I graduated today..Bachelor of Science, at the Ceremony 5 1.15pm, graduand number 139, at Auckland Town Hall..
After years of stint and tough fight (literally on exam days!!), finally I was awarded with this piece of paper that they claimed to have lifespan of 500 years.. So, somewhat I can imagine my legacy and saga continue for my future generations..
It was a good sunny day, and a happy occasion with close friends that I am truly grateful for. To acknowledge them..here goes the list(on no particular order or preferences--actually I take that back, it depends on who comes to my mind first)
1) My Dudu as always: She's there when things really get out of control, and when I don't have pocket to put my stuff. And yes, for the 3 beautiful SUNFLOWERS!! It's like getting a proposal from Jane to get married upon seeing the bouquet! (oh! don't worry bout spoiling the feeling, cause i foresee a diamond ring to go with a bouquet of flowers from Jane)
2) Asline, QiSu and Ah Jie: Endurance and relentless effort put through the 8 hours night sleep in the bus, and flying back down at wee hour in the morning. I am truthfully touched, not many, if any, would do things like they've done to me now. To Aslina, HAPPY GRADUATION too, indeed it's the best choice ever--SPRING GRADUATION! Ingatan tulus ikhlas and penghargaan to the 3 of you!!!
3) Post-Graduate Physics 2008: Aaron, Keith, Ka Fai, Jason, Simon, Katie, Steffen, Sarah, Joe--This year will always be memorable to me, not only meeting awesome PHYSICISTS like you all, but also the warm friendship bond we've! And thanks to the grad present too..totally kick ASS man!
4) Leo and Sam: Okay, these two guys are often serious when it comes to physics, but really they're real nice people! And pictures to follow as soon as I uploaded my memory card contents to let you know just what I mean by PHYSICISTS:Behind the scenes..
5) My ex-classmates since 2005: Keith, Elliot, Alastair--I am fortunate when it comes to having friends that welcomed me like me, right from the start of the day I stepped into uni..
6) Random people at Gina's Pizza & Bar: For the excellent Italian food, for the excellent service, and very friendly people working there--caught me by surprise with the candle on the ice cream, with a song that tunes like birthday song, but I reckoned it's saying something like HAPPY GRADUATION! And those patrons who actually clapped and congratulated me.. I'm very indeed touched!
7) My Juniors: Sarah and Wanie, thank you for the time and wishes and flower too! I'm..speechless I shall say!
8) To the absent friends and family: Had you been here with me on my BIG DAY, I'm even more elated. But it's the thoughts that matter the most, and I am channelling my thanks and gratitude in somewhat a phsycic way as well :)
My mission next is to upload these pictures here, Facebook, Friendster!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Love Letter..
Happy birthday my
With age comes wisdom and insights, my love.
It had been wonderful years to be with you, no, more than wonderful!
I am confessing I’ve always fall in love with you from the day I’ve breath in that
minty flavored air of you. Your smell lingers around me, even when I’m now on miles away from you. I miss you, when we’re both young. Callous feet of mine running around your soil, your deep blue sea reflecting Sun’s golden rays of hope and new day upon my window, your as far as my eyes can see greenery lush surrounding me.. I miss all those.
But why is it that as we grow older, we seem to be parting my love? Why is it, that I can no longer recall passionate moments that we should’ve been sharing at this time, that I was once contented with swelling pride just by looking at you, disgusted and angry at your pathetic state nowadays? Where had we gone wrong my love?
Why did you let a bunch of bogus self-proclaimed leaders steer your sight into racial lenses? Why can’t you see me as I am, united in one with you? How can you pollute your own breaths with corruptions and political gimmicks? Did you not know that it’s killing both of us? When you let them squandering our childhood treasures for their sakes, of beautiful forests, of deep oil wells, of everything we promised to share, did you forgot about me? Did you turn your back on me, still walking barefooted to school, while letting them buy their own jet planes with our funds? Why my love, why?
I missed you, all this time. I long for our good old days, I want them so bad that I wish I can turn back the clock, and make time immemorial. Please don’t let them take you away from me. I want to shut their vociferous racist comments on me, cover your ears and don’t listen to them, but me. I want to break their sleek masks and strip out their unworthy positions, so close your eyes and only believe in me. They’re imposters, bound to make you consent their acts of greediness for your love for them. Stop this unnecessary sacrifice my love, come back to me and we can start afresh again. I’m waiting for you, with love, always.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Congratulations to my hero, Lee Chong Wei..
