【Life Notes】European Academic Travel~8/21

Because the European trip was followed by the CQT SAB meeting, I didn't have time until mid-August to organize photos, review my life, and write a blog. Every time I wrote a life note, it was like taking stock of my life, and then I could finally get relevant experiences from Release XD in memory As usual, welcome to leave a message to share, forward praise, and even donate :)

Pre-departure notes

Progress of Thesis: My graduation thesis in June and July mainly focused on decompressing the experimental details of the two papers (Chapter 4), and supplemented the theoretical derivation (Chapter 3). In order to write the details of the experiment, I reviewed the checkpoint records from the end of 2019 to the middle of 2020. It is really painful to see the failed notes of continuous attempts and failures. It is certain that if someone wants to do experiments in the same direction in the future, by referring to the guidelines of my Thesis, the exploration period of hitting the wall can be reduced from three months to half a year. Having said that, every time Thesis finishes writing a paragraph, I have to re-read it and rewrite it, otherwise the first reaction is often full of redundancy and incoherence. It is really hard to see people XD Before Europe, I gave the boss Dzmitry about 70 pages of semi-finished corrections (the boss also flew back to Belarus for his birthday at the time).

Lab activities: basically completely suspended, my system is probably only software development updates for university students, and I occasionally do system checks and laser cleaning maintenance. The Toptica laser has entered the low power stage where experiments cannot be performed normally. I am really not sure how the newly added PhD should deal with this issue, maybe just ask the original engineer to replace the doubling crystal (the power of more than 25mW when it was just installed in 2012) , I have seen 12mW at the beginning of 2019, only 9mW at the beginning of 2020, and this year, the situation is getting worse to less than 6mW, which is probably difficult to carry out sisyphus cooling).

Prepare the poster: The core of the European trip in July (on the surface) is the QCMC2022 conference in Portugal, so the most important preparation is to prepare the poster and prepare the lecture. After all, this should be the last international academic conference I attended in my PhD career (and then there is a high probability that I will not participate in the physics conference XD. Naturally, I went all out to get the poster at the beginning of June. After several rounds of revisions by the boss and everyone in the laboratory After that, the poster was successfully printed before the end of June, and it was ready to be completed.

Europe trip

Netherlands : The first difference I felt after arriving in the Netherlands was the population density. After all, Singapore and Taipei, which I am familiar with, are extremely dense. After going to Rotterdam, I immediately realized the improvement of air quality, the long daytime in summer at high latitudes, and the high prices (of course, London is harder). XD In addition, my experience in the Netherlands is that the quality of food raw materials is really superior. Division, steak, milk, fried chicken and other products are very delicious. In general. The most important thing in the first half of the whole trip to the Netherlands is to travel with my family, because my sister has been studying in Rotterdam since the middle of last year and will graduate in August. It is really rare for the whole family to have dinner together. The scenery of the windmill village is really beautiful, and the picturesque scenery is indeed the description of the tourist attractions in the picture above.

Among them, I have just caught up with the weekly market in the town of Edam. It is very interesting to observe the traditional Dutch cheese auction method. This morning should be the time when I think the Dutch flavor is the most abundant (because Windmill Village and Giethoorn Village are pure The scenery, on the contrary, is that Edam has humanities and I prefer it). If I want to live in the Netherlands, I have to choose a small town outside of Amsterdam. It will not be an exploding rent or an isolated island with inconvenient transportation.

After the whole family arrived in Amsterdam, I immediately went to visit the University of Amsterdam and conducted two consecutive academic visits (one day for the theory group and one day for the experimental group), completing the most important official itinerary of the whole week. In Amsterdam, I have a deep understanding of the Netherlands "Bicycles are real murderers, pigeons are really stupid" XD I met many friends during the trip: some I have never met on Facebook, and some I have met again in Singapore. Yes, it is really interesting to meet each other after graduation from National Taiwan University. There are all kinds of dining experiences (including the fire alarm in the western part of the city where everyone's mobile phones sounded halfway through the meal, which is absolutely unforgettable)

During my weekends in Amsterdam, what impressed me most was not the cruise, nor the shopping near Dam Square, but the visit to the Van Gogh Museum (the House of Anne had no tickets at all). The Van Gogh Museum has successfully made visitors understand Van Gogh's spiritual thoughts, painting skills and mental states in different periods on the moving line and audio guide. I really can't imagine that he can be so prolific in the final stage of his life.

Portugal : After the reopening of tourism in the post-Covid era, the situation of manpower shortage at European airports is very obvious. International flights within Europe must be at least three hours earlier to board the plane smoothly. And when I arrived in Portugal, I felt that I came to Southeast Asia in Europe (? The temperature, city appearance, prices are quite different from the Netherlands (and the United Kingdom), I feel that it is more like Southeast Asia than Singapore (in terms of prices and city appearance), but it is a Immigrant-friendly EU countries (result of chatting with taxi driver).

