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Random Thought on the Road: Ethics
Being an atheist, I was on several occasions asked about the question: how do you explain the question of the beginning. At first, I didn’t have an answer, because I had never seriously thought about that question. After a while, I think my initial reaction is perhaps by itself an answer already. The traditional Chinese myth doesn’t…
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Travel Report: Rome – The Church
Needless to say, churches abound in Rome. The most awesome one is of course St. Peter’s Basilica. Awesome, literally: built during the period of counter-reformation, its very purpose is to showcase the papal power. It is “the building designed to awe”, writes Lonely Planet Rome. It certainly lives up to its purpose, with masters’ strokes of…
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Travel Report: Rome – Frivolities
Wandering among the ancient ruins in Roman Forum and Palatino, gazing at the marvelous ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and transfixed by the monumental Colosseum, I felt connected with Rome’s rich and glamorous past. With the help of some self-indulgent imagination, I can easily picture myself walking with senators of the Roman Republic along Via Sacra, or…
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Current Reading: Man’s Search for Meaning
“What is to give light must endure burning.” – Viktor Frankl Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor, wrote the book in nine days, just a few months after he was freed. The book is divided into two main parts. The first part is about his experience in concentration camps and his interpretation of those…
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Thoughts on Approach to Research
Last Friday was Bio-inspired Adaptive Materials Symposium. It covered topics ranging from 3D printing to building designs to robotics. The great variety of topics reflects various approaches to research by the speakers. Some research are more real-life problem-oriented. For example, Jeff Karp’s work on designing cardiac devices for infants and biodegradable adhesives. Or George Whitesides’ work on…
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The World Cup
“They looked like they would be down and out once that Dos Santos strike hit the back of the net but in fact it shocked them into life. ” — Best quote on the flying Dutchmen today. From The Guardian.
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Notes on Lecture Notes: Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics
Taking this course is a response to what I realized previous term: I need a proper introduction to equilibrium statistical mechanics. The lecturer, Girma Hailu, followed the textbook Thermal Physics by Charles Kittel very closely, almost religiously. His style is energetic, and his approach is very helpful in guiding students to read through the textbook, which…
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Notes on Lecture Notes: Physical Mathematics II
Taking this course is an effort to brush up my maths. The lectures by Eli Tziperman are very well organized, and he always gave road maps at the beginning of lectures so that we always have the big pictures in mind (before getting lost in mathematical details). The course covers mostly partial differential equations, from the standard…
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Notes on Lecture Notes: Frontiers in Biophysics
I sat in this course because I want to learn nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. I had a decent taste of the topic I wanted to hear, and much more. The course began with review of thermodynamics and equilibrium statistical mechanics, and their applications in polymers (biomolecules) and phase transition (DNA helix-coil transition). It then dived in stochastic…
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Notes On Lecture Notes: Fluid Dynamics
Another academic year, four more courses. This year, I audited Fluid Dynamics by Mahadevan, and Frontier in Biophysics by Sunney Xie in the fall, and Thermophysics by Girma Hailu and Physical Mathematics II by Eli Tziperman in the spring. Every one of them is a rewarding experience. This is the second time I audited Maha’s fluid…