Not quite Belgium but close enough

Well it has been a hectic few weeks in preparation for the move to Waterloo. The trip down was fairly fun – seeing all the companies on the way through Toronto was pretty neat. Upon arrival there was much cleaning to be done but things worked out quite well in the end. Now, I have not had much time and will need to sift through the 1000+ Google Reader feeds that I have, but I thought I would take this opportunity to brush up on some University of Waterloo history.

Walking around campus you hear the names of all the buildings – Hagey Hall, Douglas Wright, and so on. These names correspond to the first administrative faculty on campus. Interestingly enough, UW’s roots sprout from Wilfrid Laurier University, formally known as Waterloo College. In 1957, the first 75 students began to pour in and the university began a rapid expansion. First came the chemical and engineering building followed by the ‘physics and mathematics’ building. Faculties began to sprout, and Waterloo held the first faculty of mathematics in the world followed by the Applied Health Sciences and Environmental faculties.

Today, the university holds 30,000 undergraduate students and an excellent coop program that runs through all of its departments. Waterloo contains St. Jerome University as well as three church colleges: Renison, Conrad Grebel, and St. Paul’s. Expansion continues today with several buildings and investment into ongoing research.

Well as the classes approach I feel that I should prepare in some way or another but perhaps that might not quite happen today.

NRC-INMS Summer Project

Well, this summer was definitely filled with a good deal of learning and developing many skills. It was quite interesting working in a physics lab and trying to figure out solution and the required set up for an experiment. But, I guess all good things come to an end...and this one ends with a presentation that I have to give tomorrow morning. So I thought of sharing it here. It will be a good opportunity to overview before tomorrow.

The basic idea of my project is frequency stabilizing a laser to an absorption line for acetylene gas. This is useful because the frequency of the rotational vibration lines that I am locking to fall in the telecommunication frequency band and allow for the measure of absolute frequency. Above is a picture of the absorption dip observed for the P(16) line of acetylene.



The system used the idea of a fabry-perot cavity, which acts to select for a frequency. The Pound-Drever-Hall technique is used with a servo to lock to the cavity. The idea is that radiation is sent back from the cavity and it can be detected and the laser modulated to stay at a particular frequency using a discriminator signal. The same idea of using a servo coupled with a discriminator signal is used to lock to an absorption line in acetylene.



To test the system, a second system, locked to the same frequency, was used. The frequency of the second system was offset by 80MHz and a heterodyne beat was observed. This test is a lot like when two sounds are playing at the relatively close frequency and beat sound is heard. The difference between the two systems was found to be ~5kHz with an error in the 10^-11 range. Considering the fact that the cell is overfilled, which is less than optimal due to Doppler broadening, this result is quite good and falls well into the international standards for such cells. As you can see in the picture to the left, the line width of the beat signal is very narrow and demonstrates that the systems are almost at par.

Overall a productive summer which yielded great results and great experience. Hopefully, the presentation goes as smoothly!

Mr. V
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"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." ~Carl Sagan

ISI Brno presentation

I had just attended a very enjoyable talk by Dr. Bretislav Mikel part of the Coherent Optics group of The Institute of Scientific Instruments in Brno. Their institute is quite similar to our Institute for National Measurements and Standards except for the fact that their do not concentrate only on metrology or calibrations. Instead, as the name might suggest, they develop techniques and instruments that can be used in other fields, mainly precise measurement standards used in labs and industry. The ISI is run through the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic which the speaker compared to NRC -- Funny enough Dr. Mikel said that the organization concentrates more on pure research something that the NRC is starting to deviate from.

The talk gave an overview of the different projects run at their institute -- the list is quite varied but all topics were very interesting. There are three groups working at ISI: Electron Optics, Magnetic Resonance and Bioinformatics, and Coherent Optics. The first group works mainly with microscopy for the detection of nano-size materials as well as some other microscopy techniques. The MRB group deals with superconductivity and conduct some medical research. The Coherent Optics group was the one that was covered in more detail.

Interestingly enough one of their specialties is what I have been working on this summer -- Laser locking to gas filled cells. They produce standard cells filled with acetylene or iodine but are capable of filling the cells with other gases. The usefulness of these cells is that their all one to lock the laser to a specific obsorbtion energy of the gas. Iodine is used for the visible spectrum, while acetylene allows tuning to the communication region. ( Here is paper on the topic and this is an example of the Pound Drever Hall technique used in frequency locking to a cavity).

