Google Photos for this week: https://goo.gl/photos/i3WidZZLbGonNahz5
CERN
This week at CERN the tests with my fiber light guide concluded and our team started testing a new device known as a Falcon. A Falcon is supposed to replace the fiber light guide and solve the problem of matching fibers of the fiber bundle to the fiber light guide. Currently, the fiber light guide does not match 1:1 fiber’s positions. Therefore, one fiber of the fiber light guide could be reading multiple fibers of the fiber bundle. To alleviate this problem the Falcon is going to be used as a sort of magnification device. The Falcon is basically a fiber light guide with miniscule fibers mapping from one size of the fiber light guide to the multi anode PMT. Based on preliminary tests our group found that the Falcon can magnify the bundle to a very good size. Although, we still need to test the optical properties such as light transfer on a multi anode PMT setup.
Colmar
No plan is mind, I went to the SBB station on Friday and asked them for the cheapest ticket to a Christmas market. Four hours later, I was in the magical universe of Colmar, France. Colmar is a beautiful city that was untouched by the world wars. Hence, many of the buildings are still in their original state. Additionally, the whole town has a Christmas theme to it. Everywhere you look buildings are decorated with glittering lights, stuffed penguins/polar bears, elfs and tons of festive red and green colors.
The Christmas Market was one of the coolest things that I have been able to see on my trip. In total there were about 200 stalls selling all different types of goods like chocolate, ornaments and tons more. One cool stall was a carousel setup to be a bar for various drinks, I was able to taste the rich hot chocolate. Additionally, one cool thing about the town was a section known as Petit Venice. Petit Venice is basically a small subsection of the town with a bunch of restaurants by the small canal where people can eat or take a ride on one of the gondolas. Overall, Colmar was an awesome trip and a place I would definitely go back to in the future.
Montreux
After getting back from Colmar Saturday night, I had previously planned a trip to go to Montreux on Sunday. Monteux had another Christmas market and was only about a 40 minute train ride from Geneva. The Christmas market at Montreux was smaller, although it still had amazing little boutique shops. Adding to the magic of the market was the backdrop of the market being one of the Swiss mountains towering over you. At the end of the night, I was able to get some awesome shots after the glare from the sun went away of the mountain. Also at the end of the night, Santa rode in his sleigh across the whole market!
Aside from the Christmas market, I went to see the Chillon Castle. The Chillon Castle was a medium size castle that had tons of rooms to explore. I was able to take an audio tour through the castle’s rooms including: the dining room, living quarters, various courtyards, the keep and overlook. The audio guide was an awesome tour leaving you at the top of the castle with an awesome view of the Montreux shoreline! All in all, this weekend was pretty magical between all the Christmas markets and unique cities.
Google Photos: https://goo.gl/photos/UkZud5a8YfGTbfPk9
CERN
This week at CERN, I mainly focused on getting down my data reconstruction methods and presented at the ATLAS Upgrades Week! You can find my presentation at this link:
Geneve Light Show
At Geneve University this week a 20 minute light show was displayed on the universities main building. Parts of the show included various scientific elements such as DNA, Molecules and Atoms! Take a look in the Google Photos for more views.
CERN
This week at CERN, I mainly focused on getting down my data reconstruction methods and presented at the ATLAS Upgrades Week! You can find my presentation at this link:
Geneve Light Show
At Geneve University this week a 20 minute light show was displayed on the universities main building. Parts of the show included various scientific elements such as DNA, Molecules and Atoms! Take a look in the Google Photos for more views.
Bern
This week for my trip, I went to Bern! Starting off my day, I went to Einstein's House and was able to see a nice description as to the life of Einstein! After that, I went over to see some the Bern Bear pit which was closed :(. Therefore, I went over to checkout the awesome Natural History Museum in Bern. Once that was done, I went to see another light show in Bern. The Bern light show was a lot more focused on Switzerland and Swiss culture as seen through the pictures of fondue pots, the red cross and other Swiss elements.
