Saturday, July 30, 2016

Day 18

This morning, I had yet another - guess what, yes - headache. I should really sleep earlier next week, despite my "nap[ping] a lot" (quote credit Emily).

In the morning, Joe gave some feedbacks on our outline. He said we should organize the presentation as if we were telling a story, which was what Dr. Dube told us to do when presenting to a non-science audience. He also added some details to the outline. Since Cici was gone this week, Bob allowed us to post the outline by Monday, so we would have time to do some editing over the weekend.

After the eye tracking experiment, during which I looked at different dots and got light shone into my eyes, I headed downstairs to the cookout. We had sausages this week; they did taste great (with their high Sodium). A few of the interns then played volleyball, but that was too hard for us, so we changed to an ice-breaking (thermodynamically speaking, since T > 273.15 K, there was no ice at all, so please don't take it literally) ball game.

In the afternoon, there was not much work for most interns, so we chatted quite a bit. A few of them started to learn how to code, but lame at computer science as usual, I couldn't understand anything. Well, that can wait until I take the class next year, as all non-physics things can.

In the evening, I played more vertix.io, refreshed my memory about the Principle of Least Actions, and studied gamed until one (yet again, even if I had volunteer work to do Saturday morning).

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Day 17

I remembered the time of the road test incorrectly yesterday, but good thing I double checked last night. The test turned out to be at 3:00, instead of at 2:00 (surprised that I remembered the time wrong? Well, there is bigger surprise awaiting). Therefore, I could have lunch with other interns after the tour.

At 9:30, we left for the George Eastman Museum. The tour was very interesting; we took a look at different photographs and listened to their historical background. I was quite surprised how powerful a message a picture could send. After that, we went downstairs to the conservatory lab, saw how photographs were preserved, and knew different equipment used in the labs.

We then went to have lunch. It was very good (#ripbmi). The age-old adage that nothing beats roast beef sandwich was proven right yet again (come on, you know I made the adage up).

Spoiler Alert: this post is going to get both funny and sad from this point on.

Well, I went to the road test site and waited for half an hour. The examiner came, but I did not bring my pre-licensing course certificate. Actually, I lost it. Therefore, I couldn't take the test, and had to reschedule. You think that's the end? Not yet. After I got home, I decided that my original certificate would have expired by my next appointment, so I had to retake the driving course. It didn't end there. I then realized that my original certificate was not that for a pre-licensing course, but was for a defensive driving course; that is, even if I had the certificate, it would have been useless. Guess I did learn some English over the past year. Then, I tried to find a driving center near me, and I did find one, which closed at 7 P.M. Trying to test as soon as possible, I went there, only to find it not open - the hours shown online was wrong - it closed at 5:00.

At least, I said to myself, I got to have lunch with everyone today. Good job remembering to double check testing time, I quietly praised myself, calculating how many seconds I wasted today (~12600 seconds, if my mental math is right).

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Day 16

I was even more reluctant to get up this morning. Seems like gaming until one every day isn't a good idea (especially when I undergo game rage - the cards I drew were just bad. Really bad). In the morning meeting, we talked about the field trip tomorrow and the plan for next Tuesday.

After the staff meeting, I printed out the high frequency spectra of coal, which I received last night. The last one of the spectra, that of Egyptian Blue, arrived later today; I now had spectra for all five substances, but I was still looking for Victoria Green online. I think the closest I got to was a spectrum of Victoria Green mixed with another substance.

The lunch was good as usual - I ate three slices of pizza, and drank two cans of sodas (I have to say Diet Sprint and Diet Coke tastes way better than their Pepsi counterparts). The talk was also very interesting; it was on where people tended to look at in different situations. I think by applying some of the principles in the field, we can advertise products, or otherwise draw people's attention to objects, more efficiently.

In the afternoon, I finished the rough draft of the outline, and sent it to Cici for further editing. Hopefully she can find some time in her busy schedule to get it back to me by tomorrow.

