Brian: Alabamy Bound

Posters!

2006-07-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we did our 15 minute powerpoint presentations for the physics program, and today was the school-wide poster competition.

The real purpose of scientific posters is as a didgeridoo.

Patiently aiting for the action to begin. Except for Nate.

I'd been asking Nate for a while what his nanoparticles tasted like...

For the physics entries, I got 3rd place! Yay.

Nate was honorable mention, with Alan getting 1st and Noah 2nd.

And last but not least, Nate started a tradition of putting his artistic touches on hard boiled eggs. Note "The South Lost," "Get Over It" and drawings of everyone in the dorm room.

Work's done, now what?

2006-07-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

Well, my poster is printed, my paper is submitted, and my powerpoint presentation is saved. I'm pretty much done with the actual work. All that's left is to present my powerpoint thing tomorrow, present my poster the next day, and then I'm OUTTA here. FOR-EV-ER.

If you'd like to puruse my work since I've been at UAB,
here's a link to my 10 page research paper
here's a link to my 4x3 foot poster
to view these files you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader

I it's pretty in-depth, removed from reality kind of stuff, but the simplest I can describe it is that potentially someday this could contribute to electric and magnetic components on a single chip. If that means anything to you.

And if you were wondering, yes, I did try to put as many big, fancy sounding words in the title as I could find. But scientific papers are a little sneaky like that--"heat treatments" just means I put the sample in a (glorified) oven for an hour at a time.

Anyway, this may be my penultimate post, so I hope you've enjoyed it thus far.

And for you people that are just here for the pictures, about a month ago I walked over to "Vulcan Park," where they have "The Largest Cast-Iron Statue in the World." I think it was constructed for the St. Louis World's Fair a long time ago... maybe in the Dark Ages. Or at least in a time before they invented underwear.

I just had to take a picture of this old photo. I mean, a huge, iron flying butt? How often do you get to see that?

Winding Down

2006-07-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

Things are winding down here. We submitted our posters Thursday, our 10 page paper is due Tuesday, our 15 minute presentations are Wednesday, the poster competition is Thursday, and I fly out Friday afternoon. Plus I have a gig the next day with Milonga in Moses Lake and the Jazz Camp at EWU starts.

Here's a few more random pictures:

Noah using the Force to ride his bike into the dorm

I went to elementary school in Greenacres...

Video!

2006-07-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

I just discovered how to post videos on the internet (pretty easy, using Youtube.com), here's some videos I've taken here:
(Flash 8 is requred, download here)

All my dormmates going out to eat the the first/last time. From R-->L:
Noah, Nate, Jeremy, Brad, Lindsey, Alan, and Andrea.
Live music in the backround was great:

What Noah really thinks, taken at our 4th of July BBQ.

Throwing the football on the 4th. Maybe the physics department should start a football team.

Noah Jumping off of High Falls (see a previous post)

Nate jumping

This train almost ran us over while we were at DeSoto Caverns.

World Cup 2006

2006-07-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

Well, you probably missed the World Cup Final today, unlike a billion other people (literally). It was France v Italy, but fortunately you can watch this clip:

Barb-E-Q

2006-07-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

Eri and I got back into Birmingham ("ain't no 'ham like Birmingham") in time for the 4th, just in time for a BBQ. Brad fashioned some tasty burgers with all sorts of goodies mixed in, in addition to hot dogs, corn, and Eye of Newt. We BBQed at small asylum inbetween some dorms.

Mmmmm, food

Noah explaining to us how the thermodynamic pressure exerted by the tertiary gravometric excitons create ferroelectric vortices at the orthorhombic vertices.

Noah contemplating nonuniform multispectral waveguides. Or how seedless watermellons can possibly exist.

Laura from the program and one of Brad's friend Lea.
Laura's attending school in the South, but she's from Toronto, was born in England, and her parents are from Jamaica.

Watermellon!

Jeremy making fireballs come out of a bottle

After kicking around the soccer ball and throwing the football (at the same time), we needed to cool down from the 95 degree heat. Luckily, there's a swimming pool at the dorm.

Nate decided to practice his football moves on Noah, much to Noah's surprise.