Dear Chong Wei,
It's truly a night to remember, to anticipate each point you're working hard to earn, not only for you, but for the rest of 26 million Malaysians, wherever we may be on this planet.
To the world, you maybe the silver medalist of men's single badminton in Beijing, but to me (and all of us) you're our golden boy! 41 minutes of straight 2 games outplayed by Lin Dan are no measure of your determination to win for us. You're indeed our truly hero, that someone we can talk about in years to come, proudly!
Although it's disheartening to see our contingent performance in Olympic, you somewhat turn the music on, giving me reason to rummage through Olympics' webpage before starting anything every day you're in action. Every tiny details counts, and it propelled me to make sure I equipped myself with badminton schedules and results every hour. Such is my addiction, budding because of you!
I want to say thank you, thank you a zillion time, sincerely for sharing with us moments of glory, every atom from your piece of Silver with us, for bringing the whole Universe attention to Malaysia for those particular games you've played. Raising hope for a medal, and eventually getting one, is anything but ordinary course you've given us.
Though I may not be of the 200 fans that welcomed you with claps, flowers, kompangs, etc at KLIA today, from afar, I've applause for your breakthrough in the Olympics. Wishing you every best of the best on future tournaments, my hero!
Footnote(a slight detour/divergence from our focus on our hero):
Unlike our current political drifts in the country that's getting more and more ridiculous to follow(from the UMNO's Puteri being fondled on nomination day, to the oath on Holy Quran by a self-published gay, to the immense momentum of PKR unseating BN in few days, to the demonstrations by bigots and chauvinists on a certain person idea to open up a forum about religions, glitches and class wagging caused by some self-proclaimed students of higher learning institution in order to oppose somebody's mere idea on relinquishing privilege of education to other equal Malaysians, to the..wait, I suppose it's "improper" for me to say more--it's splodges all over the regions media!), and eventually anybody would want to puke on upon catching a glimpse on the headlines, taking shelter in keeping abreast Olympics Games is such a relief of being sane again. Who would ever know how to award points for fencing, for example, had it not been a sweet escape from the lame stage of collection of retarded politicians picking on each other?
It's truly a night to remember, to anticipate each point you're working hard to earn, not only for you, but for the rest of 26 million Malaysians, wherever we may be on this planet.
To the world, you maybe the silver medalist of men's single badminton in Beijing, but to me (and all of us) you're our golden boy! 41 minutes of straight 2 games outplayed by Lin Dan are no measure of your determination to win for us. You're indeed our truly hero, that someone we can talk about in years to come, proudly!
Although it's disheartening to see our contingent performance in Olympic, you somewhat turn the music on, giving me reason to rummage through Olympics' webpage before starting anything every day you're in action. Every tiny details counts, and it propelled me to make sure I equipped myself with badminton schedules and results every hour. Such is my addiction, budding because of you!
I want to say thank you, thank you a zillion time, sincerely for sharing with us moments of glory, every atom from your piece of Silver with us, for bringing the whole Universe attention to Malaysia for those particular games you've played. Raising hope for a medal, and eventually getting one, is anything but ordinary course you've given us.
Though I may not be of the 200 fans that welcomed you with claps, flowers, kompangs, etc at KLIA today, from afar, I've applause for your breakthrough in the Olympics. Wishing you every best of the best on future tournaments, my hero!
Footnote(a slight detour/divergence from our focus on our hero):
Unlike our current political drifts in the country that's getting more and more ridiculous to follow(from the UMNO's Puteri being fondled on nomination day, to the oath on Holy Quran by a self-published gay, to the immense momentum of PKR unseating BN in few days, to the demonstrations by bigots and chauvinists on a certain person idea to open up a forum about religions, glitches and class wagging caused by some self-proclaimed students of higher learning institution in order to oppose somebody's mere idea on relinquishing privilege of education to other equal Malaysians, to the..wait, I suppose it's "improper" for me to say more--it's splodges all over the regions media!), and eventually anybody would want to puke on upon catching a glimpse on the headlines, taking shelter in keeping abreast Olympics Games is such a relief of being sane again. Who would ever know how to award points for fencing, for example, had it not been a sweet escape from the lame stage of collection of retarded politicians picking on each other?
Saturday, August 9, 2008
On this day..
Mend a quarrel.
Search out a forgotten friend.
Dismiss suspicion, and replace it with trust.
Write a love letter.
Share some treasure.
Give a soft answer.
Encourage youth.
Manifest your loyalty in a word or deed.
Keep a promise.
Find the time.
Forego a grudge.