I'll come to the tour tomorrow, but not the lunch. As for why, it's because I'm losing weight - I'm fatter and fatter these days. That former part of the reason is as fake as Ronaldo's Ballon d'Or; the later part is, of course, as real as Messi's.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Day 15

I was quite reluctant to get up this morning. During the morning meeting, Bob kindly brought us donuts, you know, these toroidal objects (speaking of torus, there is actually a system called the toroidal coordinates; it's very interesting that the conversion between it and the Cartesian coordinates involves both hyperbolic functions and trigonometric functions, but I digress too much). We talked briefly about our projects during the morning meeting.

After the meeting, I went downstairs to take spectra of coal and charcoal. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn the spectrometer to the Run position, so the first few sets of data was useless. I almost had lunch at 11:30, but Emily told me we would play Trivial Pursuit again during lunch, so I went back downstairs and came back at 12:00. Since none of us knew much of the 90's, we eventually didn't play (at least from a non-MultiWorld-Interpretation perspective).

In the afternoon, I collected the correct (hopefully) spectra (eventually) for coal and charcoal. They did seem better than before. I also received three articles via the Inter-library loan, all of which I printed out. Cici and I agreed that I would make the rough draft for the outline, she would edit it, and then Joe could edit it by Friday.

P.S. when learning Feynman Lectures Vol. II Chpt. 17, I came up with a way to slow my wattmeter down a tiny bit (which amounted to, as I estimated, 0.001 cents. Huge amount; enough for a can of Coke). Today, however, I actually tried my method (yep, for the second time in my life I'm conducting an interesting experiment) with my magnet. I put the magnet on the wrong side, so the disk rotated faster (by about 0.63 degree/second, if I counted right) as opposed to slower. I decided it was too delicate a difference to observe, even if I put the magnet on the right side, so being lazy as always, I quitted. That's why I like theoretical physics better, I said to myself, making a mental note to get a stronger magnet.

Day 14

I didn't do much over the weekend. Reading, gaming, eating, sleeping, nerding (yes, I just invented a word there for myself).

Cici is in Boston this week, so I will be doing most of the work. After the morning meeting, I talked to Joe, and he told me to print out spectra of different frequencies. At first I struggled with connecting my computer to the printer, but Joe eventually figured it out - I connected to the printer in the reading room, which wasn't working. I was eventually able to print stuff out once I connected to the one in the mail room.

During lunch, we played Trivial Pursuit, the questions of which were everything except for trivial. Knowing absolutely nothing about the 90's (well, not exactly, I know that the top quark was discovered in 1995, and that I was born in 1999), let along American 90's, I gave random guesses. My rule of thumb was to guess Michael for people, Avengers for movies, and Captain America 3: Civil War for TV shows. Luckily I guessed one right - I forgot what the actual question was, but it was something about propaganda? Well, the answer's gotta be Cuba, right? I mean, everything related to missiles, propaganda, Spaniards, and Platt Amendment (that's also 90's history, by the way; wrong century, though) just sounds Cuban.

Joe and I talked about the article that arrived via the Inter-library Loan. For some reason, it didn't explicitly state the operating frequency of the spectrometer, but calculating that was quite simple (I have to confess, however, that I almost forgot to convert from Tesla to Gauss).

In the evening I used geometry to calculate how far back a car should go during parallel parking; it was quite fun. I bet it will help my road test on Thursday, given that I invent a device that measures distance in two days.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Day 13

It's Friday again, which means I now have under four weeks to pick the bike's lock, I mean, to prepare for my final presentation.

Holding a twenty ton watermelon, I struggled upstairs, thinking about the work I was doing. I gently put in down on the table, which luckily didn't break into half. Good job, table. After the morning meeting, during which Bob talked about our library tour, I played around with the graphs in the morning: I got rid of the legends and added titles. The Victoria Green kid was still unfriendly, even after my averaging the four runs.

The Friday cookout was good as usual; I even ate two cheeseburgers (shoutout to Nathan for cooking for us). Niels, Nathan, and I played volleyball for a few minutes (yea no, sorry Emily, I thought you were just drinking Minute Maid on the volleyball field), then we headed back in. Niels proposed that all interns should stay until six next Friday, and we could all watch The Dark Knight.