Notice Brad fleeing the scene.

The swimmers telling Brad "Hey, could you help us tie our shoes?"

Brad, at a safe distance

All in all, the day was "Tons of Fun"

Into the Woods

2006-07-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my girlfriend Eri flew in for the 6-day weekend--she also attends U of I, but she's doing an REU internship at MIT in Boston. So we decided to take a trip to the wilderness and go camping. After five hours in Walmart (the minor highway we took had 4 Super Walmarts in a 70 mile stretch), we finally made it away from civilization. Not that there's much civilization here--I mean, it's freakin' ALABAMA.

Anyway, we spent 3 nights and 3 days in the Sipsey Wilderness before getting too hungry, tired, and bug-bitten. After setting up camp at 2am, we realized that the trail area we were at (which Eri dubbed "Tick Heaven") sucked. Luckily we found some friendly people who showed us other areas that were really nice, including some trails along the Sipsey River. The summer here has been really dry, so the river was more like a creek and most of the waterfalls were dry, but it was nice anyhow.

A little strange how the dedication looks like a tombstone...

"Tick Heaven"

A furry bug that wandered onto us

Eri examining the flora

We met Arthur and his son Carl after our initial mistep into Tick Heaven. They were extremely nice and knowledegable about the wilderness, and they offered to get us on the right track and show us around. We hiked with them for an hour or so before parting company, but we were very lucky to have met them. Our heartiest thanks to them.

After the 2nd night it rained, so there was actually water at the waterfall.
A great way to cool off from an Alabama summer.

Eri with a bird's nest she found on the ground.

A HUGE dragonfly we noticed while playing in the river.

There were these tiny frogs EVERYWHERE--very cute, but hard to avoid stepping on.

Get high, get low.

2006-06-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

This last weekend Nate, Noah, myself, and one of Noah's friends took a trip to High Falls. Its name a testament to southern creativity, High Falls is a stream that goes over a 40ft drop. It's actually an amazing geologic formation, and perfect for, well... jumping off of.

Before we got there, however, one of the cars' transmissions exploded so we had a brief detour into smalltown Alabama via tow truck. There wasn't room in the truck for all 4 of us, so Noah and Nate rode the rest of the way in the bed.

Noah's mobile "box" speakers.Nate and Noah in the truck bed at 75mph

Once we got there, the weather was perfect, hot but sometimes overcast. Just as we were leaving a huge rainstorm started, so the drive back was interesting.

Nate would take 10-15 minutes to get the "courage" to jump

I jumped off once from where that person's legs are on the above picture. But that was enough. I guess not getting scared/freaking out made the experience less thrilling for me or something. Plus hitting the water hurts.

DeSoto was here... or not.

2006-06-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

Jeremey, Nate, and I took a trip south to DeSoto Cavern. I guess DeSoto was one of the first (European) people to explore here, but I don't think he actually saw the cave. The cave has a long history of use, first by the natives, then by various people, including confederates mining gunpowder and then ask a speakeasy during prohibition.

Now-a-days it's a tourist attraction. The tour wasn't quite worth the money ($15 or so, can't remember), but it was pretty cool. At the largest point it's 10 stories tall and a few hundred yards long. Half way through there was a light/water show that was pretty cheesy, but to top it off they played a recording of music with someone reciting genesis over it... at the end everything went dark and a cross lit up on the wall. But then again, we're in freakin' ALABAMA so what do you expect? I guess the best part of the cave was that is was pretty cool in there.

Afterwards we went to the gift shop and got some ice cream, and on the way back we stopped at a flea market, to get the authentic Alabama experience.

Available in the gift shop: let me know if I should pick one up for you!