Forgive an enemy.
Listen.
Apologize if you were wrong.
Try to understand.
Flout envy.
Examine your demands on others.
Think first of someone else.
Appreciate, be kind, be gentle.
Laugh a little more.
Deserve confidence.
Take up arms against malice.
Decry complacency.
Express your gratitude.
Worship your God.
Gladden the heart of a child.
Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.
Speak your love.
Speak it again.
Speak it still again.
Speak it still once again.
P/S: I've gotten this from a friend who gave me a simple,nice book marker, and thought of sharing it with you. I think they're too beautiful for me to keep alone :)
Search out a forgotten friend.
Dismiss suspicion, and replace it with trust.
Write a love letter.
Share some treasure.
Give a soft answer.
Encourage youth.
Manifest your loyalty in a word or deed.
Keep a promise.
Find the time.
Forego a grudge.
Forgive an enemy.
Listen.
Apologize if you were wrong.
Try to understand.
Flout envy.
Examine your demands on others.
Think first of someone else.
Appreciate, be kind, be gentle.
Laugh a little more.
Deserve confidence.
Take up arms against malice.
Decry complacency.
Express your gratitude.
Worship your God.
Gladden the heart of a child.
Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.
Speak your love.
Speak it again.
Speak it still again.
Speak it still once again.
P/S: I've gotten this from a friend who gave me a simple,nice book marker, and thought of sharing it with you. I think they're too beautiful for me to keep alone :)
Friday, July 18, 2008
Malaysian Education System: Too Good To Be True?
Today, while surfing through Malaysia Today website, I've come across this particular blog entry http://www.mpkapar.com/manikavasagam/posts/msian-edu-systemnot-good-enough/ . Here's your first task (if you're Malaysian), browse through it.
Now that you have read it, good! The next one will be, read mine.
What I am going to write hereafter (I promise), is nothing like political debates as of the blog I've given you link to. I had gone through 11 years of Malaysian Education System (MES) and I'm sure there's good toss of pros and cons there. I'm not, at all, against parents opting for their children to pursue education of different language medium, even different environment studies. I believe it shows how caring and hardworking are parents in giving their children the best they could. Excellent education is their top priority, no question asked.
Almost a decade ago, our far-sighted PM Tun Mahathir see the need to revamp and re-brand our education accordingly to the world's need. Teach Science and Maths in English, we're told. Heaps of effort had gone to improve and optimize not only of teaching materials, but also attracting teachers' time and 'extra-mile' duty. Later last year, then there's this hoo-ha about REVISING this idea of English-instruction medium proposed by our very own Education Minister. By end of this year, the ministry will DECIDE on whether to go on with it, or not. The reason? The rural kids can't catch up with the urban youngs. Not only of lame excuse, but also impertinent to nation development, hampering us to compete with the rest of the world. Sure, some may say countries like Japan, South Korea, China (within our neighborhood) thrived and proved themselves despite their education being taught in their respective mother tongues. But may I add, hard-work had nothing to do with our instruction medium. These countries advance fast forward because they don't compromise with their plans, and what about us? We staggered in the middle of journey.
As Prof. Khoo Khay Kim of University Malaya expressed in one of his articles that I've come across, today Malaysian universities are expected to 'produce' employable graduates for the country work force, not so much of gaining and making use of the knowledge taught in real life. Universities had lost their respectable titles, of place to obtain ongoing knowledge and undepleting resource of human minds advancement, and most departments are geared towards conferring certificates to shoot up candidates employment possibility. My favorite columnist in The Star, Azmi Sharom in his forth nightly columns agree with Khoo in his article 'Producing First Class Human Capital'. In this view of blaming education in universities as reason for their graduates unemployable, I'm not in favor of it. University is there for you to further your studies on something that should strike the most to you as mysteries. It is not there for popular demands on job-tickets. Dazzling as it could be, we could graduate from top university in the world, but we cannot pretend to be knowledgeable. A piece of paper from any university in the world can't really fool anyone of our intelligence, and obviously we cannot fake maturity and smartness when our actions indicate otherwise. So actions speak louder than certificates in-terms of securing our future job.
Our schools had had achieved something at international plateau. We've had our talented youngs, educated locally, won prestigious awards such as Promising Young Scientist by Intel couple of years back, and many other that I'm not aware of. We've bright scholars spread all over the country, all we need is just some collecting job and polishing these talents to maximise outputs. I personally known a bright girl who's a National Silver Medal Award holder for Physics, at 15 years old, came from sekolah pondok far up in Kelantan. We're not short of geniuses (contrary to some top ministers said in newspaper over dinner galas), but we're handicapped in finding them and that's sad.
