Sun 03 Aug 2008 |
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Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden |
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Sunday, 03 August 2008 13:24 |
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On the National Graphic channel, I watched a documentary about the longest bridge between Denmark and Sweden. The motivation was that people in Copenhagen need place to live, while people in the Malmo need job opportunities. So, both government agreed to build a bridge to connect them within five years. Surrounding the water with tons of rocks and soil had not surprised me that much, however the most danger during the construction was the threaten of the bombs indeed gave me a sunrise. Those bombs are buried deed under the water from the World War II. As the engineers need to dug rocks and sands from the seabed to extend land, they encountered these beast along the way. Fortunately they were care enough nobody was hurt. There were in total 19 bombs founded and exploded during the construction of the bridge!
While watching this story about engineering, it's my first time had a same feeling of the similarities between engineering and science. Usually, people tends to say that engineer just follows planed rules while science has more unexpected things happen. In this peculiar case, the threatening of the unexpected bombs was really a challenge than in the science community. Maybe in terms of challenge, there isn't really a clear line between this two fields, wherever human being want to extend its understanding or convince, there will be different challenge in front of them. Only those with determine mind and well preparation can handle it.
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Mon 28 Jul 2008 |
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Monday, 28 July 2008 15:01 |
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Although I encountered so many trouble to get to Geneva, the stay at CERN was very pleasant. Thanks to my friend Souvik for hosting me, living to a place where five minutes walk to CERN apparently saved me lot of time.
On Sunday afternoon, Souvik invited Anders, Will, and Andres to have dinner with us. The spicy chicken and juice vegetables are really tasty. For Andres, I haven't seen him for two years, it was great to meet him in such an unexpected way. 
I spend most of the time on Monday to register for the meeting and had a chance to wonder around several buildings inside CERN. As an international institution, CERN is a host to a vast population of people and scientific projects. There are all kinds of people around the world, I feels almost invisible in such a huge place.
The building styles also varies at CERN. In addition, one can see the three digits numbered building among the two digits, I was told it was due to the different period of time when they were build. The roads are named with famous physicists and some green signs indicating the people to gathering in case of fire. The most distinguished things was those models of accelerators in front of buildings.
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Sun 20 Jul 2008 |
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A Long trip to Geneva: Part I - From New York to Paris |
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Sunday, 20 July 2008 05:55 |
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My flight from JFK New York to CDG Paris was 9:10pm on Friday evening, I checked with the bus service at Ithaca, they said there are buses leaves at 12:40pm and will arrive at NYC around 6pm. I thought 3 hours should be enough to board. Before the day to come, I talked this with one of my officemate, he recommended me to get there earlier since you never know what's going to happen in the airport. So, I checked with the bus service agian, and decided to take the 9:40 one instead, which will arive at NYC around 2pm.
On Friday morning, I drove to the bus station at 9:20, since I have to register my car, I waited on the line. I didn't expect there are people waiting in the line. Finally I got the registration and it was just 5 minutes before the bus taking off.
It was fine during the trip to NYC, but when going to the JFK airport, things getting complecated. As it was Friday afternoon, the trafic was in a mess. What made things worse was the air conditioner in the bus was broken. People just started swertering in the hot bus. After so many stops and waiting, we finally get to the terminal 3 where Delta airline located. The clock was around 5:50pm.
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Tue 22 Jul 2008 |
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A Long trip to Geneva: Part II - From Paris to Geneva |
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Tuesday, 22 July 2008 22:19 |
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The flight from Paris to Zurich was quite smooth, I took several photos along the way. There was no problem to get out of the custom in the Zurich airport. Before I leave there, I had to make sure my back trip will be OK. So, I asked the staff at the Air France, they said it was not their fault so they had no obligation to arrange for the returning flight. Then they send me to the ticketing service, where a young man told me that the ticket from Zurich to Geneva was about $2000! I felt that this might not be a good idea to get there. Looking at my watch, it was already 9:30 pm, I made a decision to get there by train in stead. 
Downstairs in two stories, the lady handed me the $80 train ticket to Geneva, and told me that was the last train in the evening, it will take off at 9:40 pm. I took a look at my watch, 9:37pm, only three minutes left! I quickly ran downstairs to the number 3 terminal and on my left hand, there was the train. As soon as I get on, it started rolling!
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Fri 18 Jul 2008 |
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Encountering the Manual Car - Lesson Three: An Analytical World |
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Friday, 18 July 2008 21:59 |
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I got up very early on Sunday morning and drove to the parking lot located at the east campus. As there was few cars there, that's a wonderful place to practice start and stop. On the top two sections, there were three STOP signs in a row, all of them with some slope on it, especially the third one. I started on the flat surface first, it went on well. As soon as I got stop at the uphill stop sign, I got stuck. I also noticed even if after I got started after several try, when I switch from the first gear to the second gear, the car would always moved with a sudden jump, which I felt very uncomfortable.
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