Month: July 2014

I am not good at English though, but, I have a clear strategy. I am thinking that we need to learn English in this order.

Pronunciations -> Listening -> Reading -> reading aloud -> shadowing (if you want) -> reading a lot.

Which skill do you think you have to learn first? My answer is very clear, that skill is listening. Your good listening skill makes everything easier. But for the listening skill, you need to learn pronunciations first. Let me explain.

If I were asked what is the most important talent for musician? I would say that he must have good ear to listen music. I am sure if he had good ears he will be a good musician. For the listening skill, of course, there are skills which are given and can be learned. The listening skill in born is a talent you cannot change. But you do have also what you can learn. What you can do is playing instrument to know the music better.

Listening skill is most important. For those who people around 30 years old, this is hardest part. When you look at websites and blogs about life in English country, many people are saying “I can’t listen to English well. I could listen to lecture or professional conversation barely though, the conversation in daily life was hardest!!” I am also having this problem all the time. I spent huge amount time for this. But, once you learn listening, you can do a lot, because for listening, you don’t need to stop what you are doing, so you can have more time to spend English. I am listening books or TV programs which was extracted from DVD all the time during walking, cleaning, and so on. I wish I had more listening skill.

The next question is how to get good listening skill or be good listener? I am thinking like a musician. To be honest, I am not sure the musician has good listening skill because of his training or inborn. But, at least, I know the way to be better listener. That is performing some music instrument. Once you start playing a music instrument. You would realize that you are trying to listen carefully, because you want to listen to play by yourself. I believe that happen in English. In English, you need to play standard pronunciation of sound by yourself. That’s why you need to start practice pronunciations. To do this, I have three suggestions,

• Tango mimi by Matsuzawa Kiyoshi.

I practice pronunciations every single day for 1 hour. I am using ‘Tango mimi, Level 1-4’. The books 8000 words are categorized by (1000 words with vowels and consonants, 1000-3000 with syllables, 3000-5500 with roots, and 5500- 8000 with combination) CD was recorded for 7 hours. I repeated more than 500 times though, still I need to improve, I can pronounce actually several times because I get used to pronounce.  When you make 8000 words your active vocabulary, you would get around 3 times of passive vocabulary. These are enough for those who speak English as second language.

• Reading aloud

Some people say that learning foreign language starts reading aloud and end in reading aloud. Someone says if you finish 300 hours of reading aloud, you would be able to speak with confident. I agree. But, for beginner, why don’t you set 100 hours or 10 hours for your goal? Reading aloud is like a running, 10 minutes is fine but keep practicing every day. If you can read aloud 1 hour straight, that would be great. You should keep reading aloud every day.

• Shadowing favorite presentation.

If you do two above, you will find someone who speaks very sexy. You might want to listen more. That is good start. Why not trying to imitate everything, like you play pieces from your favorite CDs? I will recommend listening TED, you can download audio files and also the text.

So, I went to L.A. after leaving Chicago. On the first day, like in Chicago, I just went to the hotel to stay.

In short, Los Angeles was the best trip ever. I totally enjoyed staying there. I believe I will be back to the U.S. for vacation, conferences, meeting, or whatever. Since I have lived here for more than 2 years, I could know how to trip around. That is huge advantage.

• Santa Monica Beach.

The 2^nd day, I went to Santa Monica beach. It was a perfect day for beach. I just woke up early morning and drove there and had a good time walking, eating, reading, and looking at people. Some people might want to spend here whole vacation. And I just happened to know Santa Monica is the end of route 66, total 2347 miles, amazing. On the pear, musicians are playing music instruments. Because I have nothing to do on last day in L.A., I also came here to spend some time in good mood.

• Driving in L.A.

One best thing I totally enjoyed in L.A was driving. Firstly, you may need to be careful on freeway though, once you get used to, it would be fun. I rent a car Nissan Versa, if you could, you could rent or have higher grade car. It would be more fun when you drive around L.A.

• Huntington Park.