In my humble opinion, the saddest thing about our education is that it's too exam oriented. A's are all mattered, below those grades simply un-acceptable. Who had not heard of a 12 years old girl hanged herself to death after discovering she'd scored 4A and an E in UPSR last year? Every year, we've top SPM scholars getting more and more A's, by folds from the previous year. With limited number of universities, we can't accommodate all students ranging from different areas of interest. What happened is then, they only select a quota of A's students (mostly of science or business edu background) to enter uni, leaving most of the Arts students behind. To add to injury, much these A's students also don't have much of choice of what they want to pursue, they're simply given the choice between the devil and the deep blue sea:take what we give you, or leave it. What kind of diabolical attitude is that, I wonder if that's almost violating human rights!
Now, my vote is against the ministry to revert back to Bahasa Malaysia teaching of Science and Maths. If for any reason, government whole-heartedly accept the notions that English-medium is obstructing learning advancement, I would not hesitate in pursuing education of my children in the future to English schools (Singapore is the closest I could think of), because I have lost confidence in MES, just as the 2 ministers aforementioned had done to their kids.
I will now start reading biographies of famous and talented scientists of the world, to seek nature of their education backgrounds. Einstein's proved to be able to just manage to pass through a polytechnic, secured a patents clerk job, while writing 4 monumental papers that revolutionized space and time dimensions in Physics, galvanizing his name in Science, resounding his ingenious notions in the community for centuries to come.
Now that you have read it, good! The next one will be, read mine.
What I am going to write hereafter (I promise), is nothing like political debates as of the blog I've given you link to. I had gone through 11 years of Malaysian Education System (MES) and I'm sure there's good toss of pros and cons there. I'm not, at all, against parents opting for their children to pursue education of different language medium, even different environment studies. I believe it shows how caring and hardworking are parents in giving their children the best they could. Excellent education is their top priority, no question asked.
Almost a decade ago, our far-sighted PM Tun Mahathir see the need to revamp and re-brand our education accordingly to the world's need. Teach Science and Maths in English, we're told. Heaps of effort had gone to improve and optimize not only of teaching materials, but also attracting teachers' time and 'extra-mile' duty. Later last year, then there's this hoo-ha about REVISING this idea of English-instruction medium proposed by our very own Education Minister. By end of this year, the ministry will DECIDE on whether to go on with it, or not. The reason? The rural kids can't catch up with the urban youngs. Not only of lame excuse, but also impertinent to nation development, hampering us to compete with the rest of the world. Sure, some may say countries like Japan, South Korea, China (within our neighborhood) thrived and proved themselves despite their education being taught in their respective mother tongues. But may I add, hard-work had nothing to do with our instruction medium. These countries advance fast forward because they don't compromise with their plans, and what about us? We staggered in the middle of journey.
As Prof. Khoo Khay Kim of University Malaya expressed in one of his articles that I've come across, today Malaysian universities are expected to 'produce' employable graduates for the country work force, not so much of gaining and making use of the knowledge taught in real life. Universities had lost their respectable titles, of place to obtain ongoing knowledge and undepleting resource of human minds advancement, and most departments are geared towards conferring certificates to shoot up candidates employment possibility. My favorite columnist in The Star, Azmi Sharom in his forth nightly columns agree with Khoo in his article 'Producing First Class Human Capital'. In this view of blaming education in universities as reason for their graduates unemployable, I'm not in favor of it. University is there for you to further your studies on something that should strike the most to you as mysteries. It is not there for popular demands on job-tickets. Dazzling as it could be, we could graduate from top university in the world, but we cannot pretend to be knowledgeable. A piece of paper from any university in the world can't really fool anyone of our intelligence, and obviously we cannot fake maturity and smartness when our actions indicate otherwise. So actions speak louder than certificates in-terms of securing our future job.
Our schools had had achieved something at international plateau. We've had our talented youngs, educated locally, won prestigious awards such as Promising Young Scientist by Intel couple of years back, and many other that I'm not aware of. We've bright scholars spread all over the country, all we need is just some collecting job and polishing these talents to maximise outputs. I personally known a bright girl who's a National Silver Medal Award holder for Physics, at 15 years old, came from sekolah pondok far up in Kelantan. We're not short of geniuses (contrary to some top ministers said in newspaper over dinner galas), but we're handicapped in finding them and that's sad.
