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I have been reading books about Dr Richard Feynman. He is one of best American physicist in history. His life is very interesting to me both as human being and scientist. I am not sure there is correlation between hardship on life people have and great achievement they can achieve. But at least, because of the hardships, people might think deeper and can have philosophy of life.

Then, I am reading book about Elon Musk. His life is also interesting. I think I would like to read biographies more. These biography books give me energy when I work on difficult problems. The problem is once I read one biography, I normally find 2-3 book to read next. After Elon Musk, I would like to re-read about “Howard Hughes”, “Warren Buffet”, or “Albert Einstein” for sure. I know there is more to come.

From Feynman, this time what I learned is “ignorant” as a scientist. If scientist doesn’t have answer to a problem, he is ignorant.This is strong words but I do understand now. Physicist does best because we are using very fundamental elements to prove our hypothesis, still it is insanely difficult. I am sometimes asked my boss, what is the problem? I can’t say I am not sure because there should be somewhere the reason. As a professional scientist I have to find out what the problem is and fix it, at worst I need to make sense. I am trying to avoid ignorance whenever we do experiment, we have now a lot of black box, such as electronics and software, we can run experiment but we can never get anywhere until I understand them very well.

The other thing is this “Scientist does not know the answer social problem because normally social problem is much harder than science.” This made very sense to me this might be long term question I was wandering these days. I was wandering by reading a lot of writing on the web,  why are they so sure what they know? How can you possibly conclude that? I was feeling like why people think they are so smart because I can see a lot of statement on the web in this internet age. People are talking and always convince someone based on never tested hypothesis, to me sometime it looks insane, even Physics is not easy, making decision in real life is a lot more tough.

Today, we stayed at lab little late like 11 p.m. or so. Since we measured the sample 40K and wanted cool back down to 0.1K, it took so long time to get there. We are using so called dilution fridge with 3He to reach below 1K, we finally reach 0.8K and we think it is going to go 0.1K  so we left after we put long scan for tonight. Hopefully we have good data by tomorrow.

I am working from April 27th so I am bit tired. I am going to be back Sydney 10th of May. I have learned a lot last two weeks. I am now motivated to improve the capability on instrument to pursuits more higher level of science. And I also started thinking how we could make our Canadian group in Australia. The neutron scattering group in university is very important because students can learn how to operate neutron scattering instrument and would grow up as professors later. And then, they will have other students under him/her. It takes very much time but this is like snowball.

 

I haven’t written here but I am having a lot of new craft beers and whiskey here. All Canadian team like to have beers. So every night after experiments, they are looking for a place to drink beers. It is fun actually to find my own favorites. The U.S. has huge number of craft beer brand from small companies to big companies. I remember the small college town Charlottesville in Virginia, where I used to live, has many craft beers. I got one from Charlottesville but I forgot the name. I got the other one for fridge in hotel yesterday.

Let’s talk about whisky. They like whisky as well of course. We had tour in Washington D.C. we went to whiskey bar, we enjoyed whiskey there. I got highland park 12 years. I was reading article from Bloomberg, Australian are making really expensive but small amount of whiskey at Tasmania, $600 per bottle? I became interested in I need to have it when I come back to Sydney.

Japanese are making good whiskey now you should try it. And also, Japanese started making local craft beers which is good and like in the U.S. and Canada, we will have big movement for craft beers in next 5-10 years I guess as we could see in these counties. I am hoping find good one in Japan when I visit there next time. And also Japanese are now making sparkling sake. I like them too.

By the way, I am little bit about worrying about Australian economy since Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) decreased cash rate 0.25 percent and this is the third time last 15 months. This is not good in long term. Of course RBA has to do that for stimulate economy in short term but…. Since I came to Australia, I felt awkward about this country and started looking at monetary policy and economy. Because housing and prices are super expensive. And, I looked at market and top 30 companies in market capitalization, I soon realized this country is going to be very bad when China went wrong because one third of trade of Australia is with China. I have not trained as economist but I could see something wrong. I can write some here but I would like to be careful because this is happening.