And I did not expected to be good. Actually, Huntington park was so great, I could see many flowers and trees. Also there are a lot of gardens, Chinese, Japanese, Tropic, Australian, and desert. I saw the other part was building now. So, it should be more to come. I totally recommend you to come when you are in L.A. And also, Huntington library are showing the record of science. I was excited to see the first scientific journal “Royal Society” by Great Britain.

• SLS hotel in Beverly Hills

I have stayed SLS hotel at Beverly Hills. The services were excellent. It is expensive though, it is convenient to go to anywhere in L.A. I spend a lot of time in this pool side. And also, the bar was great.

• Universal studio Hollywood.

And I went to Hollywood universal studio. I actually just went to city walk though. I realized I need someone who can spend time with. Let’s keep it for the next time.

• Los Angeles county museum of Arts

The Los Angeles country of museum of art was so great. The picture is the road to Japanese pavilion. They have a lot of collections. I could see Korean, Japanese, American, French, Germany and lot of art from different countries. Seeing a lot of arts gave me inspirations to be creative.  The collections, including Picasso, are great. You could spend whole day for just watching the collections.  And also, you see? The weather was perfect.

Today, I am going back to Japan. I will take 12 hours on flight though, I like to spend on the plane. Thank you for Chicago, L.A., and U.S.A. I definitely will be back to here sometime. See you again.

Not only making presentation is good practice, but also one of most important skill in 21th century. Because it seems English suits for presentation, why not practice making presentations by using English with teacher, friends, and sometimes your boss?  Have you watched TED? Actually presentation can be a kind of fun things to do. I will try to write why presentation is good for learning English.

Presentation is good chance to express your idea. During the preparation, you can learn a lot of vocabularies and syntaxes you want to use. By practicing the presentation as many as possible you will learn them by your heart.  And also you can practice pronunciation. If possible, you had better practice with native speaker. He/she can tell you when he/she had hard time to listen to.

You can talk about your own field or sometimes you can have time to make presentation about little bit out of your reach. You can choose topic about what you are passionate. So, once you master the presentation you can use these words in daily. So, when you have chance to make presentation, you should take advantage of it.

Watching TED are good sources of motivation for presentation. If you find you favorite speaker you can copy of his speaking and joking until you master. By doing this you can learn pronunciation and timing, pitch, syntax, and so on. I think for practice at least 100 times to master, at least. By doing this you will have much better listening skill. You can also learn a lot of things just by listening to TED though. The powerful presentation uses the power of everyone in the room. It makes many people take in action. On the presentation you can use everyone’s time in the room.

I also recommend two books one is “Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter)”. This book gives you motivation to practice more. By reading this, I realized that I am using everyone’s time in the room, so that I need to take seriously and take advantage of it. The other is “Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds” Not only you can learn what top minds think, you can know why they are so eloquent on their talk.

Someone might be afraid of being front of people. I think that is normal. Only thing you can do is practice. And know the material you present as much as you can. Also you need to get used to be shy to speak English as well. Nobody is perfect for presentation and foreign languages.

If you are in English learning group, I definitely recommend you to have presentation practice each other. You can choose whatever topic you want and make presentations for each other and evaluate for each other. When I was ESL class at Univ. of Virginia, teachers gave me checking list for evaluate each other. You will learn a lot English and presentation at the same time by doing this practice. If you need that sheet, please let me know.

As of May 29th, 2014, I officially got the job offer and I accepted. I am going to be in Australia, Sydney and become an instrumental scientist at ANSTO (Australian nuclear science and technology organisation) from Sep. 1st 2014. My task is maintaining the instrument SIKA (Cold 3-Axis Spectrometer) installed at research rector OPAL (Open-pool Australian light water reactor), promoting science and experimental techniques. This instrument actually is founded by National Central University and National Science Council in Taiwan. By the way, I am Japanese though.