The Usual Suspects

2006-06-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

Our dorm room is apartment-style, with a small living room, tiny kitchen, and 3 bedrooms with 2 beds each. My partners in crime are the other 5 guys (we don't really see the other people in the program much). We do stuff like go to Walmart (a very popular activity down here), play Poker/Risk, and watch movies. Here's our excursion to Mr. Wang's Chinese Buffet:
Nathaniel(Nate), senior physics major from Carnegie Mellon U. He's also the kicker on the football team, and he (surprise, surprise) likes rap. He's the guy that's usually making goofy/inappropriate gestures during pictures. Plus he's from New York and Jewish. His project is on nanoparticles for creating bone scaffolds.
Noah is a sophomore physics major from U. West Georgia. He grew up in a small town in GA called Tallapoosa, but he's not a stereotypical southerner, although he does have the accent. He has a red bmx bike that he rides around. His project is on creating nanoparticle magnets for cancer therapies.
Alan (pronounced uh-lawn) is a senior physics major, also from UWG. He's originally from Texas, though, and has a Bush sticker on his Mustang. He's working on laser-related projects.

Brad is the baby of the group, an 18-year-old sophomore from here at UAB. He's currently a physics major, but will soon be switching to psychology. Brad showed us around the first few days, but he doesn't really know where much is since he doesn't have a car.

Not pictured: Jeremy, my roommate, a senior physics major from Bob Jones U (SC). He's originally from Philly, and is into shooting/fishing/hunting/etc. He won some kind of national junior rifle tournament in high school. His car (below) usually takes us on our excursions around Birmingham.
The crew in action, picking me up from Five Points for a trip to Walmart.

Signs of my times

2006-06-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

I've been walking around Birmingham, and have found some interesting signs (no photoshopping required):

What exactly do ya do here?

2006-06-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

So, the reason I'm here. Don't worry, I'll try to keep this as straight-forward and non-technical as possible. However, feel free to follow the links for more detailed information.

I'm working with Dr. Mary Ellen Zvanut in the Physics department. She specializes in analysis of electronic materials, ones that may be of use sometime in the future. Although she has primarily been working on the potential of using Silicon Carbide (SiC) for high frequency/high temperature electonics, she has just started working with aother material called Strontium Titanate (SrTiO3), which is what my project is on.

Strontium Titanate is an interesting material. It was used in the past as a diamond substitute because the way it refracts light is very similar, but it isn't anywhere near as hard. It's also a superconductor at fairly low temperatures. What Dr. Zvanut is researching is the possibility of usuing this material as a multifunctional material.

What is a multifunctional material? In our computers and electronics today, there are three main kinds of components: electrical (most components), magnetic (hard drives), and optical (lasers, fiber optics). Currently, all these things are separate components that are kind of interconnected. Multifunction materials combine two or more of these properties for new materials that will be able to... Well, I'm not actually sure about that part yet. But something new and revolutionary.

So what is my part in all this? Nothing glorious or mad-scientist-like (no Frankenstein here...), but it's interesting nonetheless. What I'm using is something called Electon Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) to analyze small defects in the material. And by small, I mean like a few parts per billion. There are very small impurities of iron and chromium in the material that can make huge differences in the properties of the materials. In adding small amounts of impurities to silicon is what has allowed virtually every electonic item today to function.

The EPR

Me at the EPR computer

The EPR is basically a pair of really big magnets that can detect these defects. What I do is mount the sample using rubber cement (hey, but it's Elmer's rubber cement...), put it in the machine, and run a bunch of scans at different angles and such. Then I anneal the sample (i.e. put it in a furnace) at 400, 570, 750, and 930 degrees F, (man, that would burn the pizza real good), and then do the scans again.

Furnace with vacuum system

The furnace above goes up to 2200 degrees F, and the vacuum system goes to 0.0000002 psi (about 12 billionths of atmospheric pressure).

At this point I'm not really sure what the results will be or what it will mean, but I still have like seven weeks to figure that out, right?

Some other cool stuff:

Me with a tank of Liquid Helium, stored below -450 degrees F. Colder than Idaho!
Physics stuff

The lab

A big pile of junk

Anyways, if you want more details about the work, please feel free to send me an email.

