's both."

"No," the semi-soup-saturated student says "it's definitely not both."

"Then what is it?" asks the other student.

"It's a Soup-erposition."

The other student rolls his eyes and continues trudging along on some p-set, while the 8.04 acolyte's wavefunction was observed to be in a souply satisfied eigenstate.

Labels: 8.04, MIT, physics, procrastination of homework, yay

Posted by Tess |