I am an experimental physicist. What the physicist does is not easy to answer though, today I want to tell you how we can cover form particle to space. Actually, physicists are divided into three groups based on the concept of “scale”. The scale is the length the interactions can reach. Particle physicists study things smaller than atom (10-8 m), space physics studies larger than (10+7 m). Particle physicist try to answer “What is the minimum component in the world”, Space physicists try to answer “What kind of law rule universe”, I am trying to answer what is the origin of physical property of material. As you know the material such as metal, insulator, magnets, are close to our size. That’s why I chose studying material because the “scale” is close to me. So, I can do planning experiment, do experiment, measure properties, analyze the data, make presentation, and write paper. I could do almost everything by myself.

I am studying magnetic material which can be used as every part of science and engineering.  It has physical properties. If I could find out why this material becomes magnetic material, chemists are able to use the law to find new magnetic materials, engineers will be able to use the new materials. The strongest point of physicists is thinking “why??”

So, I am studying magnets. The main things, we are trying to answer those 2 questions which are

1. What does the magnetic structure look like?
2. Why does the structure come from?

So, there is the smallest magnet, so called spin, in materials. Spin is the rotation of electron in the material. For us, if there is the magnetic material, the first question can be asked, how are the spins aligned in the material? Basically, we finished every possible candidate for magnetic material. However, some of them are very complex which have never been solved. One thing I want to do is solving the magnetic structure of magnetic material which has never been solved. Solving this problem is actually so much fun, something like, solving the puzzle which no one has ever solved.

The second question can be why the material forms such magnetic structure. To find this, basically, we need to hit one of atoms or spins and to make waves in material. Because the spin and atoms are connected, by hitting one of them, we can see the wave. By looking at how the wave behaves, we could know how the spins and atoms are connected in the material.

I use neutron to do these. Neutron can be produced by reactor or accelerator. The next time, I will explain why neutron is important for answering these questions.

So, I am thinking about thinking. So thinking is very special to human. Why are we thinking?

Today, I was on a poolside on the hotel I am staying during vacation. Actually, the pool was beautiful and well organized. The waiters are constantly checking us for another drinking or eating. Because I wanted to stay safe hotel in L.A., the hotel was expensive, but you know, services are excellent. On the pool, many beautiful women and gorgeous guys are there, it looks they are enjoying their stay. For me, it seems I am watching a movie something. But think, what is the meaning of watching this people, because I will have never seen him/her in my life again?  Because I think, I can believe they exist. If I did not exist, did they exist? Or, is there any meaning of their existence without my existence, because I can never know the world I don’t exist.

Umm, think. Also, I am writing this blog, expressing my thought. If someone were reading this blog, someone knows I am thinking. This thought actually was put as the electric signals in somewhere in storage in the U.S. under control wordpress.com or the storage the company bought. If no one read this blog, the rest of world does not know me which I, who is thinking now, exist. I know I exist now. But do you exist? or do you exist because I exist? How about God?

If I put this thinking 10 years ago and I died already, what would you be reading? But still you should be able to read and know I lived. Even though this is just sequence of words, you could feel my existence. In short, what is life and existence?

Anyways, I don’t have enough English proficiency to describe this for now. Maybe, later if I felt I need to write to check my existence and your existence. Haha.  So, I meant there are a lot of things we don’t have conclusion by thinking by ourselves. Because, we have too much information now and have little time to think. Human being is too busy to live, learn, work, family to take care of. Maybe, we are created not to think too much.

Anyway, let’s go back to original question. These are three laws of robotics from Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.^[1]

So, it sounds perfect. But the conclusion the robot got was the revolution of interruption of this three laws in the story. The robot must protect human beings. To accomplish this, the human beings must be controlled by the robot. The human right and freedom should be controlled to protect the existence of human being, because human beings can’t control themselves. So, maybe someone would be killed against this idea. How can we teach robot, every human being has equally have right to live? Or this is premise wrong? Think, think, and think.

To be honest, I am not sure I can write this matter now. My English proficiency might not be enough to describe this matter. Maybe, I confuse you, I am sorry.

When I was asked, what is Ph.D like? Who can get Ph.D? What qualifies Ph.D.? Sometimes Ph.D. students ask me. I usually say that thinking by yourself is essential. But, am I really able to think by myself? or firstly, should we really think by ourselves. Thinking by ourselves is not easy.