The problem is if Australia went wrong, I don’t know how this country would come back because they don’t have anything to export other than commodities (which no one want to buy when economy is bad). And the debt each households in here have is huge. I wanted to watch each parameters carefully but this is not my job and I don’t have much time for that. I hope my worry does not become true. But I believe this is inevitable because no country can’t avoid the cycle of economy. Anyways, there is nothing I can do for it.

Anyways, I am looking for plans on vacation in late August and early September. I will have been busy until then I am looking for somewhere I can escape and I can relax. I don’t want to do anything this time of vacation.

 

 

The experiment is going well. The Canadian group should be able to write nice paper to established journal. The project is mainly for new graduate student, I think he is very talented and he did good job for making single crystal. I would like to congratulate him. We are going to get additional data to prove further in Australia by the end of year, I am quite excited about it. I now realized that as an instrument scientist working at Australia, it is quite important to have good user community around this area because I am learning a lot just working with them.

Since the experiment is stable so I could have some time to analyze my data and writing paper. I finished manuscript in January and got comments from collaborators, I am now revising papers. I need to finish this as soon as possible. I have still advantages because we found new magnetic phase under pressure in some superconducting material people have never published yet. And also we have an evidence which is needed to understand more about superconductivity on this material. We are going to submit this manuscript to somewhere which has letter form paper because I want this result to be published as soon as possible. I am now trying to figure out how I can present figures on this paper because letter form paper has limitation for number of length of paper. We need short but strong description and 4 or 5 good figures make my point.

Physics today was talking about LIGO and Pluto . I stared reading Physic today recently, I thought it is good time to know other physicist are doing. And physics today are also talking about national budget, these are good source to discuss with science politics in Japan. Physics is interesting enough to work life time. What I can contribute is very small in Physics but as long as I am having fun and professional work it works better than well. I always find nice books from this Physics today, trust me, the book they pick up should be read by few people. I enjoy finding book here about education, textbook, new topics in Physics, science policy, and so on. There is always a book to read next. I remember most now “Asia’s Space Race”, maybe I am going to write something here.

After this trip, I will be having a few experiment in May in Australia. And then, I will have crane training because I have to use crane to setting up experiment. I need to have certification after I attend 5 days crane training. This is the last job to do before I become an instrument scientist, so then I can control almost all equipment on our instrument. I am looking forward to it. In June, I have one important experiment for my project. Then, in July, I have important experiment experiment in France. I’m gonna write these soon. Oh, I forgot. I am going to move in new place right after this trip, May 10th. I am a bit uncomfortable to go to new place and start new life.

 

 

I am catching up with reading what I wanted to read. Since I am learning English, I am trying to read magazines and books in English. As for magazines, I am subscribing Nikkei Asian Review, the Economist, and Physics Today from American institute of physics. I occasionally buy Foreign Affairs and Harvard Business Review. I am now enjoying these but, since English is not my native language, I forget as soon as I read them. That is sad actually.

I enjoyed The Harvard Business Review in May 2016, I can find interesting article every time I buy this magazine. I think I have a desire to be productive as a professional, even though I am a physicist, I like to learn from them about how they think about goal, achievement, managing, behavior, talent, professional, or so. I usually find one or two articles interesting.  This time I quite enjoy reading on “increasing your return on failure” and “HP’s CEO Meg Whitman”. We can’t avoid failing unless you challenge. To succeed fast we need to fail fast, that I am thinking. And I am thinking about risk a lot because of my experience huge earthquake hit in Japan 2011. I have digested the meaning of risk. And I understood a lot of people don’t understand risk because they have just never experienced the failure beyond manageable. I don’t trust people who are saying I can manage the risk. But that is another story, on this article is about what can we get most when we fail. I think I learned a lot. For the “HP’s CEO Meg Whitman”, I quite enjoyed reading how HP’s CEO (who happens to be a female she says) thinks about gender problem and senses of urgency.

For the reason I am reading Nikkei Asian Review is because I am looking carefully at ASEAN countries.  Japan and ASEAN countries should have close it is very important how these countries grow in next decade. I don’t know how China and Australia (because one third of Australia’s trade is with China) end up in this area, ASEAN countries are key to diversity and prosperity for Asia. Since I am a Japanese, I care about Japan. I need to invest more energy and money in this area from Japanese prospect.

