Month: February 2014

 The Japan prime mister Shinzo Abe said ‘Japan must become a place where women shine’ at world economic forum (so-called Davos Meeting). That is true. Women can change even the way of working, the meaning of working, and what the society is look like. But, it seems we need more time and contribution. There are several hints from the article in Economist.

Throughout 20^th century, the industrial age ended for the most part in the developed countries. Now, the world is going to the next stage; innovation is required for  companies. The conventional company is now struggling to be innovative. It needs new ideas from women to survive the 21st century.

A woman entrepreneur Tory Burch argues that the world needs more women entrepreneurs. It is because women entrepreneurs could open totally new markets. Their ideas can produce totally new items even that men cannot think of. This is the so-called blue ocean strategy. While the red ocean is full of competitive companies, the blue ocean is entirely new market where only new companies swim. The management of companies also could be changed wholly. Women can understand well the problems women workers have, such as, child care, health problem, and family issues.

The problem is how to support the new women start up. When it comes to finance, it is said that women face harsh hurdles because of a lack of regulations and gender bias. Small loans can make a big difference. It might be time to think about setting up foundation for women entrepreneur version of Gramin bank?

While some women entrepreneurs are breaking in, other women are climbing the ladder to the top of Fortune 500 companies. Mary Barra was appointed as GM’s next CEO recently. She is the first female CEO in the company’s history. People call her ‘Detroit’s first lady’. She is also an engineer and knows cars very well. Even though the market is very competitive, she will give new insights to the Car Company, offer new perspective on technology, and open new markets. She is very important for women in workplace. She is not just CEO of large company; she can be a role model.

Sheryl Sandburg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, is the most famous woman in Silicon Valley. She wrote a book called “Lean in” to explain why so few women reach the top in business and politics. She is one of the most successful women in this age. Her message to ‘Lean in’ persuades women to be more engaged in the work place. She also explains that the work place needs to be more responsible for better working environment for women.

‘Lean in’ appeared exactly 50 years after ‘The Feminine Mystique’, an iconic book written by activist Betty Friedan. Still, women need to be brave to stand up. Gender is still an uncomfortable subject even in America.

The references

l  Why the world needs women entrepreneurs

http://www.economist.com/news/21589133-investing-businesswomen-will-boost-economy-everyone-says-tory-burch-chief-executive-and

l  Detroit’s first lady

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21591649-car-giants-new-boss-not-only-woman-car-guy-detroits-first-lady

l  The feminist mystique

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21573524-what-must-change-women-make-it-top-feminist-mystique

 I got several texts lately from someone. I personally don’t know so much about her. However, I might not see her, because I don’t like the way of her writing. Her texts have a lot of abbreviated words. Not only I am having hard time to read and understand, but also it sounds awkward. How do you feel when you read texts or emails which have a lot of abbreviated words, such as bc = because, r = are? I do not see any intelligence and sense of beauty and sound. I am feeling so, while I am listening Bach: Invention No.13 A minor BMW 784. I am not a classics person though. I don’t think this is because I am reading a foreign language. That happens also in Japanese. It seems I got old enough to claim the beauty of language.

I keep researching the instrument which is so called ‘Triple axes spectrometer’ which was invented by Bert Brockhouse (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1994) at Chalk River in Canada. The instrument is used at reactors to study several kinds of excitations in materials, magnetic structure analysis, and so on. This instrument is used at neutron scattering experiment. It seems several points to make this instrument better.

1. Back ground.

As experimental physicists, firstly, we are expecting to observe something which might be anticipated by theory or which might not. However, we do not know ‘something’ before we observe. The signals from ‘something’ sometimes are much weaker than we expect. So, the best we can do is to reduce the noise in the process on the experiment as the least as we can. This is also applicable for the triple axes spectrometer. We have to check the experimental environment carefully, keep finding out the cause of background of the experiment. It takes for 1-2 years, because the neutron is the quantum particle, we can’t actually see it. It comes sometimes like crowds.

2. Focusing

Triple axes mean ‘monochromator, sample, and analyzer’. Using monochrometor, we monochromize the neutron beam, which make us know what kind of beam we are using for incident, and let neutrons scatter by sample, then analyze the scattered neutrons by using analyzer. By analyzing the beam, we can know what kind of beam we get as the final. Since, the condition for sample changes when we change our sample. We have to do focusing every time we do experiment. We have to get the best focusing condition for the monochrometer and analyzer at the same time. We need to get the best conditions for monochrometer and analyzer ready for the experimentalist.

3. Software

You might wonder why physicist cares about the software, but the experimental user friendly software is sometime crucial to observe new phenomena. Even we are trying to find ‘something’ keenly, too much information or too less information sometimes make us look the other way. Also it is important to have the software which is easy to use, understand, and prevent us from humanly mistakes.

I will study this subject further. I am going to use Triple axes spectrometer so long time, I think it worth spending a lot of my time.