The CO groups also works on precise distance measurements and have developed several instruments for determining the absolute length of an object (on the nano-scale) or obtaining a representation of a shape in all degrees of freedom. However, one of the topics that I found to be the most intriguing was the Micro Optical-manipulation Techniques project. Aside from the traditional optical tweezers and scissors this group works on optical sorting. The idea is that an object can be moved simply by the use of light-- Okay, granted a small object. The group managed to trap nano-sized balls in an interference pattern (they call this an optical conveyor belt) and move the balls with another laser light that would not disrupt the fringes. The reason for the movement of the balls is that they act as lenses and cause the light to bend. The change in momentum in the photon is translated to the ball and thus causes movement. Now, the sorting part: The group managed to move balls of different size in different directions. This could be advantageous in future nano research and frankly it is pretty cool.

The research done at ISI seems to be quite interesting and there are many exciting developments in the nano-scale manipulation research. Now to go find a laser...

Mr. V
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"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." ~Carl Sagan

Numbers

Do not worry this has nothing to do with a magical mathematical theorem that will tell me who will be the next target of a serial killer -- my skills are not that advanced!

I am sure you have come across the dilemma that I am talking about. You are standing there counting the huge stack of cash in your hands while someone is trying to talk to you. You might be able to hear and understand them but answering is a whole different ball game.

I had tried to figure out what you can and cannot do while you are talking to someone or while you are read or counting and it is quite interesting. To my amazement, I came across a lecture series by Richard Feynman and turns out he did a few experiments of his own.

Feynman mentioned that some people count by seeing and some people count by talking to themselves -- those who talk to themselves can't manage to talk to other people but they can distinguish shapes around them and vice versa for the people who see.

Over the past week I have been trying something out -- I am one of those who counts by talk to myself in my head. When I have the time I start describing the objects around me, out loud (I make sure I am alone, otherwise it might seem a little strange), and this occupies my speech. While I am doing this I count in my head -- by seeing number. At first, it was hard. I would get to 4 and just freeze up while I continued blabbering about the lens on the optics table but when I was running today I managed to get up to 40. This is a pretty neat trick since it shows that you can teach you brain to think differently.

Now, I did want to see if there was some valid information as to what proportion of people count by seeing and other by talking but my searches came up a little empty handed. I came up with synesthesia, death counts from wars and illnesses, and ironically enough the survivor count for Battlestar Galactica.

- Mr. V
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"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." ~Carl Sagan

ET not welcome here...?

Well it seems that now Stephen Hawking is not up to meeting aliens if they did decide to come visit our little blue planet. In his new documentary series, "Into the universe with Stephen Hawking", the famed physicist portrays a fairly fearful picture of extraterrestrial life, personally I think it looks a little bit like something out of an H.G Wells novel.

The assumption that aliens would be consumers or resources is quite reasonable, if we were to compare ourselves to them -- You can't really get energy out of nowhere... But assuming that these aliens would come to our planet with the specific goal of consuming the resources we have might be a little far fetched. What is so special about our star system that would differentiate us from another. We have a sun? (apparently these aliens can suck up energy from a sun and create wormholes with it) Well I think there are a few more suns out there... We have metals? Well I think that these aliens have all the metal that they need and if need be they could probably just make whatever they need -- after all they do have stars at their disposal. Well considering it, the only thing that is truly different about our speck of dust is that we are here. If the aliens were creatures of consumption, that is to say unenlightened creatures of consumption, we would be a potential slave race for them -- I really do not think they will be up to having us pay tribute to them... really what would pay in? Metals?. Yet, I would say that prospects are not quite that grim (that is if there are aliens out there...probably...maybe a little far away though) considering we have been beaming our position out into the visible universe for the past 60 years. Now if these aliens do have faster than light travel and picked up our signal they would have been here already. Yet, if they have yet to hear our cacophony of noise, all we really have to do is lie back and wait for them to come and dominate us.

Now maybe we could make a few different assumptions about these aliens. Perhaps one could consider that if this race is advanced enough to travel through the stars they have managed to lick their global disputes and got passed the stage of blasting each other with missiles (They are probably not simulating the destruction of their global communication systems ). This race might just go for diplomatic talks before charging their phasers. It would be possible that they would want to explore and learn of us and our ways but what comes into question now is: How evolved are the aliens out there, and are we evolved enough?