In the afternoon, we talked about our future. Niels will be a billionaire; Madi will travel around the world; I will be the next Einstein; Nathan will be a programming home dad. That reminded me of a quote from my best friend:"I'll win the Fields Medal; you'll win the Nobel Prize. We'd each fund half of the class reunion twenty years later." I'm quite curious what we will actually become.

I also decided to invite Yiqun, an intern last summer, to come on Aug. 2nd. He is one of the few people I look up to in my school, but still, I think my lab is cooler than his.

I came across a very interesting article tonight; it's on the orientation of objects that flout in liquids. Next time I should solve it myself first, and see how far I can get. Anyways, here's the link, enjoy: http://datagenetics.com/blog/june22016/index.html

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Day 12

My alarm miraculously worked this morning. It was 5:05 A.M. I sat up, logged on to my College Board account, and checked my June SAT score. Not bad, I thought, still unable to believe I missed two Word-in-Context questions.

This morning, fellow interns talked about crazy things that had happened at their schools. Now I'm really thinking about my senior prank. Besides being a troll (obviously), I'm also a prankster (obviously less obvious) who's simply too lazy to enforce my pranks. Maybe Pittsford Sutherland's principal will find Brighton's mascot in his room next year (that has nothing to do with me, as you can all testify).

I kept searching for Paris Green after the staff meeting; Joe gave me a helpful site for it. I tried at least five different names, but none of them worked. I also requested PDF files, which had EPR spectra on them, via Interlibrary Loan. Hopefully they would arrive by next week.

All interns went to lunch at the Student Union. I brought my own lunch, thinking we wouldn't go out for lunch again. Maybe we should simply establish the norm, so that I can remember (I hope). Speaking of bad memories, I almost forgot that I was supposed to bring watermelon tomorrow. Thanks, blog.

The week has gone by so fast. It's going to be Friday again. I know why. It must be because of special relativity - my velocity is mostly zero recently.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Day 11

I was in a group chat; in it were a bunch of Chinese students planning to pursue college education in the U.S. This morning, someone said that the June SAT score would be out on Naviance today, and the group had an hour-long, grandiose discussion (full of nonsense and useless memes) about it, but nowhere did anyone affirm or deny the myth. So, was the score really there, I asked. The group fell silent; they hadn't checked yet. Fine, I sighed, and checked that the score wasn't there. I announced so in the group, and said " *please* keep going". I could sense the silence deepened, but I couldn't care less - I really disliked pretense and nonsense - such a waste of time (that I could've used to game).

We talked a bit about physics brawl this morning meeting; it was, to put in the simplest terms, a very fun experience. Niels and I talked a bit about math team and Science Olympiad afterwards, and it seemed Mendon kids weren't quite into academic activities (I see; that's why their track team beat ours). Prof. Hornak wanted us to look for Paris Green online, which was a toxic substance (typical Arsenic). I tried to search on Amazon, but (surprisingly?) didn't find anything. In fact, there was nothing on the whole Internet.

The lunch talk was quite interesting. Essentially, machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) whose output changes as the AI receives further data input. It's quite interesting that by inputting an image, researchers can get words as outputs. A real world application will be automated ships; it will save 44% of the current expenditure. Don't know about you, but I'd say that's a lot.

I was then dragged to the eye tracking test part two. Whatever little talent and taste I have in liberal arts (if I had any) went to classical music, so I really didn't know how to view arts. It's almost like once I see a color, its corresponding wavelength jumps into my head (well, not exactly, but hey, wavelength of orange is 590 nm).

In the afternoon, I talked with an undergrad for a bit. He was trying to project a set of data to another set that had a different range. His idea was very creative - vectors - our model would be the most optimal if the cross product of the two vectors (formed by two sets) was as close to zero as possible. My natural instinct was to write out a 2000 by 3 matrix, but don't worry about me yet, I wasn't *that* crazy as to evaluate the determinant of the matrix. I'm thinking about minimization with regular calculus, but there's no guarantee that the function (if it's even a function) is differentiable, or even continuous.