In my humble opinion, the saddest thing about our education is that it's too exam oriented. A's are all mattered, below those grades simply un-acceptable. Who had not heard of a 12 years old girl hanged herself to death after discovering she'd scored 4A and an E in UPSR last year? Every year, we've top SPM scholars getting more and more A's, by folds from the previous year. With limited number of universities, we can't accommodate all students ranging from different areas of interest. What happened is then, they only select a quota of A's students (mostly of science or business edu background) to enter uni, leaving most of the Arts students behind. To add to injury, much these A's students also don't have much of choice of what they want to pursue, they're simply given the choice between the devil and the deep blue sea:take what we give you, or leave it. What kind of diabolical attitude is that, I wonder if that's almost violating human rights!
Now, my vote is against the ministry to revert back to Bahasa Malaysia teaching of Science and Maths. If for any reason, government whole-heartedly accept the notions that English-medium is obstructing learning advancement, I would not hesitate in pursuing education of my children in the future to English schools (Singapore is the closest I could think of), because I have lost confidence in MES, just as the 2 ministers aforementioned had done to their kids.
I will now start reading biographies of famous and talented scientists of the world, to seek nature of their education backgrounds. Einstein's proved to be able to just manage to pass through a polytechnic, secured a patents clerk job, while writing 4 monumental papers that revolutionized space and time dimensions in Physics, galvanizing his name in Science, resounding his ingenious notions in the community for centuries to come.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
life as a physicist: not fun after all..
okay, you heard me, loud and clear! not so fun after all.. that's probably a more valid reason why i hadn't been writing for a month now..wait, a MONTH?? no way!!
sad thing, i'm not getting where i supposed had to be in my progress.. there's this, what do you call it? HINDRANCE, (not hindraf!) in advancement! how very undiplomatic physics can be, i mean, i think i've been a good friend to it, this time it's playing trick on me! how bad can a bad physics be? trust me, when you strained your 2 precious eyes on super-luminous "excited gas" (commercial name: plasma) screen, furiously typing down programming language that only non-human (laymen term: robot) can understand, experiencing thinning head due to overcomsumption of "what's and where's had i done wrong?", yet nothing comes physically sensible to your centuries old theories (that means you either conjure new theories of your own, possibly crooked, or your experiments data are all flawed!). ah..no, it's not fun at all!
but let's leave that behind for now, and talked about something else.. about a book that my Dudu happened to lend me (actually that's not true, i told her if she doesn't want me dead by the time breaks over, get me a book to read. she came up with 2 books--LOTR, and the one that i'm going to talk about in a wee while, to save me from STOOW--self throwing out of window)
written by exceptional scientist, Robert Winston, "The Human Mind:and how to make the most of it", is one of the rarest books that can really engage me while i'm lying down on bed, making my head (and so are my eyelids) refused themselves to fall into the prey of dozing off. i've got some other books that i'd like to share, but nevermind that for now. i want to talk about this particular book, and you ought to continue to read me!
weaved through 9 chapters altogether,Winston arranged each of the chapter built-up based of the one before it. i started with chapter 2, turning pages until references, glossary and index within 2 nights. why no chapter 1? it's a bit too technical for me, i can't be bothered. for those of you who want to understand your own brain, and a bit of others, how to make and come to your sane senses, how to avoid that caffein-lacking syndrome of early lectures and 2pm lectures, how you love, and being in love, i think this is it!
he writes it with charisma, that doesn't only leave you in daze, but upon finishing it, you would come to your senses, what a unique person are you! it's written with scientific researches and findings as it's wallpaper, while he adds some colors here and there to make it understandable for layman, spotlights where he wants to show us dark matter here and there, even dimming the focus on some so as to prevent us from reading too much into samples of his chosen articles. i'd say it's an argot from its topic, that only certain people can fathom WTH he's talking about, but i'm certainly very wrong. really, it's worth it, the time (and the money too i suppose, although i'm going to haunt for a second-hand one, here's too expensive to buy it--i can have 3 meals with a price of a book), and the knowledge you gain from it, to put it in Mastercard's way "PRICELESS"! it's only more or less 200 pages, and certainly more promising and socially acceptable than those mangas you've been loyally devoted for!
herein, that's why you see me completing my entry for this month. i'm alive, well and nourished (both brain and body), and hope to grow better tommorrow! let's hope that, and work hard for it. i've seen it somewhere: aim for the star, had it shoots lower than that, there's always tree top to land. how very appropriate! maybe it's time for a change-life as a psychologist:PRICELESS!, right Dudu?