If one considers the ET's to be of the advancement Hawking describes, then the moment they picked up our first radio signal (that is assuming that for some reason their have radio antennas attached to their spaceships -- a really rocking feature if you ask me) they should be able to respond. Sadly, we might not be able to listen to their form of transmission and if they replied via radio waves well we would have to wait a good 60 years to get that signal back. The latter scenario would also be true if the race was as advanced as ourselves. Finally, if they are at a stage of development that is before radio there would be no prospect of communication.

Now, the highly advanced and the radio lacking civilization situations have very distinct out comes. They respond/come here or they remain oblivious, respectively. The circumstance that is a little open ended is if the civilization is near our level of advancement. Communication with interval of 120 years (that is if they pick up the signal right now and respond) would allow room for 'dropping the call', one could say. Even now people are unsure of the immediate benefits of SETI let alone in 60 years. If we do not hear their signal they could continue to broadcast without knowing how far we are and will continue to wait for an answer. Another possibility is that we receive a signal that was sent from some planet, we would not know how far away the transmission source is, we would respond but by the time they get the response they could have advanced past radio, or simply managed to destroy themselves. Furthermore, say we do manage to establish stable communication. Our two people would advance side by side, and would eventually be able to meet. It seems that it all comes down to waiting.

Stephen Hawking's documentary has pretty neat computer graphics and is quite imaginative but really there is no real reason to fret, for if they were going to come they would have, and other than that we will have to wait and see. For all we know 'life here began out there'.

- Mr. V
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"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." ~Carl Sagan

BUSted

Well last week was extremely hectic even though I had the week off of work. I was happy to get back to work and get a few things done in the lab. Sadly. today the bus that I normally take did not show up and I had to take a different one to get to work. Once I got on the bus I turned to my friend and chuckled lightly when I noticed that I had forgotten to purchase the July bus pass and was sitting there with the June one. As I finished all of this 'noticing' I looked up and straight at the 'Special Constable' that just came onto the bus to check for proof of payment. Let's just say the June pass was insufficient for July.

I was promptly escorted off the bus and she quickly proceeded to noting down all of my information to give me a nice fine. The logic of these officers is irrefutable. It does not matter that I have been using the bus system for the past 5 years, or that it is the beginning of the month and it was the second day after a long weekend, or that I am going to buy the July pass anyways, or that I am a student and really really would prefer to spend my money on my studies. $150 is the fine.

So what does all of this come down to? Me having to go down to court to argue to reduce the fine. Me having to waste the time of some poor soul stuck dealing with people like me. Me having to go get a new student ID (I am not sure why they took away my pass...they did give me a ticket and a day-pass in return...how kind). All in all a large waste of time... perhaps the law should not always be 'reason free from passion'. If the officer had taken the time to consider the situation, this whole fiasco could have been avoided and I am quite sure that far less time and money would have been wasted.

Funny enough... once the three constables found me with my falsified bus-pass they stopped looking at everyone else's... I guess the quota was filled.

-Mr. V
Addition: It seems that my morning was not the worst start to the day. The guy in the office beside me got hit by a car.

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Unknown theories

One of the most amazing things in physics is the amount of different theories that arise. Each is just (well usually) as elegant as the previous and explains observational results.

As you might know, after a bumpy start the LHC began pumping out data for the first time a few months ago. One of the main goals of the research at the massive particle accelerator is to catch a glimpse of the elusive Higgs Boson. This (or I might have to say these) particle(s) is supposed to be responsible for the mass of every particle that has the privilege of having mass. The idea is that 'popular' particles will attract more of the Higgs and as such have a higher mass (if you have ever been to a physics talk on the subject, undoubtedly you would have seen the picture on the top right where a politician is being swarmed by a group of reporters and been slowed down on his way to the other side of the room -- to do whatever it is politicians do on the other side of the room). The current Standard Model of Physics is quite dependent on the Higgs and predicts that there is only one Higgs particle. The slightest change to the Higgs could mean revision of the model -- not that there is anything wrong with that just means...well.. we were wrong, but that would not be the first time.

Now before any results from CERN of finding something close to the 'God' particle, there have been a few indications of a slight change in the theory behind the Higgs. This started off with the Higgs possibly being lighter, which would make the detection more difficult. Now the idea has expanded to having five different Higgs particles -- now talk about creating particle out of thin air.

It is amazing theories that support our idea of the universe -- in this case the very structure of it -- can change so dramatically so quickly. As Fermi labs completes its final push to look for the mass giving particle, the LHC should start shedding some light on all of these theories -- and who know what other ones. Now to paint an obscene amount of walls.

-Mr. V
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge." ~Einstein