Anyways, I call it enough nerdiness for the day. Time to be a liberal arts (LOL, liberal arts) major. Yea; no.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Day 10

Since all my close friends will be busy on Aug. 2nd (U of R laser lab, Nazareth summer research, math research with U of R undergrads (I still don't quite understand the number theory proof that math wizard sent me), and college visits), maybe I won't invite anyone that day, for I don't want to spend a whole day with less close friends.

As if I was too stressed that nobody would come (spoiler: that's not true - but let's just blame it on them), I had a headache this morning. Taking the Calc AP exam with a headache was still a painful memory, so I decided to rest and sleep for a while. The headache was gone rather quickly, so I arrived at the CIS at around 10:30.

In the morning, I kept looking for high frequency spectra online. Luckily I found two more, but it seemed that one of the sources was shady, so I may have to use Google Scholar. The University of Rochester database gave nothing new, either; probably I haven't looked into the list of results deeply enough yet.

After lunch, I kept searching for stuff online, during which an Unidentified Flying Object (or was that just a paper airplane? (thanks Niels)) hit my head. Impulse-momentum theorem, I muttered to myself, while trying to fly the plane back. Apparently not a licensed pilot (heck, not even a licensed driver), I threw the plane terribly terribly (there has to be a device for this one, but I'm sure I wouldn't have known it even if I weren't asleep half the time in my English class).

For the rest of the day, I did some summer reading (Wow, this is actually happening), read a bit about the Riemann Hypothesis, and watched a Batman movie. Obviously more vigilant about my health after the headache, I only drank three cans of sodas today. Huge improvement, I know.

Monday, July 18, 2016

Day 9

This past weekend was quite normal (at least to me): on Saturday, I studied more about impedance and AC circuits. It was surprising that the imaginary part of an impedance has actual effects in the real world. I spent the majority of Sunday outside having a barbecue (Sodium much?), and tried to learn how to pick locks. I haven't mastered this skill (just yet), but one day I hope to be as good a lock picker as Feynman.

For some reason, my alarm didn't work this morning (you guessed it right. It was Android). After arriving at the CIS, I went to Room 3125, Bob's office. There, all the interns' abstracts were pulled up on the screen. We read, discussed, and commented on them. All of the projects seemed quite interesting.

After that, I spent the rest of the day in the reading room, since Joe still isn't back yet. In the morning, I studied differentiation under the integral sign, read Feynman Lectures Vol. II Chpt. 23, and prepared a bit for the upcoming physics brawl competition. All interns then came to the reading room to have lunch. Since I wasn't hungry, I waited until later. At around 2:30, I went to participate in the eye tracking research. They have good pictures is all I'd say; don't want to induce any bias (best piece of evidence of the practicality of statistics I can find).

For the rest of the day, I simply studied more FLP and drank more sodas, neither of which, I hope, is a surprise to anyone by now.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Day 8

I forgot to ask my mom to sign the permission slip this morning (as always), but I did remember to bring those chips. Bob talked a bit about the grill during the morning meeting, and then sent a reminder about the permission slips.

In the morning, I did some final editing of the abstract, and studied a bit Feynman Lectures. Chapter 21 dragged on for quite a few days; its math was at least cumbersome, if not difficult. I sometimes wonder how CalTech underclassmen got through that class back in the 1960's.

At 11:40, all interns went downstairs for the grill. It was hot dogs this week. We then played volleyball (I can tell we are better players now), and had ice cream (Neopolitan? That sounds very global history). I had two soft drinks during the lunch, which made it four before 4:04 (obviously I do learn at least something in AP Lang besides sleeping skills).

The afternoon was quite relaxing. Although I couldn't find high frequency spectra anywhere online, the research process was somewhat fun: I had to search with synonyms occasionally, to judge if the material was helpful from abstracts, and to use the search feature to find key words within an article.

As for the upcoming weekend, I plan to catch up with the Feynman Lectures, study some more math, and start my summer readings (we all know that the last one won't become reality).

