Grace的進修雜記:)

There are lots skills required for my research to move forward.

Recently I noticed that learning curve takes time to overcome challenges.

It is really important to believe you can and you're halfway there.

In the beginning of the winter term, I took a comprehensive exam from my department, and I pass it!

(By the way, a comprehensive exam is an evaluation that measures a student's competency and mastery of concepts in the field of an academic discipline.

The end  goal of the glassblowing course is to make a condenser, but I try very hard to make the T-seal done before working on a condenser.

When I want to take a break of making ring seal amd T-seal, I decide to make the second fish. I have confident person on making some artwork, but not having too much patience on repairing the holes on those joins. 

This term I am taking a course to learn about Glassblowing.

It is an interesting class to meet with other students from different departments. 

This is just an assignment for the course requirement.

This physics seminar was combined two groups’ researches on the topics related to the greenhouse gas emission. They discussed the reason for the research to pick carbon dioxide (CO₂) or methane (CH₄), and talked about the method on analysing ODOT traffic data in Portland metro area. It was a very useful talk for understanding the sources of the greenhouse gas and what can be used in the data collection and analysis.

It was very impressed from the seminar hold by Physics department about theoretical studies in both applied and fundamental physics. 

       Applied physics can be separated into plasmonics and surface optics. Plasmonics is optics with metallic nanostructure or dielectric structures. Surface optics include negative refraction, Goos-Hanchen shifts, and hyperbolic metamaterial. His research in fundamental physics is based on photon mass, apparent incompatibility between relativity and Quantum Mechanics, and reciprocity symmetry in wave propagation. The important fact is without fundamental knowledge, there is nothing to apply. 

Two years ago I was trained to work in the machine shop,but I wasn't able to get confidence to work there without others.

Last month, I got the safety training for the machine shop again. Finally, this week I was able to touch a lathe and drilling machine.

This is something new for me about Astrophysics from a conference.
The speaker,Professor Orsola De Marco, who focuses on collecting data on separation of binary stars, and is well-known as an astrophysicist. She works for the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Macquarie University Sydney, Australia. Professor Marco received her Bachelor degree in Astrophysics from University College London in 1994, and three years later achieved a PhD in Astrophysics from University College London, United Kingdom.

​The speaker used story telling methods to introduce the viewer to how stellar birthoccurs, including fusion reaction and stellar equilibriums such as gas pressure vs gravity. After giving audiences some background knowledge, she started to show us what Planetary Nebulae look like in the sky. She not only described the shapes of Planetary Nebulae, but also tells us how they form. With simple cartoon illustrations and video shows in the simulations, she was able to explain why giant stars do not rotate fast enough. Just like ballet a dancer opens their arms to slow down the rotation, the star has a magnetic field with an Automatic Giant Branch super wind that reduces the rotation speed. The fact that the universal may change the conditions so the parameters may not reach the requirements for things to happen. Maybe in the future Asymptotic Giant Branch super-wind speed not at low metallicity but at high end. Who knows what will happen?

   Once again this is just an assignment to turn in a summary for the seminar .
The speaker, Philp Ball, is a writer whose focus is science and who has worked for the journal “Nature” for more than twenty years. He received his Bachelor degree in Chemistry from University of Oxford. Since he is interested in Science, he pursued a doctorate degree in Physics from Bristol University. He wrote several books that were best-seller such as “Critical Mass”, and “Beyond Weird: Why Everything you though you knew about Quantum Physics is Different”.

   As a Physics major student, I do agree with Richard Feynman claim that “Nobody understands quantum mechanics.” The speaker also quoted from Niels Bohr who said that “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it”. We might have been misled by quantum theory in the past when we were trying to learn Quantum Mechanics. Once the challenge of wave functions had been overcome, we understand that the position in space in the time domain is not as simple as  rocket science. Therefore, we learn to look at objects as one huge system in which two things can happen simultaneously even if they are separated far away but somehow related to each other.

"Lightning in a Canteen” presented by Professor John Foste    
If you are interested in the presentation, here comes the link of the seminar.
https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/video/catalog/JsmHiqVd6hGxEaaawj9Bbg/JDIYa1x-6hGHKdDUqieAZw/1586874598 
The speaker, John Foster, is a professor whose focus is Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. He received his bachelor degree in Physics in 1991 from Jackson State university. With hard work in advanced studying, he got his PhD in Applied Physics in 1996 from University of Michigan.
In this presentation, the speaker is talking about using Plasma for Water Purification. Due to climate change, it becomes a serious issue if we do not treat the water resource carefully. We may end up using water with contamination from the enlivenment. Therefore, finding out a good way to improve water purification is an important topic. As we know that the discharge mechanism of an electric field can kill bacteria, viruses and other microgametes.  When they pass through the high voltage electric field, the cell nucleus will be destroyed due to the electric shock from the plasma reaction system. But thermal plasma cannot be used to treat water directly, so Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasmas is the method being applied in this study. In this research they focus on how pack bed discharge and distribute discharge are the keys to scaling up the plasma liquid interface. 
To keep us in existence the earth needs at least three basic requirements, which are sunshine, air, and water. Not only does water play an important role in our bodies, but also the environment needs water to keep in balance. Since our water resource are coming from nature, using an efficient way of purification will be a challenge for the future.

The social distances order makes this term even harder for us to attend any seminar. So our instructor asked us to find some interesting videos related to our field and write something about the presentation.

The following is what I wrote for the assignment.

Received one kit for the experiment physics in the beginning of this week, but I did not know how I am going to make it work. Learning from the hands on experiment is the best way for me to memorize the principles in the real world.

After several failures, finally I got the LED blinking.

This is just a short report for a talk in my department.

   Thermionic Cathodes were first discovered by Edison in 1883. It was not until 1920 that cathode thermionic emission was found. After several improvements, thermionic cathodes could be used as a device with arc discharge caused by thermionic emission of the cathode, but the temperature was still higher than 1000º C back then. It was not until 2005 that a new method was used for distributing nano-crystalline scandium oxide in the tungsten powder, which helped the cathode achieved emission levels below 970 º C. The goal is to make higher cathode emission with small size, low power, low capacitance for using in computer monitors and high-quality television.

Machine learning is a powerful way to improve the traditional experiment process. I learned in this seminar about how to use active learning in building models can evaluate data in real time. This method can save time in data collection as well as in the result characterization. In this seminar, the speaker mentioned the potential of this technique can have efficiency with analysis data. 

            What I have learned from the seminar: 

●Process data including data selection and correction.

This is a short summary of the seminar from my department.

The most interesting thing about this seminar was learning that the powerful pulsed laser might damage the vision if not used in the way it was designed to be used. In addition to this since the pulsed laser has short width, we can image the pulse lasers are bursting like machine gun fire. Data on the repetition rate of the pulsed laser can be gathered from the target so that an analysis can be performed later. 

          As a non-contact processing method, laser has its unique advantages and there are lots of applications in medicine, for example: drug delivery, tumor labeling, and tumor destruction. As the research in the pulsed laser field continues developing, the application of pulsed lasers will be more and more widespread.

Speaker: Professor Ajay Gopinathan

Date : Sep/30/2019

There were two 3D printer added to the teaching Lab, and I was so luck to get the training done before I fly home for short vacation.

The overview of 3D printing and run a part took less than two hours.

The speaker is a Lead Physics instructor from Clackamas Community College. The main research ideas from the speaker not only help underperforming students do better performance in general physics courses, but also give instructors chances to prepare better for general physics. The reason to focus on this research is to give basic concepts to students, who do not have any background knowledge in physics in order to succeed as they move forward to general physics or other related fields.