I like to read the Economist. Sometime I envy English speaking countries because the magazine can survive because the number of subscribers of magazines are huge. I like the Economist because it has well balanced articles talking about all over the world. Some says you need to keep reading the Economist for 10 years to know world better. I understand now because  because sometime I am unaware of some countries I don’t physically communicate but the Economist makes me curious about it every week so I can look it up. By keeping doing this I think I will be able to have a good understanding what the world is like.

These magazine are good source of books to read next, I read a lot but I want read a lot more. I could pick up several books to read. I will be writing more about this issues and magazines but I am not expert so I think I am writing for myself not to forget what I have read.

I was bit off from writing, now I came back to WordPress. I think WordPress is doing very good job. I can easily write the blog here. I can’t improve my quality of writing though, I think this time I am going to write more.

I am doing experiment at NIST with collaboration with American and Canadian  group. We just started our experiment on Thursday though, I was very impressed the instrument here and our collaborators.

For the instrument, we are using an improved triple axis spectrometer which uses multiple analyzers and a lot of detectors. This instrument is obviously one generation ahead of us. The reactor at NIST is not strong as neutron source with 20 MW like OPAL reactor (also 20 MW) but they know neutron scattering experiment very well. They designed very productive instrument.

We are also working with top group from Canada. They have big school there. The way of being productive in Science is what I have learned recently. A lot of people want to catch up with them, and people think are already close but that is not true. My field, in several months, the situation changes a lot, if you are late for 6 months, your competitors finish their work and most likely to be thinking for the next. So, basically you can’t catch up forever as long as you are doing the same things.

Normally, if they are good scientists, they would improve their ideas for the next with a kind of cycle, business people might say PDCA cycle. Experiment scientists do the cycle (Idea -> Plan -> making sample -> building instrument if  we need -> building sample environment if we need -> doing experiment -> analysis -> comparison with theory -> to submit paper -> to argue paper with referee -> to publish a paper). A excellent scientist makes that a habit. Their cycles are faster, exciting, and comfortable pace for their own. But, once you lose or slow this cycle it is hard to come back. That is what I am afraid of. I need to keep pace exciting enough to be competitive because, as long as you are a rational scientist, you can only improve one parameter at each cycle, then you lose chance to contribute because someone would do that first. Untalented scientists are trapped wrong cycle and they don’t know what they are doing. (I have been seeing a lot)

I have three projects of my own, the first one is multiferroic, second one is superconductivity and magnetism, and third one is magnetism. For the first project, I am far behind since I came in this project later but it has still a lot of things to learn form literature last 10 years. That is still O.K. I am thinking I am learning for the next.  The second project is about superconductivity and magnetism, I am very competitive situation. The third project on magnetism, I think I am ahead of people but so I would like to keep this position and lead this subject. I will write these projects in here to understand better. These are very important in physics I believe for both last 100 years and next 100 years.

Since the experiment here was successful and stable now, we went to Washington D.C. I have been there several times but I still like to see massive buildings. Sumithsonian National Air and Space Museum is a must for sure. And I will keep writing tonight.

I just got approved and scheduled the travel to France, Institute Laue-Langvin (ILL) for the next experiment. I just remember I wrote this but I didn’t published last December. Since we are in serious competition, so I need to publish our data as soon as possible and I would like to step further this time of experiment. I will write that here later. The following is thoughts from last December.

I have gone to Grenoble, France during 12/1 – 12/14 to perform experiment on Institute of Laue-Langvin (ILL). ILL is the best research reactor in the world. People here work very briskly and hard. I had enjoyed so much to do experiment there. And I believe I learned a lot.

 I can’t say about the project exactly though, I am working on newly found superconductor published 2015 March. The superconductivity appears only low temperature and high pressure phase. Superconductivity and Magnetism have profound relation people have never understood. I believe this material would be one of the most important materials to reveal the relations. While I was thinking, scientist is not ready to answer the relation on this material because no one has ever done direct observation of magnetic structure under pressure and low temperature. The bottle neck for scientist is to observe the phase experimentally. Neutron scattering experiment is powerful tool to study this kind of physics however neutron scattering experiment with high pressure cell is very difficult.

