work hard, play hard

Despite the biased view I've been presenting in the two months (!) since I arrived in England, the time I've been spending here has not been all about traveling, eating and other cultural explorations. During the week, my time is focused around research and the rhythms of laboratory life.

My laboratory is part of the Cavendish, the physics department and physics laboratories at the University of Cambridge. The department moved out from the city center (the old building was near the Eagle and the Corpus Clock that I described a few entries back) in the 1970s to a site adjacent to the veterinary school that has been subsequently dubbed 'West Cambridge'. It's a 5 minute bike ride from Churchill taking a bike path through the back of the astronomy site, which makes the lab just far enough away to need a coat on autumn mornings.

The Cavendish is an institution with a full of history, including famous physicists like Maxwell (who opened the experimental laboratory in 1874), Rutherford and Thompson. There is a museum full of pieces of scientific history like Maxwell's desk, early electron microscopes and famous apparati sitting nonchalantly in a hallway near the laboratory complex's reception desk.

While I interact with the greater Cavendish a few times a day, through general colloquia, common resources like the student machine shop and the two lecture classes I am auditing, the bulk of my time is spent with the nine people that comprise my research group: my adviser, six doctoral students, a post doctoral student and a diploma thesis student. The group feels distinctly different from the rest of the Cavendish because it has heavy German influences. Some (obvious) examples: eight of the group speak German as their first language, our laboratory anti-static footwear are Birkenstock sandals (enforcing the stereotypical 'socks and sandals' fashion statement!) and we take a coffee break immediately after lunch, which my English friends find quite weird.

However, other than these social differences, the group functions very much like other groups I have worked with before. There is a great camaraderie between the older graduate students and I've been developing a nice rapport with my office mate, Hendrik, who is here doing his diploma thesis, a degree very similar to my research MPhil.

All this adds up to a nice work environment, which makes the long hours in the lab building up experimental equipment or (as of late) in the office trying to fit my head around the theoretical underpinnings of my piece of our experimental puzzle enjoyable. And, at the end of the week, I feel justified taking off to travel and to have the adventures I've been writing about. Work hard, play hard, right?