Google Story: https://goo.gl/photos/fd1ADdcmQqHu2ESk7
I was able to try a fair amount of different food in Greece. First, I had a pork gyro my first night with ham and cheese croquettes. Both were amazing with a very nice flavor. Additionally, I had some lamb and lemon potatoes for lunch the next day. After for dinner, I had the Greeks version of lasagna without pasta but with eggplant in replacement and some white tuna. For Breakfast, I had a sweet treat of some baklava which is filo dough with honey and some pistachio nuts!
CERN
This week at CERN, I kept on developing the algorithms to analyze data from the Cesium scans (Code here: ).https://github.com/anthonytec2/CERN-Tile-Cal-MAPMT. One of the most important parts of my project is developing a solid array processing algorithm for tiles to peaks. Therefore, I am currently working on a way to add the different pixels from the Multi Anode PMT(MA- PMT) to perform this operation.
Acropolis
I was able to visit the Acropolis during my trip to Greece. The Acropolis was a set of various ruins from ancient Greece. One of the most interesting part of the ruins is they were developed to be visually appealing in multiple ways. For example, rather than feel the building is going to fall onto you the building leans inwards. Additionally, the stairs along a same level are not at the same height, in the middle they are raised by a few centimeter. Lots of optical illusionary were performed on some of the ruins of the Acropolis! Take a look at some of the pictures to see more.
Temple of Poseidon
The Temple of Poseidon is right at the Southern Tip of mainland Greece near the Aegean sea. Perched right at the top of a hill, this temple has a beautiful view of the Athenian countryside and of the islands of Greece.
Food
Link to Google Story: https://goo.gl/photos/pn7ex6iDBGiwpJwA8
CERN
For an update on my work at CERN check the link to my presentation this week: https://indico.cern.ch/event/568529/
Also another one I helped develop:
https://indico.cern.ch/event/580801/contributions/2361109/attachments/1365015/2067393/PMTResults.pdf
London
London was a pretty fun place to visit! One wierd thing I felt when visiting was my transition from a French speaking country back to an English speaking country. Whenever a spontaneous event which I needed to respond to, I would immediately spew out my French, realizing opps I meant “Blah Blah” in English.
Tower of London
The Tower of London was a palace and prison all in one. The tower was used to hold many high level political prisoners and was fortified by a group of guards. Currently at the tower, the crown jewels are housed inside the complex. The crown jewels consists of various items used for the coronations of the queens of London. Additionally, the tower has other areas such as a torture area, a church and a bunch of small houses.
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge connects the two halfs of London, the bridge consists of two main towers which are connected with a upper and lower walkway. The upper walkway is a vantage point to see the whole city and devoted to the history of bridges. I was able to get some awesome pics over the whole city from here!
Bonfire Night
Bonfire night is in memorial to Guy Fawkes who tried to set fire to the British Parliament building, although he failed. Therefore, in memory to this event a memorial of this event is held every year on the attempted day of November the 5th(See V for Vendetta if you have not). My Bonfire night consisted of attending an array of events held at Battersea park. During my time there, I saw a little fire show, huge bonfire lighting and a music synced fireworks show. All of it was amazing! Some of the songs with the fireworks really made the show spectacular.
The Eye
The eye for those not familiar is a giant ferris wheel with a diameter of 120 meters. I was able to ride the ferris wheel and snap some really nice city scape pictures of London.
British Museum
The British Museum is a free sight with many famous items in its collection such as the Rosetta Stone. I was able to visit here for an hour and see many of the ancient history collections from Egypt and Japan! Overall this museum was really cool and would have definitely spent more time here.
Here is the Google Photos story for week 6: https://goo.gl/photos/VKH5i9ZnSJPz4D9U7
Here is the Google Photos story for week 7: https://goo.gl/photos/AN5eq6mLXFJZfRe17
Here is the Google Photos story for week 7: https://goo.gl/photos/AN5eq6mLXFJZfRe17
THIS POST WILL BE REVIEWED LATER, I honestly have like zero time for anything so I am just going to post this and review at another point.