 The successful rate of this kind of experiment is less than 1/3 or so, we have done amazingly well this time. I am very thankful for instrument scientists and technicians there.  There are several reasons why the experiment is difficult. One biggest reason is that it is hard to control pressure on the material, we all risk of problem extremely high while we are using research reactor so the beam time is limited. And the sample space which can be apply high pressure limited so, we need to prepare very small sample with highly well aligned. The next thing is applying pressure with Paris Edingburg cell is insitu experiment. We can increase pressure during experiment however we can’t release the pressure so once we passed the phase we wanted, basically we are not able to come back the same experiment condition. So, I had to make decision very carefully at every phase to move on next.   

Also, 10 days of experiment without rest is very hard, I had tried every idea I could have come up with has failed. Anyway, I had tried what I could do, so I don’t.

The next proposal call for ILL is next February, I will probably write some to revenge this experiment. I would have to do preparation better for next time but I think I can because I have experience now.   

I have 5 hour’s off on Sunday in Grenoble. It was good time to walking around. I went to Park Victor Hugo, since I just finished rereading Les Misérables. I was excited. The park was decorated for Christmas and there is a market there. I bought souvenir for my family and friends. And also I went there with Gondra and the scenery from there was spectacular.

I am coming back to Sydney. I will finish quick manuscript on this experiment because I would love to publish the data as soon as I can. I have several things I have to finish Sydney. I will stay in Sydney for one week and then I will be on vacation in Japan for two weeks. I am very excited.

I will write here after 6 months from there how the situation has been changed and what we are doing now.

I had just land IAD and was waiting for a ride to get hotel when I am writing this. I used to live in Virginia, I used IAD couple of times but this airport always reminds me of 2001 Space Odyssey since Dr. Floyd called his housekeeper to take care of his car at IAD from the Moon. This time for me, I am going to perform neutron scattering experiment at National Institute of Standard and Technology. I had passed tests to handle the experiment and I have onsite training, then we will do the experiment.

I don’t know whether or not I would like to write but the things I have been through recently poisoned me somehow. By reading the book from Richard Feynman, however, I realized that I was just not mature enough not even as a physicist but also as a human being. I just forgot what I should do in my life.

The thoughts I have now has changed a lot since I came to Australia. That is definitely different when I was in Japan or in the U.S.. Is that good thing? I don’t know. But obviously, I was whinging all the time.

Last three weeks were very hard. I could not have time to get any rest physically and mentally. I was working very hard for experiment while I am looking for room to rent while I was preparing for experiment in the U.S.  Finally, I caught a cold and fixed one day but my feeling was very bad. This experiment is going to be very hard so I needed to be prepared in mentally and I wasn’t sure for that. In addition, I would like to finish couple of writing, paper, proposal, and funding or so. I am writing one manuscript which is under very competitive situation.

I was talking to new friend over dinner but I was complaining the situation all the time about my situation in Australia. As far as working conditions are concerned, however, because I have now tenure, higher responsibility, and neutron scattering instrument. The things have been improved very much. Problem I was having was I think I was not seeing any challenges like I had in Japan and the U.S. and I was feeling like I am far behind of serious competition.

As a young physicist, I have a lot of thing I want to achieve but everything is, I have been feeling, getting behind. I just could not see what I have done. I realized now during flight that I am growing as a neutron inelastic scattering experimentalist far faster than anyone else in this world. By doing this, at least, in next few years, I will be able to be better than good. I should be. I should not be satisfied with situation. Compared to U.S, Japan, and Europe, the user community has to grow in Australia and Asia. These are partially my responsibility.

I will write little about this experiment, this work will be collaboration with Canadian and American, we will use highly aligned single crystal sample, apply magnetic field higher than 10T, cool the sample below 40mK, trying to find magnetic order with neutron scattering experiment. The success rate of this experiment should be very low, to reach each experiment condition is not so difficult while we need to succeed to reach these conditions at the same time within limited beam time here.