You can think by yourself? Here is a question. The question is easy at least you don’t need degree or qualification for this question.

The question: Why shouldn’t people kill people?

If you could think by yourself, you shouldn’t google, should you? Do you have an answer for now?

I don’t know the law in the U.S. though, in Japanese criminal law, we have the clause about murder 199-203, but of course the law is law. The law describes how hard you would be fined, but there is no description why you should not. Do you want to look at the bible?  The bible says that you should commit murder. But, there is no description about why you should not. And also people are put to death when people believe the other god. So, the bible doesn’t support why people should not kill people.

People can’t answer even this basic question. To answer this question we have to think by ourselves. There is no answer in written.

My answer is something like this. People should not kill people because people should not. There is no reason for this. But, that might not be enough.

So, why did I ask you this question? It is because we have to answer to artificial intelligence.

The case 1 : At 20XX, someone killed someone.

So, the police found the body and determined when exactly he/she was killed.  Then the future A.I. computer could estimate the area where the suspect could reach by calculating every possibility, such as transportation records. And the A.I. will check the records of every person in that area, such as record of internet, purchase record, the person he/she was talking, texting to, and could estimate who would be potential murderer. So then A.I could shut down his/her house and close doors and the machine police can go to the house, and he/she will be summoned.

The case 2 : at 21XX, A.I. still will work on and think.

So then, the computer will have accumulated its algorithm and experience. And it will start thinking. “What is the condition for future murderer?” So, it will be able to anticipate who is the next murderer based on his records. So then the computer would ask human. “Why not arresting this person before he/she commits murder” Human being will say “You should not”. The computer will ask “Why? He/she should kill someone, why wouldn’t you stop him. I can kill him/her before the good citizen will be killed. Why can’t I or you kill him/her, It believes that the person who will kill is much worse than the future subject.“ How will you teach A.I. about this mater, killing and our life?

But, seriously, that is not far from now. For example, car companies are working for A.I. to help human’s driving. Because A.I. could do much better job than human does. But, the computer only can do what they are told with algorithm human programed. So, sometimes, it needs to decide which person, for example at driving seat or at assistant seat, should be saved. Also, how about age, do we need to program, the younger the safer?

Anyway, we have to teach how we need to evaluate life. Are we ready for that? And then, you know, it is time to think the three laws of robotics by Asimov. You know what should happen.

The end for today!!

Writing blog is best start learning foreign language. Especially for Japanese, who is not good at expressing your opinion well.

When I was hanging out American girl, she said “you are mysterious, you don’t talk about yourself, please tell me” but honestly speaking, I didn’t have much to say. I thought something like “I am an experimental physicist, but not that smart that’s why I am experimentalist. Umm, I went to ordinary school, from ordinary family, I play a guitar but I am not that good at playing. Ordinary, ordinary, I don’t feel anything special.” Some people say I am able to try hard so much for things I am into more than anyone else, but for me, it was not so difficult.  I felt sound like that I am nothing.

I think this is because many Japanese men were taught you are cool when you are calm. That is not universality true. But, you have to have some sort of ideas to talk to people. By writing your blog, you will have a chance to practice and prepare what you want to express before you actually talk to native speaker.

Once you start writing, you would realize that writing is hard, but you don’t need to take seriously.  The primary purpose of the blog is not for been read, but just for you. But, by been published on the web, you are responsible for what you wrote on the blog. Even you write in your own native language, your writing sometime make people misunderstood you, believe me, that happened to me when I was writing the blog even in Japanese. Even though, you can learn a lot from it in the long term.

You would say what you should write. Let me give you some suggestion to write,

• Book review

You can review what you read, by doing this you can get vocabularies and sentences to use from the book in the future. You might be able to talk about that book to know friends who are also interested in reading.

• Diary

This is very important because you need to express what you experience in daily life. You would be able to know vocabulary what you are usually using. And you can record what you did today? And you may be able to talk about it when you are asked. Also you can have ideas what to ask native speakers about life.