sad thing, i'm not getting where i supposed had to be in my progress.. there's this, what do you call it? HINDRANCE, (not hindraf!) in advancement! how very undiplomatic physics can be, i mean, i think i've been a good friend to it, this time it's playing trick on me! how bad can a bad physics be? trust me, when you strained your 2 precious eyes on super-luminous "excited gas" (commercial name: plasma) screen, furiously typing down programming language that only non-human (laymen term: robot) can understand, experiencing thinning head due to overcomsumption of "what's and where's had i done wrong?", yet nothing comes physically sensible to your centuries old theories (that means you either conjure new theories of your own, possibly crooked, or your experiments data are all flawed!). ah..no, it's not fun at all!
but let's leave that behind for now, and talked about something else.. about a book that my Dudu happened to lend me (actually that's not true, i told her if she doesn't want me dead by the time breaks over, get me a book to read. she came up with 2 books--LOTR, and the one that i'm going to talk about in a wee while, to save me from STOOW--self throwing out of window)
written by exceptional scientist, Robert Winston, "The Human Mind:and how to make the most of it", is one of the rarest books that can really engage me while i'm lying down on bed, making my head (and so are my eyelids) refused themselves to fall into the prey of dozing off. i've got some other books that i'd like to share, but nevermind that for now. i want to talk about this particular book, and you ought to continue to read me!
weaved through 9 chapters altogether,Winston arranged each of the chapter built-up based of the one before it. i started with chapter 2, turning pages until references, glossary and index within 2 nights. why no chapter 1? it's a bit too technical for me, i can't be bothered. for those of you who want to understand your own brain, and a bit of others, how to make and come to your sane senses, how to avoid that caffein-lacking syndrome of early lectures and 2pm lectures, how you love, and being in love, i think this is it!
he writes it with charisma, that doesn't only leave you in daze, but upon finishing it, you would come to your senses, what a unique person are you! it's written with scientific researches and findings as it's wallpaper, while he adds some colors here and there to make it understandable for layman, spotlights where he wants to show us dark matter here and there, even dimming the focus on some so as to prevent us from reading too much into samples of his chosen articles. i'd say it's an argot from its topic, that only certain people can fathom WTH he's talking about, but i'm certainly very wrong. really, it's worth it, the time (and the money too i suppose, although i'm going to haunt for a second-hand one, here's too expensive to buy it--i can have 3 meals with a price of a book), and the knowledge you gain from it, to put it in Mastercard's way "PRICELESS"! it's only more or less 200 pages, and certainly more promising and socially acceptable than those mangas you've been loyally devoted for!
herein, that's why you see me completing my entry for this month. i'm alive, well and nourished (both brain and body), and hope to grow better tommorrow! let's hope that, and work hard for it. i've seen it somewhere: aim for the star, had it shoots lower than that, there's always tree top to land. how very appropriate! maybe it's time for a change-life as a psychologist:PRICELESS!, right Dudu?
Thursday, June 12, 2008
life as a physicist : terahertz
Appropriately, it's already 2 weeks since I last wrote something down in my blog. And really, I made it a point and reward myself to pen down (not literally) my thoughts every forthnightly. I was busy preparing for exams and all that sort the last 2 weeks, finally had one (2 more to go!!) this morning...gone my good old days with Principle of Lasers and Mode-Locking! Okay, I am now going to write something about my research and project that I do for a living (LOL!) this year.
When we started to educate ourself with the physics of things around us, first thing we want to understand is how light behaves. Then, from there we start digging out dirt and all sort of yucky behaviors of light, term them with this and that theories. So we have established ourself with the notion that light is wave, that has this speed c (predicted by J.C Maxwell) constant all over the universe (interestingly, back in the 1900's lotsa people trying to disprove this--making measurement to prove the presence of the so called luminous ether wind. None succeed). Light as laymen see it is the only visible part of whole spectrum of LIGHT, lots of other regimes invisible to naked eyes with properties that some of us maybe familiar with today--microwave,x-ray--to name a few. So the part that I currently researching and do stuff in it is the TERAHERTZ waves, (tera meaning to the power of 12) or so called the sub milimeter regime. If you look closely on the light spectrum, it is squished in between UV (ultraviolet) and IR (infra-red) regime. It's pretty narrow, and hence hardly we've heard of it. The birth of THz around 10 years ago perhaps justify the fact that not so many reasearch done on it worldwide. Infact, googling through uni library catalogue only yields one reference book on it.