In Portugal, I was fully involved in the QCMC2022 conference, giving posters, listening to lectures, snacks, and socializing at dinner time, etc. (the picture above is a group photo of NUS participants), to let the quantum physics community know that Dzmitry has done interesting experiments, also have a look What interesting researches have been done by others that are related to us: Besides, there is really a group of theoretical research that is directly related to us. To be honest, I am very moved, because although the relatively unpopular experimental directions are interesting, it is difficult for someone to resonate.

Of course, during the five days of the conference, the worst thing was the crash on Wednesday when trying to ride an electric scooter to the Conference dinner. The quality of the roads in the suburbs is very poor. When I hit a rock pothole and flew up, a slow-motion life marquee appeared in front of my eyes... In the end, although my hands and feet were injured and bleeding, and I was confused for a while, but after the paramedics checked and bandaged, there was no major problem. No obstacles (no concussions and no fractures), it's really fortunate. Thanks to the Dutch tourists and enthusiastic Lisbon citizens who passed by and helped. As for how this near-scarred flesh wound impresses all the participants of the Conference dinner, it will be another story.

Although I visited the Sintra Palace with a classic medieval style on the weekend, and saw the magnificent red and white roofs and the cathedral in the center of Lisbon, took the sightseeing tram and tuk-tuk, and shopped at the flea market, but My personal favorite Lisbon attraction is still the largest bookstore in the world in Factory X. What I want most when I go to the new country is to visit its bookstore (it can be said that bookstores are the spiritual food of society)

United Kingdom : In this whole trip, the one I am most looking forward to is London, United Kingdom. First thing that amazes me: British fish and chips and English brunch are delicious, definitely not the degraded version I know in Singapore to compare, stereotypes are sometimes just prejudice (laughs. As for Iconic tourist attractions are classics. I have visited and taken pictures of them, such as Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, London Eye, Tower Bridge, etc. However, when I visited London for outdoor sightseeing, I encountered a century-old heat wave, and the temperature directly broke 40 It's almost a heatstroke.

But to be honest, I'm most looking forward to visiting the Natural History Museum (to see dinosaur skulls up close), Westminster Abbey (to listen to its history and stop at the resting place of the greats), and the British Museum (too many galleries to see, Innumerable, is the library of civilization). I really felt the sacred solemnity of the royal family and the church at Westminster Abbey, and saw physicists including Hawking, Newton, Dirac, and Lord Kerwin sleeping in a corner (of course, the great Darwin cannot be missed); the British Museum is indeed It is the realization of knowledge, and the endless inquiry of human curiosity and elimination of ignorance is reflected in the Enlightenment Hall, which is really amazing. After visiting the Egyptian Hall, I felt the envy of Egypt in my heart (the same as when I went to Egypt in 2016). I was filled with awe to think that the ancient civilizations thousands of years ago could have such a glorious height. The main exhibition halls such as the Enlightenment Hall and the Egyptian Hall let me watch for two days and afternoons. If I want to savor the British Museum that can be visited for free, I should live for a few weeks first.

The most high-sounding and unavoidable itinerary of my entire week's trip is: "academic visit to Imperial College", reminiscing with long-lost friend Tobias, chatting with their entire theory group, and reporting on my PhD career quantum machine learning experiments, I hope to be inspired and communicate successfully (the response is quite good in terms of questions).

Of course, I would like to thank my friend Yao Mingjing for her guide for the second half of the trip to the UK. After two years in the UK, she is already very familiar with the local situation, whether it is food (pasta, Persian restaurant, Italian restaurant, British Pub and bars are very popular) Like), arrange sightseeing spots (bookstore reading, park rest, watching Les Miserables opera, etc.), it feels good to have someone to accompany. I am really happy to meet my old friends in a foreign land (although parting is always sad), especially my good friends who have been in contact with each other since college.

PS: It was a very interesting life experience to go to LSE (London School of Economics), after meditating on the trail that Hayek also walked, just in time for the LSE annual graduation ceremony, so I was able to sneak into the gated building inside.

Comeback Notes

SAB meeting: After returning to Singapore, I made the second poster without stopping, because after the CQT annual SAB meeting resumed, each laboratory can contribute two posters. Of course, Dzmitry lab can’t just use the posters from the European tour to recharge XD In the end My conference talk time at the Golden Sands Hotel received a large audience, and this was a glorious moment in my PhD career in physics that deserves to be recorded. Among the dozens of audiences, what impressed me was that a group of theoretical physicists asked me if I would go back to Taiwan to help Hon Hai build a quantum computing laboratory. It seems that Hon Hai's reputation has gradually grown.