The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame

2006-05-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

This week I took a trip to the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, which is about 20 blocks from my dorm.There was a concert there with a group called JazzNova, which played mostly bossa novas and other latin jazz styles. The leader, who played sax, was pretty good, and I really enjoyed his sound. The rest of the group was ok, although the rhythm section didn't really mesh time-wise. Overall, it was an enjoyable concert, especially considering it was only 5 bucks. The first hour was a concert, but after intermission it was a jam where anyone could go up and play. Unfortunately, I didn't know that, so I didn't bring my sax. But they're having another one in a month, so hopefully I make it to that one as well.Some of the pictures are kind of blurry--I think I forgot to check the camera settings. Or I could just say I wanted that "artsy" look.The only really recognizable person in the museum portion was Lionel Hampton, who I guess spent some of his childhood here. Most of the other musicians were sidemen with larger groups, and even a few with Duke Ellington
Some very old saxophones:

Elked!

2006-05-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

First things first: a correction to my previous entry. I was informed that it's spelled djeetyet.

Now some events that happened before I got here. Well, first my car got elked. And by elked I mean, a freakin' elk was standing in the middle of the highway as I was driving from Spokane to Moscow. It was dark and as I rounded a corner at 60mph, I couldn't swerve enough to miss it. The damage:As you can see, the mirror was torn off, window smashed, and various damage to the front end and hood. Although I wasn't hurt, the animal wasn't so fortunate.

So that was the day before finals week--not the best way to start off, as you could imagine. Then the next day my roommate told me that he was moving out, even though he said he'd stay through the next school year. Plus at my job (working for a professor in the soils dept) there was a deadline for a paper coming up, so I ended up working over 30 hours that week, plus 4 finals. All this less than a week before I had to leave for Bama. Fortunately, I found a roommate for next year and ended up getting an A in all my 22 credits, so I guess things worked out.

So, as you can see, coming down here and only working full time has been a bit of a relief.

On a lighter note, here's some random pictures I took around Birmingham:
I found an empty parking lot except for this, near the downtown area. I'm not sure if it was some kind of low-speed battle or a re-enactment of Tianamen Square...
I found this at a store called Magnolias, which I can only describe as a combination of Spencer's and a Hallmark store. They have everything from foofy trinkets to strange/tasteless greeting cards to fake barf.

I guess next post I'll get around to talking about what I'm actually working on here...

Caio

And so it begins

2006-05-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

The first week here was a little hectic, but not too bad. My last final at school was at noon on Friday, and I left at 3pm for Spokane the next day, so that was kind of crazy. I left Sunday morning at 6am and three planes later I was in Birmingham.

Birmingham is actually Alabama's largest city, but it's pretty spread out--even more so than Spokane.
The dorm we're in is brand new, so new that it's not even done yet. While this is great becuase everything is new (I had to remove the matress from a plastic bag), we didn't get a fridge until Monday (a week later) and still don't have internet access. So right now I'm in the physics computer lab called "Del-Square" (which is a pun you science types may get, but not a very funny one, even by my standards).
I've begun exploring the area a little bit, and found what is to be expected down here:
Yep, the good ol' gop. It took some looking, but I finally found the Democratic offices...Besides that, I've been going to Yoga classes every week day. They have a brand new rec center next door to our dorm, and it's pretty nice--and only $40 for our 10-week stay.

Alabama!

2006-05-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

Just when people were surprised that I'd moved to Idaho, now I've gone to Alabama.

What am I doing here? Well, it's not for the weather. Earlier this year I applied to over a dozen summer internships across the country and in Germany. Although I was also accepted to work in Germany on fuel cell materials, that program barely paid enough to cover travel expenses. So I accepted the REU program at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB), which pays about $3,300 plus room and travel expenses. REU stands for "Research Experience for Undergraduates," where the National Science Foundation funds college students to gain experience doing real research during the summer.

So here I am, working in the Physics department with 13 other undergrads where, after 10 weeks, we will finish a paper and a presentation on our subjects.

I'll put whatever I think may be interesting to others on this site, including pictures and whatever else I feel like writing. A feature, however, will be what I learn about the south whilst I'm here. First up, vocabulary:

Jeetyet: Asking "Did you eat yet?"
Example: "Hey Bobby Sue, jeetyet?" "No Billy Bob, but I'm fixin' to."

And a joke I heard from a local:
"Did you hear about the new law they passed in Alabama?"
"When people get divorced, it doesn't mean they're not cousins any more."

Pictures and more later.