An abstract abstract

Low Frequency Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy can be used to analyze paramagnetic substances, that is, substances with one or more unpaired electrons. Electrons have two different energy configurations, or levels, when placed in an external magnetic field. The electronic energy difference between the two levels is different for each substance the electrons are in. By sending fixed frequency photons into the sample and sweeping the magnetic field, researchers can record a spectrum for each substance.
                Conventional EPR spectrometers operate at 9 GHz and tend to be destructive to the sample. On the other hand, an EPR spectrometer operating at a lower frequency (441 MHz) can be nondestructive, but very little work has been done on these instruments. Therefore, we have created a library/database of LFEPR spectra for common pigments used in paintings. Pigments, even ones with similar optical properties that are hard to distinguish from each other by traditional methods, possess unique EPR spectra that can be used to identify them. Since the database also includes information about the history of each pigment, it can be of use to museum curators, art collectors, and historians to determine the authenticity and the age of a painting.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Day 7

Bob brought donuts this morning, which was quite nice of him; just to elicit feelings of guilt, one donut contains 260 Calories of heat, about the amount burnt by half an hour of running (not much at all, I know, right?)

Since Joe was out for a family trip, Cici and I edited our abstract for a while after the morning meeting. At ten, Emily, Cici, and I  went to a Masters thesis defense. It was about analyzing nutrient composition of grapes, especially concentration of Boron, Carbon, Zinc, Phosphorus, and Magnesium. The audience asked quite a few challenging questions, but the presenter (Grant, I think) answered them all quite satisfactorily, despite appearing a bit nervous. Uninterested in business, finance, and economy as I was, I still thought it was a fairly good presentation; I almost asked a question about sampling method, but then I saw a statistics professor (whom I met at an RIT math award ceremony) was present. If he saw no problem with the data collection method, maybe I, with only AP Stats under my belt, shouldn't embarrass myself and fellow interns by asking elementary questions.

All interns went to Global Village for lunch at around 11:30. Forgetting we were to eating at Global Village together, I brought my own lunch (see, I wasn't lying when I talked about my incompetence). What's more, I was rather full (thank you, 260 Calories), and decided only to drink the Pepsi (when will that taste even half as good as Coke?) I brought (just to add a Corollary to Captain's quote, I not only can drink Coke all day, but also all night).  However, I was affirmed that I really was to bring chips. Faith in my memory (partially, shakily, and temporarily) restored.

In the afternoon, we scanned the last pigment left, and adjusted data points so that the scale was appropriate and the graphs were superposed well. While playing around with the Excel graphs, I, somewhat, heck, totally unwisely, chose to listen to a few salty Hong Kong songs. Since I couldn't understand Cantonese by listening, at first it was fine. However, as soon as I read the lyrics (I could read Cantonese), the salt contained in the songs totally overwhelmed me. For a few hours, I wasn't quite myself, since my salt ran out (but, apparently, I have refilled my salt jar by now).

Madi, Allyse, and Emily came downstairs to visit our lab in the afternoon; they said our lab was the coolest (true that). Cici and I scanned ultramarine to show them how an EPR spectrum was obtained.

There will be a cookout tomorrow (see, there's at least something that I remember); I'm quite looking forward to that.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Day 6

During the morning staff meeting, we talked a bit about the fire alarm yesterday (but not about the labor union the resistors formed), and decided what we were supposed to bring for the Friday cookout. As usual, I was a bit absorbed in my own thoughts (classic INTJ personality at play). And, with a clear lack of understanding of ice cream's underlying working mechanism, had not had time to figure the situation out before multiple questions came. Anyways, it eventually seemed to me that I was supposed to bring chips (let's hope I got this right).

The rest of the morning was more or less the same as that of yesterday. After Joe edited our first draft for the abstract (sorry if I rose global anxiety level there), Cici and I went downstairs to the lab and took spectra of more samples. At around 11:30, we had lunch with fellow interns in the reading room. The pizza sheets arrived later, but I was already more than half full. Still, I drank two cans of Coke, because "I can do this all day". (Quote credit: Captain America)

Following the lunch was a talk about illusions, eye tracking devices, and high-quality images by holography (my chair was nice). Basically, the program for producing the images calculates the gradient vector of brightness (as a function of position) for each small region. Then, by producing holographies of images using three by three holographic matrices (at first glance, I, for unexplained some reason, even thought the matrix was a Hamiltonian operator...), researchers can put multiple images together.

