Scientific phone dialing

Today I received a membership renewal notice from the Optical Society of America. Look at the phone numbers in Box #2! I guess that's how you can tell you're trapped in a scientific organization.... :-)

PhD thesis defense in Germany

I am going on a 10-day tour of Egypt this Friday -- a much anticipated trip for me of course. Now I am just trying to wrap up everything in work before I leave. Somehow, time is never really enough. :-(

Also on Friday, a Japanese colleague working closely with me for the past year will give his PhD thesis defense. He's leaving for the next job in Japan at the end of the year. He's absolutely one of the smartest students I've met; no doubt, he will have a great career ahead. Too bad I wouldn't be able to meet him again and celebrate together with him before he leaves....

The German educational system is quite different from the Anglo-American system, which is more familiar to most people. In terms of the format of PhD thesis defense (at least in the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, widely regarded as one of the best universities of Germany), there are some very old surviving traditions that I was simply shocked to learn about. First of all, unlike an American defense, which always consists of a ~45-minute-long open presentation, followed by both public and private question sessions, the PhD thesis defense at LMU is closed to the public, held in the Dean's Office before the committee only. The presentation is only 20 minutes long, but most shockingly, the candidate is not allowed to use PowerPoint or transparencies! Instead, he/she will only have a pen and whiteboard to his/her disposal in the defense. I couldn't believe it!!! How are you supposed to present scientific data with a whiteboard? Draw the curves by hand? Unbelievable! This really should be changed, but somehow tradition still prevails. Then in the argument session, it's common for the committee members to ask totally unrelated questions to your research area, such as (true) "What is the life time of a proton?" So be prepared! The thesis will be graded according to the quality of content and the execution of defense, and be accorded honors such as summa cum laude, magna cum laude, etc. Interesting to know how differently it is conducted here.

AP vs. Router

I bought a D-Link DWL-2100AP wireless access point for the lab, with a strong intention to get all the laptop computers in the lab finally connected online. However, after a few hours' struggle, I am ready to admit defeat! First of all, the device, as everything you can buy here, has only a German menu system. I tried refreshing the system firmware with a US firmware I obtained from the D-Link website (which would void the warranty!), but the effort failed because somehow the original German firmware has a later release date. Nevertheless, I was able to understand most of the words (I think!) and tried a few different configurations. However, no matter what I do, I just could not get the DHCP server to work with our institute network. Ugggh....

I think I understand the real problem by now, but just want to throw it out for discussion. Apparently, I bought a wrong device. This access point is NOT a router, and does not have a NAT built in. It can only transparently pass packets between the wireless LAN and the ethernet, but does not translate network addresses as I want it to. The built-in DHCP server assigns available IPs in the ethernet network, not in a separate private wireless subnet. Therefore, in my institute, where all IPs are static and assigned by an IT officer, I would not be able to get all the computers connected, unless I could get a large enough IP pool from the IT officer (I hate begging from that guy!), and assign them to the computers individually in a manual way. DHCP simply wouldn't help because our institute ethernet does not have dynamic IPs. Is that all? Can I somehow find a clever use of the device and get my computers connected? I'd love to hear suggestions. Buying another wireless router is fine, but I really don't like the mandatory process of asking for multiple quotations, placing a purchase order, and waiting for the processing by the Einkauf department. This is what I truly don't understand: On one hand, we have so much money to spend in this institute, and I can basically buy almost anything I can think of however the cost; on the other hand, the purchasing process is so stiff and complicated, with no available credit cards (like the P-cards in many US institutions), and all formal purchasing orders through Einkauf, that no matter how small or how urgent the need is, you'll have to wait and wait. Simply unbelievable in my view...

Helium shortage

Just heard from Ferenc on yesterday's project leaders' meeting that helium, the most inexpensive noble gas, will reportedly be exhausted in the not so far future, maybe in as little as thirty years. This is quite surprising because helium is the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen; however, most helium is concentrated in stars, such as the sun, being the product of the H + H nuclear fusion, and the concentration on earth is relatively low. There is very little helium in the earth atmosphere because the gas is chemically inert, and the light mass of the He atom makes it very easy to escape into the outer space. The main source of commercial production of helium is from natural gas, whose supply, according to various estimations, can be depleted in not so many years from now.

Today, apart from being used in many research labs like ours, helium is also used in almost every balloon, blimp and airship, because of its light weight and inflammability (unlike its infamous alternative hydrogen). Maybe we should all conserve on using helium so effusively from now on. Financial speculators, stock helium!

Regensburg trip

I made a trip by train to Regensburg on Sunday with some Chinese friends. It was a nice trip, and the €25 ticket for five people anywhere across Bavaria is just great. Some of the pictures have been posted in my picasa web album.

Regensburg is a very old city, dating back to the Roman times, and was also an important free city in the Holy Roman Empire. It was the site of the Imperial Diet (Reichstag) between 1663 and 1806, which is often called the Perpetual Diet because it had been in continuous session during this long time, until the dissolution of the empire after the Napoleonic Wars. We took a guided tour in the Reichstag. Even though the tour was in German, the English handouts were very informational with a lot of background, so I enjoyed it a lot. The torture chamber in the basement is amazing. Makes you appreciate how much the world has advanced since those days, when confession, often extracted by torture, was considered the only legal means to convict a person.

The city sits on the confluence point of the Danube and the Regen rivers. There is a big island in the Danube, so we went to the park on the island, and whiled away a couple of hours. Fall is really the best time of the year, with beautiful foliage everywhere. But a busy week is again ahead of us....

Blog reopening

I haven't written anything on this blog since opening an account here over a year ago. This is my first post, and I will try to write something from time to time. Welcome to make comments. :-)