In the News

I was reading the NYTimes headlines this morning when I stumbled across the following and was temporarily transported back to Istanbul:

If you stand in the center of the Hagia Sophia here and gaze upward at what is one of the world’s tallest domes, you can be staggered by the overlapping layers of ruination and grandeur in this Church of Holy Wisdom. And I don’t just mean the scaling paint, the scaffolding promising overdue restorations, the haunting mosaics disclosed under layers of plaster.

The article goes on to describe the juxtaposition of religious and secular life in modern Istanbul through its museums. While I didn't have enough time to really absorb this aspect of Istanbul myself, I noticed superficial differences in women's clothing choices and the way that life stopped--or didn't--during prayer time. This juxtaposition was also obvious in Topaki Palace, where I came face-to-face with all sorts of religious artifacts in a secular museum that seemed more like a place of worship than a museum: respectful, quiet behavior was expected and prayers were recited live over loudspeakers. Here's what the Times says about it:

You can see the nature of the problem in the museums of Topaki Palace, where the sultans once lived. In one gallery there are sacred relics once viewed only by the royal family and its guests. The labels tell us we are looking at hairs from Muhammad’s beard, the staff that Moses used to strike a rock in the desert, King David’s sword and a turban worn by Joseph. Secularism has to be more powerful than it is here to contend with such objects (let alone examine them for authenticity).

Turkey's struggle with secularism was motivated by a desire for independence from Islam's political structures after WWI rather than striving to be more like the Western world. That being said, what I find the most interesting about secularism in Turkey is the way it throws light on Western--and, in particular, American--norms.

Its these ingrained, unspoken values that help us relate to other people. I'm hoping that, when I come away from this year, the bit I've picked up from the British election season, Turkish secularism, lunchtime discussions about social welfare funding and the like will help me relate better to friends and collegues by making me more aware of my own cultural norms.

The full article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/arts/design/26museums.html?th&emc=th

A Physics Lesson (or 'Making Good on Old Promises')

Churchill College's MCR is hosted a Conference on Everything this past Friday (6 May) and I put together some of my work this into a pretty display format to show off at the poster session.

A long time ago, I promised that I'd describe what I've been doing in lab. So, here's my poster--both in a pretty graphical version (not for slow connections!) and a slightly-modified, primarily text version (below). It's aimed at an audience comprised of graduate students from all disciplines, so--while I tried to keep it pretty general--there's some highfalutin physics for the parts of my audience who know more.

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We start with ultracold atoms at fractions of a degree above absolute zero. At these temperatures, the atoms move very slowly and their wave functions overlap, which enables us to study quantum effects and, more generally, basic physics.

After cooling our atoms, we load them into an optical lattice, a crystal of light created from the interference between coherent light. We work with potassium-40, which is a fermion (or spin ½ particle). There are theoretical predictions of phase transitions and atomic pairing for fermions within these 'artificial crystals'. We want to observe these phase transitions and understand how the system changes when we, for example, change the spacing between the atoms in our lattice.

One way to observe these phase transitions is to change the ‘spin’—the hyperfine level—of an atom and measure how many atoms' spins we are able to flip as a function of variables like the spacing between sites or how much energy we put into the atom.

This is where my work comes in. To change the ‘spin’ of an atom, we need to give it a precise energy ‘kick’ equal to the energy difference between the ↓ and ↑ states and any additional energy difference (which is incorporated into the motion of the atom). The laser system I built provides this energy as the frequency difference between two lasers with the same phase.


In my laser system (above), light is produced, then separated into light for the experiment and for feedback. For feedback, light from both lasers is coupled onto a fast photodiode.

Electronic feedback is derived from the beat signal (below). The RF power spectrum of the phase-locked system has the majority of power in a peak centered at the frequency difference (here, 200MHz, the 2 GHz difference –the 1.8GHz reference) The sidebands mark where the system is no longer able to provide adequate feedback.


To date, the laser system is working in stand-alone operation. Next steps include incorporating the laser system into the experimental apparatus, testing stability, observing transitions between 'spin' states and measuring established single-particle excitations.

British Politics

The UK's general election was held this past Thursday. Forgive my simple explanations in advance--I'm not normally a political junkie--and allow me to share my fascination with seeing the UK's political 'gears' in action. This election has had particular attraction: this year saw the first three-party televised debates in the history of British elections--as well as the first hung parliament since 1974.

I watched the results start to come in Thursday night in the MCR. At some level, as in the US, the election-night coverage was complete entertainment. There were over-the-top animations (including a 'virtual world' on the BBC*), live reporters at ballot-counting centers around the country, color-coded maps and celebrities of all ranks commenting on the results as they came in. One unique way the BBC presented election data was the 'swingometer', a 2-dimensional graphic that looks like a speedometer and maps the relative change in popular vote between two parties to the number of seats each party will win in the House of Commons.

As I've already mentioned, the election results are in and the results are historic: for the first time since 1974, the UK has a 'hung parliament', which basically means that no party has a simple majority in House of Commons. In a (very) rough analogy to American politics, the House of Commons serves both legislative and executive roles during election season: the party with the majority in the House of Commons chooses the Prime Minister. Since the House of Commons can, at any time, remove the Prime Minister and force a general election by a majority vote of 'no confidence' in the Prime Minister's leadership, a hung parliament has, in the past, led to short-lived, weak governments in the UK.

All this adds up to a less-than-rosy short-term prognosis for the country. Politicians are working to compromise and form a coalition government, a very delicate issue because the three primary players in British politics at the moment have different views on a key issues. The latest news here is that Gordon Brown, the current Prime Minister, has announced that he will step down as Labour leader, opening speculation as to who will be Prime Minister if the Liberal Democrats make a deal to form a minority government with Labour.

All that said, I'm hopeful for the long term. This election brought some long-standing issues with the British election process into public focus, with newscasters focusing on polls closing with long queues still waiting to vote and the huge mismatch between popular vote and seats in the House of Commons (and, in turn, the Prime Minister). This election should lead to changes that will give the UK a stronger government--or at least one more attuned to the needs of the populace--in the long run.

Oh, and another piece of election trivia: Cambridge elected Julian Huppert, a trained biochemist, Cavendish research scientist and fellow at Clare College, to the city's parliamentary seat!


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*While I was looking for video clips of this year's coverage, I stumbled across this gem from the 2008 election, one special way of making election results interesting in a BBC virtual-world, hosted by Jeremy Vine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7JX8D1Kb88 The Briton-does-Texan accent is amazing!

Formal at Churchill

I had a weekend full of adventures--and rain--in Southeast England. However, those stories will have to wait until I have a little more time.

Last Thursday, I went to formal at Churchill with several of my lab mates. A while back I posted about formal halls but grievously did not have a picture of the hall from the inside. Here's one taken just after dinner on Thursday--the red eye makes us all look quite devilish!

'round the table (starting from the left):
me, Natalie, Lothar, Christoph, Rebecca, Hendrik, Michael, Ben, Natalia, Carlo