The afternoon was quite routine: more spectra combined with more online search. We failed to find high frequency EPR spectra for a few substances, however.

Guess it's time to open up one of my archived Quora answers and see how to actually search online.

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Day 5

It was, as usual, a rushy morning. Quite reluctant to kiss my beloved bed goodbye, I struggled to turn off my alarm and went to take a shower. I arrived at the Center of Imaging Science at 8:42, and calmly walked towards Room 2150. Don't even have to run this time, I mused, for once in my life, I quickly added.

After delivering a brief lecture on the meanings and effects of time constant, wait for magnet, and resolution,  Joe went to the MRI lab and looked at a few samples with us. Now that our setting was different, each scan took longer (16.67 minutes instead of 1.67 minutes, to be precise). While waiting, I set my glasses aside and took a look at different coins under an optical microscope. Just then, the fire alarm went off, which, thankfully, turned out to be just a false alarm (maybe the resistors in the sensor circuit went on strike upon being denied access to enough photons). We three then walked outside and around the building, and waited for it to be cleared out. Other interns asked if it was Cici or I who pulled the alarm, and Cici accused me of so doing, but but but I was innocent (hands up, tears welling).

Anyways, after drying my tears, I decided to forgive her and had a nice lunch with fellow interns. It turned out that sleeping on a Nerfs (which, maybe because I'm a nerd, always looked like Nerds to me) shield granted me power to see better from the reflection of my glasses (yes, I did get those back). Therefore, I was able to catch it when people, whose name I will keep confidential (am I not considerate, Emily?) approached me from behind.

In the afternoon, we did more scanning of samples, and learnt how to put two graphs (one with boost, the other without) together. Seemed that our samples were even less cooperative than those from yesterday.

Since my debate team would be receiving a Proclamation from County Legislature at six, I was supposed to arrive by 5:45 as captain. Apparently arriving without rushing that much (like this morning) was really " for once in my life".

Monday, July 11, 2016

Day 4

This past weekend went fairly well (i.e. nerdy) for me, not so much because Portugal won the Euro Cup, but more because I realized what the error I made for the proof was (while listening to Bach's Ave Maria, but I digress).

Regardless, this morning was full of trial and error (favorite technique of physicists - but no, not as widely used by theoretical ones :p). We tried to adjust our spectrometer to make the displayed spectrum more symmetric about the x-axis by varying length of a connection wire and angle of sweeping. It did take quite a while, but we eventually got it right.

I took a break at 12:00, ate lunch, and slept on the couch for a few minutes. Then I went downstairs and collected some data with Cici and Joe; I learned how to operate the EPR machine. The rest of the afternoon was basically a continuation of the collection process - data, data, and (surprisingly) more data. We saw a few substances that gave us nice spectrum (including, owing thanks to Mr. Callens, charcoal), but more seemed reluctant to cooperate. Tomorrow we'll investigate why they are so mean to us.

It was a fun day, with the best part being to see a spectrum that looked a lot like the Weierstrass Function - now I'm wondering when the Cantor Function will show up.

Friday, July 8, 2016

Day 3

O, Dah Headache Hath Gone.

After chanting (which I didn't) this cheesy Shakespearean (which I made up) line, I exuberantly went to the RIT for my third day. I arrived a bit early, so I started to write blogs (which I forgot to save =_=). Mr. Callens told us that the grill would be ready by 11:30 during the staff meeting; I was quite looking forward to that.

Joe gave Cici and me another lecture on EPR in the morning. Basically, the ratio of the number of excited electrons to the number of grounded electrons is equal to e^(-af/T), where a is a constant (Planck's constant divided by Boltzmann's constant, to be precise), f is the frequency of our photons, and T is the temperature. Joe told us that the reasons for using low frequency EPR were that few people had done it, and that we would get different spectrum for even the same substances.