CERN
This week at CERN, I began to participate in some of the radioactive tests for the tile calorimeter module. Just a quick recap of the Tile Calorimeter is that it is a bunch of subdetectors made of scintillator which fluoresce when an energetic particle strikes the material. This fluorescent signal is then transferred to a photomultiplier readout via fiber optic cables. Now back to the test, basically a radioactive source is passed through a network of tubes to each sub detector. Therefore, when the source hits one submodule a signal will produced at the photomultiplier readout. This test was originally designed for single anode PMT, hence it was not optimized for the readout process of 64 more anodes for the multianode PMT.
A setup was rigged using the old hardware in the case where 48 integrator boards were placed on a super drawer(sliding electronics unit in the whole detector module). 47 of these signals sampled the multi anode PMT and 1 sampled a single anode PMT for a control. Next week we will continue to test this hardware and then finally place it in the tile calorimeter module for use.
Aside from the radioactive test setup, I had given a talk this week about the progression of the 3D printing fiber light guide process. So far, I have developed 4 different versions of my fiber light guide. Finally in the 4th generation, I have placed fibers in the module and began the epoxy process to glue in the fibers. If you want to see more about this check out: https://indico.cern.ch/event/578750/contributions/2345411/attachments/1357769/2053193/3D_Printing_Fiber_Light_Guide.pdf
Rome
Once again, I have given a short description of my time in Rome at each place. Although, please do check out the photo album of these places.
Vatican City
I got to see the Pope!!!! I went to the Vatican museum on Saturday and viewed all the different art work. After that, I went to St Peter’s Square to find the whole area was filled. I discovered after seeing a large screen with the Pope’s image display he was in the square. Therefore, I sat listening to the Italian, when all of a sudden the Italian switched to English. I found out that people had come from around the world to do a journey from Italy to Spain visiting major cathedrals along the way and living as peasants would have for repentance. At the end of the event, the Pope blessed everyone in the square!
Castel Sant Angelo
The Castel Sant Angelo is a castle in Rome that had a great view of the whole city of Rome. The castle has about 5 different floors built for guards to keep watch over the city. Decorated all throughout the castle are cannons, murals and artifacts.
Roman Forum
The Roman Forum is the grounds of an old city center. One interesting comment about this Forum is there is artifacts from a mixture of centuries.
Coliseum
I took a tour inside the Coliseum. I was able to view the various seating platforms for citizens and some of the trip doors used to raise animals.
Food
Hands down Rome has had the best food of my trip! My first night in Rome, I had an amazing meal featuring, fresh mozzarella, pasta carbonara, pig and some really good mineral water. Molto Beni! Aside from that meal, the pizza in Rome was amazing! One unique meal I had in Rome was a place called the Prosciutteria. At the Prosciutteria, I got a meat and cheese board all from the local Italy region! Legit was the best! I had a great culinary experience here and definitely rank it above Paris.
Paris
Notre Dam
Notre Dam is one of the famous cathedrals in Paris. Going inside the cathedral was free and had tons of cool artworks to see. The cathedral had massive ceilings with awesome stained glass from all around.
Versaille
Versaille was an awesome city filled with really interesting castle rooms for the king. Additionally, I went outside to the gardens which were very well kept. Only note about the gardens is only one of the fountains(out of ~100) were running. Therefore, I would definitely recommend visiting versaille in the summer season.
Arc de Triomphe
Arc de Triomphe is centered at the meeting point of 12 streets. The arch was built as a victory arch for military parades after winning wars. One the top of the arch there is an awesome look out over the entire city. I went up there and got some night cityscapes with the Eiffel Tower in the foreground, take a look in the album.
Eiffel Tower
See post last time in Paris about cool things of the Eiffel Tower.
French Pantheon
The French Pantheon is home to many famous French people's bodies such as Marie Curie and Voltaire.