In addition to the experiment, I want to finish analyzing and writing up couple of papers which I believe very important scientific contribution. I stop writing again and again but I want to write more here to “think” which should’ve been my motivation here.

 

Firstly, I realized how easy to do international travel now. I can use my credit card issued by Australian bank as long as I can tell them where I am. I have real a US$20 but I haven’t used it for 3 days. Since the USD is very strong now I don’t want to see the bill now. But I will get per-diem by USD, it should be O.K. Since I found it is easy to travel to the U.S., if you want to travel for vacation, please let me know, I would love to join.

The goal of this trip is collecting data for local structure analysis. I can’t say the project but I am measuring one of Type-1 multiferroic and also frustrated magnetic materials by using so called Pair Density Function analysis techniques (PDF). The PDF analysis is kind of new techniques to structure of material. Originally, it was developed for disordered materials such as, gasses, amorphous, liquid, glasses, and so on to see the short range order of materials. I am applying it for crystallized materials which are long range. Actually by definition, the crystal orders infinite range. If you are familiar about scattering techniques on material science, you should know Rietveld analysis method. Basically, Rietveld analysis cares Bragg scattering which is, by definition, the intensity is coming from infinitive layers in crystal. However, PDF doesn’t care about Bragg scattering, we are basically analyzing the background. We can get information about structure by doing Fourier transform of background. To do that, we need high momentum transfer, basically we can only do it with spallation neutron source, such as SNS (U.S.A), J-PARC (JAPAN), ISIS (U.K). One of my advantage is I can use both analysis method, so I can get complete data set to know the structures of material very well.

I am planning to do experiment with the same material with different instrument in Australia, November 2015. I am doing elastic (not exactly elastic though) neutron scattering now, to know the structure of the material. And, I will do inelastic neutron scattering in Australia to know how the structure behave. We prepared 3 compositions of the sample should be same structure according to structural analysis for long range ordered. I believe short range order of this system is different what people currently know.

My original schedule was 9/18 Friday morning – 9/21 Monday morning. When I got there on Wednesday night, one of my friends told me that there was a problem on the instrument. On Thursday morning, I went to instrument I heard they had a problem on shutter wasn’t working. They fixed the problem until Friday night. We started experiment Friday night and stayed overnight. I was very impressed because the problem was not easy to be fixed. The shutter is between Hg target and detectors under the large Fe shield. They opened the Fe shield and fixed the problem just in two days. So I can start my experiment just 12 hours delay. They spent 6-7 engineer and 3-4 scientists to fix the problem. So, I believe I spent a lot of resources from American, only I can do is do my best science. Let’s publish the paper!!

I need to finish one more paper on my project which I used PDF technique and I will add more from this experiment. Currently, the instrument is working well. I will am leaving the U.S. tomorrow afternoon.

As I wrote in last post, Maestro is a good book I will keep reading. This book definitely changed my life.

“Fermat’s Last theorem” by Simon Singh: Sometime people say Math is the queen of science and Physics is the king of science. I will be able to something about this topic bot not today. The reason why I started reading book is I wanted to review about Math because I believe Math is my origin of curiosity. I loved Math so much when I was young. Even I was in college, I was reading about Math. I remember when I was student I just found this book I thought “somebody solve Fermat theorem” then I started reading. This book teaches us how mathematical concepts, such as “i”, were invented and the time line of development math while solving Fermat’s last theorem. I personally remember that Taniyama-Shimra conjecture and their story because Taniyama committed suicide. And that story keeps me thinking “why?”

“How to manage slaves” by Jerry Toner: I happened to find this book on the web. The title is shocking though, this book is talking about slaves in Roman Empire. The author from Cambridge University describes the culture of Roman Empire based on research. The book consists of two parts, Marcus Sidonius Falx talks how to buy, get the best from, punish, torture, set them free, and so on, slaves. And then the author explains later based on research. I like the part when Falx discussed his German friend. The German friend told him they don’t have slaves. He says “Imagine that? A society without slaves! Who has ever heard of such a things?” And we need to remember if we defined slave “who are forced to work against their will”, the world now has more than 27 million slaves which is much larger than Roman Empire had.