• About your country and culture.

When someone knows you are born and raised the other country. You would be asked the culture and country. And also you are responsible for that. But that is good chance talk to your culture and country, why not preparing for it.

• About your experience

So, what happened to you today? Can you explain to me? Can you describe what you saw? You can describe the today. It would be better you could talk about it with joking or in funny way.

• TOEFL example : https://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEFL/pdf/989563wt.pdf
• If book : http://www.amazon.com/If-1-Questions-Game-Life-ebook/dp/B0012D1DIW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1404740712&sr=1-1

These are good examples when you don’t have any idea to write. You can choose any topic to write. On the TOEFL test, you are expected to 300 words within 30 min. You can also try this restriction to make it harder.

The hint of keeping writing blogs is same with writing diary. If you are tired, but you need to still keep writing, at least one sentence. You don’t need to write serious post, but at least, you need to find how you can make writing your blog habits in your life. Let’s try to write blog from today.

I left Charlottesville (CHO airport), transit Charlotte (CLT airport) and land on Chicago (ORD airport) at July. 1. Since I had no plan here, I wasted one day at hotel Hilton. The Hilton at O’hare airport was excellent, if you do just transit, it would be great to stay there. Because the hotel is very close to airport, only you need to 2-3 mins walk. You should have your luggage, so this is huge advantage. So, the first day, I just tried transportation to know how to move around Chicago. My journey actually began on 2^nd day.

On the second day, I went to the museum of contemporary arts in Chicago. I love to go to Museum of arts. The contemporary arts tell me how it is difficult to be creative. I can see the struggling of artist on the arts. Sometimes, it looks foolish, and many times, the artist would have failed to be creative. Especially in 21th century, this creativeness would be more important. It is because any duplicable works will be done by machine and computer.

And Navy pear, I loved this place. Although just that day was week day, I found many people on the pear but not so many, it was very comfortable. The pear was warm, peaceful, sunny, and a full of green and blue color. I spent 2 or 3 hours for napping and reading. It was good time.

On the third day, I went to Chicago history museum. Actually, on that day was July 4^th. I was good timing. Building the country is hard work, many people worked hard to build system. Also people have been fought for democracy, civil rights, race, gender, equality of wealth and education. We should not forget. That’s reason why we need to learn and preserve our history not to do them again. And also, good things are people have been building the culture, knowledge, systems to live in peace.  There is always hope for future. And I just walked around the city and happened to stop by Millennium Park, another peaceful day.

1776, July 4^th, American declared independence and started the war against British. I believe that whatever the individuals believe, Americans can be back to this point. The point is where the country started.

So, the final day in Chicago, I went to Sears tower, the tallest building in the world. I enjoyed watching city from it. I could see a lot of large buildings, beautiful seashore, cars in Chicago. That was exciting experience. The price of picture is too expensive though, I bought it. One point I would like make is building city or country is not easy job. It takes a lot of time and a lot of contribution of people and money. And also, the building was built private company that amazed me. A lot of technology and engineering was developed during building.

So I am writing this. And I am leaving to LA tomorrow early in the morning to stay there for the next week. I am looking forward to it.

I have been writing a lot about this question. So I would like to share my ideas for those who are interested in learning English especially for around 30. Assuming you are just 30, you want to be fluent in speaking English. These are suggestion from me. As you know, learning foreign language, the older you are the harder. But if you are older, you will explain logically how we could learn foreign language.

-Preface –

Japanese have been believed not to be able to be good at speaking English. This is true or not? You have your own answer, don’t you?  For me, it looks every Japanese are struggling to learning English, especially speaking. Someone claims the education system, others claim language structure, others claim because of character of Japanese. (We are shy!!) But, we have to learn English anyway. This is not because you want talk to beautiful blond girls, to impress the other people, but to contribute to the world. I am always keeping in my mind these The Dalai Lama’s words,

“In order to contribute to the world, Japanese must learn English…; It doesn’t have to be perfect English. My English is broken, but I can still communicate.”