To start with, let me give you an overview of what actually this THz stuff is all about (although I know your middlename is Wikipedia-addict). With naked eyes, we cannot see it, the same as invisibility of microwave in a microwave oven. To see it, we need special eyepiece to make our eyes more sensitive to THz radiations. In my lab, I had the privilege of having a binocular that enable me to look at it. It appears green in color through that particular binocular. It's pretty awesome, in that I can view IR light that pump photoconductive semicondutor GaAs that produce the THz wave at the same time--red and green, like Christmas tree and Santa Claus. It's harder to produce than that of producing microwave and IR-waves, because as I said earlier it's only a narrow slab in between them. Tweaking by small amount either by factor of tens, we'll end up with microwave or IR. What makes THz waves stunning is that they don't give us human radiation effects at all, while maintaining that absorption power on water (like microwaves). I'm not too sure if it won't heat up things though, since setups in the lab only allow unidirectional flow of energy (unlike in spinning microwave oven), but so far I had THz waves goin through my lens collimators and samples for 8-10 hours a day, without fire drills turned on. I, together with Sam, a graduate student who's been working on the area for almost 2 years now, supervised by Leo, collaborating with Alexis, from ANU are all looking for ways to transmit this THz waves somewhere far (hopefully by meters :P), because like its neighbour microwave, they suffer attenuation passing through air due to the small content of water vapour in it.
So Alexis designs and fabricates samples of waveguides in OZ for THz transmission, and we run test on them here in NZ. Those are Zeonex waveguides that I've been testing on, designed from Silica-Strained-Model (used in optical telecommunication fiber) to transmit THz. It's pretty modest lengths that we've been covering so far--2cm and 4cm--yet the outgoing power from one end of the fiber measurement shows substantially reduced transmission. Only getting out 14% of input THz energy with 4cm so far, the outcomes urge for a more robust design of waveguides and new less-dispersive material as waveguides. I know it doesn't look as good yet, but I'm pretty confident I'm learning something from it, like how to be patience on the screwed results :P. Frankly speaking, the problem is not mine alone, that in many scientific community around the globe are also facing it. Recent journal article reports that with HDPE waveguides, their measurement limited to 1.5cm length and already transmission output around 18%. So, I would rank, and quoting Leo, we're pretty a step ahead of them. :P. To physicists, it's important to be a step ahead of the rest, but not more than that since that'll mean you'll get lost easily, and fall behind of the advancing team after they learnt your mistakes, as closely as I could remember from a lecture given years ago by Carl Wiemann, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physics, here at my proud uni. I think that's pretty true, although the selfish flavour it adds makes me a little bit grumpy.
In that way, THz is pretty lagging behind, but the world has already started to earn benefits on THz imaging and scanning. From astronomical imagings, to chemical and image scannings, THz techniques had been so advanced that they're now making their way to commercial value in airport/luggage security checks, agricultural sectors and medical scannings (is said to soon replace x-ray). And perhaps, there are more to comes in the coming years. Looking back at the invention of lasers back in the 60s, the guys didn't know what to do with it, except excited that it works! But look at today, everywhere, almost instantaneously application of lasers! I'm optimistic, sooner or later, THz will gain popularity, just like lasers.
That's about it for my research project, and I'm enjoying it really, although some days it makes my hair tangled up. Come to think about it, I'm left with few months now to enjoy my days with physics people here at uni. I love them so much, especially my funny classmates and estranged phsycologist among us (hehe..). I love funny Leo and Sam, all the most for putting up with my why's and "explain again" cues. I may not be someone that they might remember in their careers later, but to me their invaluable comments and all pave my way deeper into physics, and truly grateful to have them. Even if physics is going to be harder than it is now later, I never regret taking it up, meeting all these wonderful people along. How will my life begin when my university days over, and I am sent back home end of this year? Have you had that feeling that you belong to this country, and you want so much to stay with it? My love for physics strengthen here in NZ, and I am falling for this country despite its ruralness. Maybe it's physics, or something else?
When we started to educate ourself with the physics of things around us, first thing we want to understand is how light behaves. Then, from there we start digging out dirt and all sort of yucky behaviors of light, term them with this and that theories. So we have established ourself with the notion that light is wave, that has this speed c (predicted by J.C Maxwell) constant all over the universe (interestingly, back in the 1900's lotsa people trying to disprove this--making measurement to prove the presence of the so called luminous ether wind. None succeed). Light as laymen see it is the only visible part of whole spectrum of LIGHT, lots of other regimes invisible to naked eyes with properties that some of us maybe familiar with today--microwave,x-ray--to name a few. So the part that I currently researching and do stuff in it is the TERAHERTZ waves, (tera meaning to the power of 12) or so called the sub milimeter regime. If you look closely on the light spectrum, it is squished in between UV (ultraviolet) and IR (infra-red) regime. It's pretty narrow, and hence hardly we've heard of it. The birth of THz around 10 years ago perhaps justify the fact that not so many reasearch done on it worldwide. Infact, googling through uni library catalogue only yields one reference book on it.