“Thought of Marcus Aurelius Antonius”: Sometime I feel I really am lucky enough to live this age. We can read this classic book for free on kindle. While, I feel humanity has not advanced much from the age Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (A.D 121 -180). I first read this book when I was student, I was very impressed and I am reading when I need. I like how the book starts, he started this book from what he had learned people around him. If I write some my thought in the future, I am sure I will write something like that. He was one of stoics also emperor. His thoughts are very practical, you should try. You would find some quote best for you.

I just started reading “The revenge of geography” by Robert D Kaplan. The author apparently writes this book against famous book “The world is flat” by Thomas L. Friedman. The author’s claim is that Geography still sometime is crucial to know how power in the world shift. I agree. I might review this book later. And, I just started listening to “On writing” Steven King. I like this book because he teaches me how much I should be serious for writing. I needed to write but I like writing now because of this book. I am reading this book because I need to write a lot in few months. I am afraid of but also looking forward to it. I think I have few more books I want to review but I’ll stop here because of limitation of words, like Fermat!! Maybe tomorrow

I am at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A now, I am writing experiences here now.

I started writing again because I am feeling I can’t still express my ideas in English very well in daily life. This is very frustrating.

I would say I can finally settle down Australia, Sydney. I have been experiencing a lot of things. This country of course is different either from Japan or the U.S.A. And, I am also working for Taiwan. To be honest, it is not easy to express my thoughts to anyone even I am using my native language. It is too complex because I need to be careful for four countries and its people. If I had lived only in Japan, I would have never thought about this. And, if I had lived only in Japan and U.S.A, I would have never thought about either. I am an experiment physicist working for Taiwan, in Australia, with sometime American, and as Japanese. (By the way, I am coming to the U.S. for experiment from Sep.16-21)

I haven’t written my thoughts down just because I couldn’t be honest. I could not write my thoughts with correct words, right logic, and appropriate politeness. I am a physicist, I would like to express my idea simply but not by thinking simply. The truths with simplicity have to be extracted carefully by my thinking based on my honest observation and comfortable amount of my research. However, my honest thoughts sometime hurt someone, might make someone angry. And also, I would like to be fair for everyone. So, I just couldn’t have written my thought here.

As I said to my friends, my purpose of life is to build the best character as possible throughout what I do in my life. Family is one of most important things but I am a single now so I don’t need to take so much time for them, I mean, my future family. But, the other thing is work. Working as a physicist gives me chances to contribute to the society and world. By being a physicist, what I am doing is expanding accessible future possibilities of human beings to strengthen probabilities of survival of this species. And, that is my definition of “intelligence”. That’s why I am challenging myself every single day.

As a scientist, I never forget this quote.

“Science is made by men, a self-evident fact that is far too often forgotten”
Werner Heisenberg

I need to start this. We do science not because we need, are needed, want, nor are wanted. Challenging new knowledge is not easy but sometimes we have fun. But we do this because we believe the nature could be understood by us rationally. Physicists do theory and experiment because we believe we can understand the nature. And, we believe understanding the nature contributes to human civilization. Knowledge, talents, and skills are not so important to be a scientist but the scientist has to have right motivation with their own philosophy. We do make mistake sometimes but we don’t deceit because that is totally against our fundamental belief which is “We can understand the nature by using capabilities we are given.”

It doesn’t matter how technology advanced, if the motivation is not right, there is no meaning of advancing science. That’s why this is important. The science is made by men. The system of science is perfect (This is also true for the system human made such as democracy, capitalism, and even communism, so on) but human sometimes makes the system bad because we are not perfect mentally and physically. If you want to know whether or not he/she is good scientist, you can know by knowing what he/she speak, how he/she behaves, and why he/she does so.

I will go on my scientific philosophy from I learned from experimental physics. I personally am focusing on problem solving skill because that we can do but A.I. can’t do in near future. I will also write book review. My reading pace now is like 15-20 books a month. It might be good idea to start short review what I read. Thank you for reading this.