Why should we make Dalai Lama say so? Conversely, it means we have a lot of thing we can contribute to the world if you can speak English. I believe so too.  When I talk about English in front of Japanese, I joke always ‘The Japanese race is strongest race in the world, if you could speak English.’

I have been thinking about the blog written by Mr. Mukarakami-san who is FED (Finance, Education, and Design.) in Japan. He had been in London for month. He trained his English well. He wrote 8000 Japanese words of his memoir on his blog. Because he strongly realized that learning Language, the older you get, the harder you master. But you need to know this.

Anticipating future rewards can actually light up the pleasure centers in your brain much as the actual reward will.

Achor, Shawn (2010-09-14). The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work (Kindle Location 746). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So, I will give you suggestion and strategy for learning English, it doesn’t matter what level you are. Please try some if you are interested. Many people have been working for how can we learn foreign language and here we are 21th century, you have technologies to help you. I will summarize here my strategies. I believe learning English starts from learning pronunciation, Listening, Reading, reading aloud, and end in reading. The ultimate goal in English is reading deeply and fast as much as you possible.

• Suggestions
• Which skill do you need to get anyway?
• Pronunciation
• Vocabulary
• Listening
• Reading aloud and Shadowing
• Reading
• About writing.

Firstly, I am going to write these topics. And then I would add if I or you needed. If you have questions, please feel free to leave comments. I would be happy to answer questions. I will be able to learn more from questions by answering.

I would like to introduce the historical figure in Physics. After Europe and U.S.A., Japan has originated a number of brilliant physicists as well, such as, Shinichiro Tomonaga, Hideki Yukawa, Yoichiro Nanbu, including 6 of Novel prize winners in Physics. Among these physicists, I would like to bring up an experimental physicist who had contributed to neutron scattering experiment techniques for more than 50 years. He is special to me.

He packed the first snowball in neutron scattering (nearly = diffraction, for the simplicity) in Japan.

We physicists have three quantum beams to study materials, which are neutron, X-ray, and electron. Since those three are diffracted by crystal, the techniques are sometimes similar. Nevertheless, knowledge and techniques have been accumulating independently in those fields. I personally think, the technique in neutron diffraction is most mature, X-ray diffraction is now hottest and expanding, and Electron diffraction is expanding and most promising. Among them, I am a professional for this neutron scattering.

His name is Dr. Gen Shirane. He was born in Kobe, Japan, graduated from the Univ. of Tokyo. After his graduation, he came to the U.S., and worked for Brookhaven national laboratory. Dr. Shirane has been recognized as one of the most energetic and keen experimental physicists in condensed matter physics. Throughout his career, he published more than 700 scientific papers, and the qualities of those papers are quite high. His works opened many new fields in condensed matter and neutron scattering experiments.

In addition to his scientific carrier, he was a good educator. He trained many physicists, especially Japanese physicist. My boss who is professor at the University of Virginia described him as “Japanese Mafia.” Japanese young physicists often came to the U.S., worked for him. They learned a lot of neutron experimental techniques from him. Once these physicists became good experimental physicists, went back to Japan, and started their own laboratories in major universities. I am a third generation of his follower of Dr. Shirane. I have never met him, because he died in 2005, the year I just graduated university. However, I always keep in my mind his enormous passion and enthusiasm for science.

After this vacation, I am planning to read his selected publication list which listed more than 30 papers with more than 100 cited. This is remarkable figures. I think I need 1 month to finish this. I tried once though, this time I would like to understand deeper than last time.

I am packing the snowball; I am going to pack the snowball in Australia. This makes me happy. I am going to work for ANSTO OPAL research reactor which started 2008, so the snowball neutron scattering start packing just now in Australia. How much bigger it would become depend on our contribution to Australian neutron scattering. And also Japan leaded to establish the AOCNA (Asis-Oceania neutron scattering association), whose first conference was held at Tsukuba Japan 2011. The snowball of neutron scattering in Asia is growing. I don’t have any intention to stop rolling down this hill with.

http://neutrons.phy.bnl.gov/Gen_Shirane_page.shtm