To start with, let me give you an overview of what actually this THz stuff is all about (although I know your middlename is Wikipedia-addict). With naked eyes, we cannot see it, the same as invisibility of microwave in a microwave oven. To see it, we need special eyepiece to make our eyes more sensitive to THz radiations. In my lab, I had the privilege of having a binocular that enable me to look at it. It appears green in color through that particular binocular. It's pretty awesome, in that I can view IR light that pump photoconductive semicondutor GaAs that produce the THz wave at the same time--red and green, like Christmas tree and Santa Claus. It's harder to produce than that of producing microwave and IR-waves, because as I said earlier it's only a narrow slab in between them. Tweaking by small amount either by factor of tens, we'll end up with microwave or IR. What makes THz waves stunning is that they don't give us human radiation effects at all, while maintaining that absorption power on water (like microwaves). I'm not too sure if it won't heat up things though, since setups in the lab only allow unidirectional flow of energy (unlike in spinning microwave oven), but so far I had THz waves goin through my lens collimators and samples for 8-10 hours a day, without fire drills turned on. I, together with Sam, a graduate student who's been working on the area for almost 2 years now, supervised by Leo, collaborating with Alexis, from ANU are all looking for ways to transmit this THz waves somewhere far (hopefully by meters :P), because like its neighbour microwave, they suffer attenuation passing through air due to the small content of water vapour in it.
So Alexis designs and fabricates samples of waveguides in OZ for THz transmission, and we run test on them here in NZ. Those are Zeonex waveguides that I've been testing on, designed from Silica-Strained-Model (used in optical telecommunication fiber) to transmit THz. It's pretty modest lengths that we've been covering so far--2cm and 4cm--yet the outgoing power from one end of the fiber measurement shows substantially reduced transmission. Only getting out 14% of input THz energy with 4cm so far, the outcomes urge for a more robust design of waveguides and new less-dispersive material as waveguides. I know it doesn't look as good yet, but I'm pretty confident I'm learning something from it, like how to be patience on the screwed results :P. Frankly speaking, the problem is not mine alone, that in many scientific community around the globe are also facing it. Recent journal article reports that with HDPE waveguides, their measurement limited to 1.5cm length and already transmission output around 18%. So, I would rank, and quoting Leo, we're pretty a step ahead of them. :P. To physicists, it's important to be a step ahead of the rest, but not more than that since that'll mean you'll get lost easily, and fall behind of the advancing team after they learnt your mistakes, as closely as I could remember from a lecture given years ago by Carl Wiemann, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physics, here at my proud uni. I think that's pretty true, although the selfish flavour it adds makes me a little bit grumpy.
In that way, THz is pretty lagging behind, but the world has already started to earn benefits on THz imaging and scanning. From astronomical imagings, to chemical and image scannings, THz techniques had been so advanced that they're now making their way to commercial value in airport/luggage security checks, agricultural sectors and medical scannings (is said to soon replace x-ray). And perhaps, there are more to comes in the coming years. Looking back at the invention of lasers back in the 60s, the guys didn't know what to do with it, except excited that it works! But look at today, everywhere, almost instantaneously application of lasers! I'm optimistic, sooner or later, THz will gain popularity, just like lasers.
That's about it for my research project, and I'm enjoying it really, although some days it makes my hair tangled up. Come to think about it, I'm left with few months now to enjoy my days with physics people here at uni. I love them so much, especially my funny classmates and estranged phsycologist among us (hehe..). I love funny Leo and Sam, all the most for putting up with my why's and "explain again" cues. I may not be someone that they might remember in their careers later, but to me their invaluable comments and all pave my way deeper into physics, and truly grateful to have them. Even if physics is going to be harder than it is now later, I never regret taking it up, meeting all these wonderful people along. How will my life begin when my university days over, and I am sent back home end of this year? Have you had that feeling that you belong to this country, and you want so much to stay with it? My love for physics strengthen here in NZ, and I am falling for this country despite its ruralness. Maybe it's physics, or something else?
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