New Life Movement and Thesis: At the end of my trip to Europe, the most important thing for me besides writing my thesis is to lose weight, after all, I have gained almost 10kg since Covid (probably because the gym was closed before and the currency price was up and down) the reason). So the current weekly schedule is to go to the gym in the morning to exercise, wash up and have lunch at noon, and go to CQT in the afternoon to write Thesis in the evening. After exercising in this way, in addition to improving my spirits in the afternoon, I found that my sleep quality has also improved. I hope this exercise can stabilize my body and mind, allowing me to submit papers and lose weight smoothly. Thesis itself is expected to complete the "Second Chapter Experiment Setup" in September-October. Currently, I spend a lot of time on inkscape, a very interesting free graphics software. In the process of writing the experimental setup, I also read Dzmitry For the corresponding parts of the first two thesis records of lab, it is true that the hardware upgrade of the system is relatively considerable in four or five years (of course it is not a revolutionary breakthrough).

life notes

Buy Remarkable2 (the picture above is from Forbes ): Originally, I had plans to buy an e-book reader, or just update the ipad. One day in June, I bought the amazing Remarkable2 after accidentally being pushed by the post-doc Jaren. The appearance of the product is extremely textured, and it is also very light and thin. It really perfectly reproduces the experience (sound) of paper reading and paper writing . Even if the price is really high, this is the most Apple non-Apple product (Paper Tablet) I've seen. I now see that Paper is suitable for Remarkable2 for taking notes. I see long texts on the Internet and directly Dump to Remarkable2 for reading. I use Remarkable2 to read before going to bed. It is a productivity tool that has entered my life. (Of course there are downsides: having to pay a monthly fee to connect to the internet is quite a chore, although it's just a few dollars that makes some people very uncomfortable)

Reading experience: After obtaining Remarkable2, I was deeply impressed by the theme of reading "Extraterrestrial Novel", mainly the two science fiction novels "Heir to the Stars" and "Extreme Return", which can follow the author's logic It is really interesting to think about what kind of civilizations other intelligent civilizations will produce with completely different evolutionary conditions, and it will make people feel refreshed and expand their thinking. (As for the comics, the popular Chainsaw Man I recommended recently is basically a masterpiece)

UFO Breakfast Talks about Quantum : Because I talked about quantum computing with Silicon Valley Aya before, and in June, I was hooked up again because of True Culture Publishing, so I got the opportunity to go to UFO Breakfast to be a storyteller XD Surprised that a media broadcast host like Tang Xianglong chose to introduce such a hard book, it is not easy. (I speak very hard, but I dare not speak well

It was also because of the recording activities of the UFO Breakfast that I knew that when Dzmitry was a postdoc with Chris more than ten years ago, Michio Kaku visited their ion well laboratory to film the scene (Dzmitry does not like exaggerated Kaku I am not surprised). And to be honest, if I didn’t touch the currency circle in my life, it might be to move towards popular science missionaries like Kaku (laughs).

Currency Notes

CRO spree: At the end of October and the beginning of November last year, after the small group made a lot of money when Cronos took off, the CRO after the profit was taken to the lock card and upgraded to a white card. As a result, after half a year, the whole CRO fell into rottenness, and after I had unlocked it, I received the welcome gift package from CRO to users with a white card or above (it really is the efficiency of CRO). I wore a CRO jacket and hat for the whole trip to Europe, and then went into the airport VIP room to eat and eat, and I felt that I received a lot of attention (it should not be sympathy). For example: the counter staff in the Singapore VIP room directly asked me if I had lost money. How much, the chalet merchant in the Green Park next to Buckingham Palace asked me if I made a lot of money XD

MatrixDAO Azetec: During my trip to Europe, I took the time to write an introductory article about my favorite Rollup, which is Azetec . Later, this article was included in the MatrixDao Weekly. I also took the opportunity to share my privacy concerns after being invited. Rollup's view.

IOTA promotion speech: Since I read the two papers published by the IOTA Foundation on Arxiv in May, I have been making time to slowly make a briefing for the 2022COSCUP (Annual Conference of Open Source People) and Matters after the European trip. The book club will introduce IOTA, the greatest and unique DLT project in my opinion. I think that IOTA's approach to finding solutions from first principles is slow, but definitely accumulated. So far, after the construction of the consensus mechanism is completed, more promotion is needed. I do my part. Both events have also received good feedback from the audience. After that, I will write a separate article based on the content of the briefing.

Notes from Mango and Orca: Mango Core team entered the intensive development period before V4 was launched, and everything else was probably dominated by GM. I believe that Mango’s big move that has been accumulating for a year will shock the world; as for Orca after Whirlpol goes online , and finally it was finally listed by FTX about a year after the issuance of the coin! ! !

Solana Slope Hot Wallet Explosion: At the beginning, I felt that this Chinese mobile wallet team was not very reliable. AMA made it impossible for me to step down, sending NFTs and various management and political problems. As a result, when there was a large transfer of wallet assets in the Solana ecosystem this time, my first hunch was correct. Slope is the main source of the problem, if not the only problem. It is really great to be able to profile (steal) the wallet of the user's seed phrase. ...(Irony hehe

Summarize

In the daily life of writing Thesis, when I reviewed my life and finished writing this blog, I found that I had less than half a year left in my doctoral career and I was about to graduate. This time was full of surprises and sighs. Back when I joined Dzmitry lab on the eve of Roland's graduation, he said that he was very grateful to Singapore, because NUS gave him a doctorate, CQT gave him a deposit (the doctor's salary can indeed save some money), and obtained a stable relationship; I'm going to say the same thing: NUS gave me a PhD in Physics, Crypto gave me some financial accumulation, and I met the love/Soulmate of my life in Singapore (it's been more than three years since I met my first girlfriend and today, She is a very low-key, quite smart college student, and it is my luck to meet her).