Google Photos for this week: Link
https://goo.gl/photos/B59t2iYb6dpCKYhk7
CERN
This week at work, I spent most of my time learning new techniques in Solidworks. For example, I learned how to create multiple planes to develop sketches on and develop a feature between these two planes. This skill is important for my fiber coupling project, as I need to design a unique device the changes a polar array hole pattern into a linear array hole pattern. One of the interesting concepts of my design is that each of these holes will be isolated from each other reducing crosstalk amongst fibers. As for the coupling between the polar array of holes and the fiber bundle, I am performing an interesting DSP technique to perform this operation. First, I take a picture of a fiber bundle. After, I then take this image into MATLAB and perform a cropping and edge detection algorithm. The edge detection algorithm in this process reveals the fiber bundle’s pattern, hence allowing for the perfect development of a 1 to 1 fiber coupler. One thing that I still have not figured out is how to exactly map the hole pattern, although I think I can perform some sort of curved cut. I will continue working on trying to develop and implement this next week.
One other part of my week was attending a seminar for the book, “Only the Longest Threads,” by Tasneem Zehra Husain. One cool part of the book is that it is a fictional book about all of physics biggest discoveries. Each chapter of the book details a different discovery from the point of view of not the “Famous Discover” but, the graduate and PhD students performing the work leading up to the discovery. A little about the author, Husain is a Pakistani string theorist working in Cambridge, United States of America, on new theoretical physicists concepts. Husain highlighted that one of the most important parts about the book was developing the idea, science is a group effort! She highlights this by, giving the perspective of the people who developed and performed the experiments that lead to a discovery. After reading the first two chapters of the book, I find this concept artfully developed! Additionally, the book has a very nice introduction to physics concepts for that of any interested person in the field.
Berlin, Germany
This week, I went to Berlin, Germany! The city had tons to see. Additionally, while I was in Berlin there was a festival of lights, which I was able to see. The trip was awesome, I will list of few things I saw below, along with a short description.
German Buildings
During my time in Berlin, I had taken a 6 hour walking tour of Berlin. The tour visited various places such as museum island, Berlin church, Checkpoint Charlie, Ghost Stations, the Brandenburg Gate, the Silent Library, the Jewish memorial and the Reichstag. Throughout the tour, our guide from Pittsburgh described all the intricate details of German history for each these monuments. I will try to do a quick review for some of these buildings:
Checkpoint Charlie
Checkpoint Charlie was the crossing point between the Western sector of Berlin(American Side) to the Eastern sector of Berlin(Soviet Side). During my visit to the replica checkpoint in Berlin various signs were up all around describing what I just said above, in Russian/English. Additionally, “American Soldiers”(Dressed up Germans) were standing in front of the checkpoint for photos(4 euros each).
Ghost Station
A ghost station is a metro station in central Berlin that was shut down to disallow easy travel between Eastern and Western Berlin. At each ghost station, a wall was placed in front of all easily accessible entrances. The only people able to access these stations were members of the Ministry of State Security who would keep watch of the metro tunnels. The reason why people had to do this is the Soviet party had fears, that if enemies were to attack they would come from the underground system. One problem with this system was the tunnels were left open for border guards to travel. Hence, many guards would just cross the border to West Germany from East Germany to enjoy the freedoms of that side. After Soviets saw this happening, a wall was put up against all train station platforms with peep holes for officers to continue watch but not travel to get to the tunnels. As an additional layer, guards were watching each other for out of line behavior eliminating radical thoughts of escape.
Silent Library
The silent library is a memorial to the books that were burned by a group of students removing any freethought books from school libraries during the Soviet era. Just as no one can go back and turn back time of the removal of all these books, the silent library is an underground memorial unreachable to anyone. The memorial is viewed through a small glass window in the ground, which one can see 4 huge book shelves empty.
Jewish Memorial
The Jewish memorial is a memorial to the events of the Holocaust. The memorial is a huge sight which looks like a 2D histogram(bunch of piled up stone at different locations). One interesting idea about the whole memorial is there are no signs that indicate what is this place. Therefore, people can roam free about it without the knowledge of properly respecting the memorial. An idea as to why this is done is to signify the duty of bystanders to stop other people’s erroneous actions, which lacked during the rise of the Nazi party. Another interesting idea of the memorial is the different stacking heights of the blocks in the memorial. One interpretation of this is to signify the amount of bodies stacked into different graves. Lastly, the whole memorial has no described meaning, so any interpretations can be made(Take a look at picture to make your own).
Potsdam
Potsdam is a royal city built with many different palaces amongst the city for the Prussian Kings. Normally, people usually spend 8 hours here, since I had a tour, I only had about an hour. Hence, I had to rush through a lot of buildings in a small amount of time. First when I got into the town, I saw one of the magnificent little piazza with a bright pink color throughout the whole region(Interesting to see the color changes from Berlin to Potsdam, going from grays and black to pinks and light blues). As I walked from the piazza, I found a whole little town with restaurants, groceries and tons other things. After walking through the town, I reached the park where the one palace I saw was present. The palace was amazing, there was a beautiful fountain display in the middle, a small vineyard in front of the palace and an open air theater in the back of the palace. After seeing this palace, I had to sprint right back to the train station to make my illuminated tour!
Festival of Lights
The Berlin Festival of Lights was by far the coolest part of my trip. Two Berlin light groups started this festival, illuminating various monuments around Berlin. Every year the groups develop a theme for the festival, this year the themes were, Light Connects and Light Crosses Cultures. I am not going to describe all the various illuminated monuments, it is better to just take a look through all the cool pictures that I have taken! One that I am just going to point out is the green map on a wall, which is actually an illumination of the subway map of Berlin.
Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial (Stasi Political Prison)
The Hohenschönhausen Memorial is the political prison used by the Stasi to hold political prisoners. Some reasons for being thrown in this prison were any anti East Berlin action, such as plans to cross the border, protesting in East Berlin and not doing your fair share of work. The prison was setup for isolation of all prisoners, therefore no human connections can form and you start to break down. During prisoner's’ time in the prison, the only person you were allowed to talk to was your interrogator. These interrogators had one goal which was to flesh out an other East Berlin defectors. Since prisoners did not talk to anyone else many times connections would form between interrogators and prisoners, hence Stockholm Syndrome would take effect, resulting in giving up information.
Food
During my time in Berlin, I was able to have Berlin's classic currywurst two times during my trip. For those not familiar, currywurst is basically sausage steamed and fried, kind of like a hot dog. Aside from currywurst, I had a great dish of pork loin and vegetables for dinner with some special German sauce. As for breakfast, I had a Berliner, which is a jelly donut making fun of a speech given by John F. Kennedy(search up for more info). Finally for my last meal in the airport, I had a Salmon burger!
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