We then went down to the chem lab and put different pigments into test tubes. Powdering solid coal was a struggle: we had to hit the coal with a metal rod after putting it in multiple plastic bags. Then we filtered and collected the coal powder. Most of the work was done by 11:30, when we went to have lunch outside.

The cookout was basically a cheeseburger lunch: we brought in cheeseburgers, cooked cheeseburgers, and guess what - ate cheeseburgers. The best part, however, was the volleyball game. Apparently, none of the interns was professional, so the game did not go smoothly; it was, however, very exciting (hey, I even did a bicycle kick, something I constantly failed to during soccer practices).

In the afternoon, Cici and I made some more powders and searched our pigments' history, chemical formulas, and facts online. It took the majority of the afternoon, but we finished at around 15:30. Then we went to the reading room, where we updated our blogs. I tried to continue my work on proving validity of Least Action Principle for the Relativistic Motion of a Particle in an Electromagnetic Field, but there was more frustration than fruition - I couldn't see where my error was. Somehow the equation required the action to be equal to the relativistic momentum, which shouldn't be true at all.

Guess I have something to do on weekend, then.

Day 2

In the morning staff meeting, Mr. Callens and Director Pow gave us more information regarding the internship, including info about field trips and Friday cookouts. At around 9:02, my teammate and I went to meet Joe, who gave us a lesson on Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (abbreviated as EPR). A spinning electron virtually acts as a bar magnet; its energy state is higher when it's out of alignment with the magnetic field it is in. When a photon of the right frequency hits an electron in alignment with the field, the electron is excited and goes out of alignment with the field (to a higher energy level, that is). As the external magnetic field varies, the energy difference between the two states varies. What we would like to do, then, was to keep the photons that hit electrons at the same frequency, while changing the magnetic field. It would give us a spectrum; our photons would be of radio frequency (~350MHz).

After the lesson, we three went to the lab and cleaned the desks for future use: we sorted the utensils and put them away to corresponding places (drawers, chem lab, what not). Prof. Hornak then wanted us to search for Radio Frequency Amplifiers online, with certain restrictions (operating frequency needed to be between 100-500MHz; Input would be 9mW; preferably with SMA outlets). Cici and I found ten amplifiers online, before we went to have lunch (you gotta admit those refrigerated noodles are cold, man).

At around 14:00, Joe took us two to witness the refilling of liquid helium on the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance machine. It was very cool! White smokes appeared above the transfer tube. I noted that the room temperature dropped by 3.9 degrees after the liquid helium can was depressurized - totally the style of liquid Helium.

We then walked back to CIS building ('tis a hot day), and Joe took a look at our amplifiers. He kept three of them, and told us that it might be a good idea to keep looking for more. Exhausted and headache-plagued, I fell asleep for a few minutes, for which I still feel a bit sheepish. For the rest of the day, Cici and I just kept going through Google search results and listed another eight amplifiers.

At the end of the day, we emailed our results to Joe, and took the last half hour to write blogs (which, unfortunately, I forgot to save, so I ended up writing it again - classic me).

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Day 1

It was the first day of the internship. Excited, I left home at 8:25, only to find myself in a little traffic jam. Bad first impression, I sighed and said (alliteration, anyone?) to myself. After we all settled down, Director Pow and Mr. Callens gave us an overview to the internship, and gave us a tour around the building thereafter. Then, we set out to the Red Barn (believe it or not, it was actually a barn that was red) to have a few team-building events. Although our group failed to save the Earth from pollution, we still got to know each other better and learnt a great deal from each other. I was very impressed with my peers' intelligence and creativity - I could've never come up with some of their ideas alone.

After lunch at Global Village, I met my teammate, Cecilia, a very thoughtful and kind girl, and my supervisor, Prof. Hornak, a very knowledgeable and approachable scholar. We talked about our potential project and planned a bit. Then we went downstairs to the MRI lab, where he gave us a tour. The NMR machine in the lab was really impressive: there was a superconducting coil in it, and current flowed through the coil and constantly produced a strong magnetic field. We learnt a few lab techniques and tested our instrument for the later part of the day. Frankly, it was quite a bit of material to absorb in one day, but we really had fun.