2008-07-11 (Lindau Post Visit Day 7)

Bye bye.

It was my final day in Europe. Although I was exhausted, I was rather sad that everything ended so fast. Germany and Switzerland, see you again.

2008-07-10 (Lindau Post Visit Day 6)

We were back to Switzerland again! When I started to get used to this travelling, it had been the last stop of our visit. Our last stop was the Department of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; it was another renowned institute of technology in the world. The direction was rather confusing and it took us some time to find the people we suppose to meet with. We had free lunch again, it was not the normal canteen the students normally used, but was a rather classy restaurants. Thank you ETH Zurich! We had some chat about Lindau Meeting, Zurich and also Sprüngli!

ETH Zurich!

2008-07-09 (Lindau Post Visit Day 5)

We were on another transfer again, but this time the destination was Stuttgart. We were going to visit the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Advanced Materials. The place was quite far from our hotel, but we had Ms. Nitia as our schedule planner, there was nothing to be worry about. When we arrived, Dr. Hans-George Libuda was already there at our meeting point to welcome us. I was attracted by a road sign, which later I found out it was Prof. Dr. von Klitzing’s students who put it there and named the road as von Klitzing path. (I am sure that Prof. Dr. von Klitzing was happy at that time.) The people from IMPRS were very generous, after we met with the Dr. H. G. Libuda, we were escorted to the canteen and treated a very good meal. (Finally, a complete lunch.)

Next stop, Stuttgart!

2008-07-08 (Lindau Post Visit Day 4)

After three days in Geneva, we were again in another transit flight. This time we were going back to Germany, specifically Münster. This time we went to a more application based company, CenTech GmbH Center for Nanotechnology.

To Münster!

2008-07-07 (Lindau Post Visit Day 3)

Today was the day, I am going to CERN! The main focus for this visit was of course LHC. At that time, LHC was near to completion and brought up the hype of creating a black hole. We were visiting CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) in particular. We arrived quite early and have sufficient time to look around CERN. To much of my surprise, CERN was not a nerdy place that I thought, you just look at the activities that CERN had. It brings me into deep contemplation, individual and social development was just as important as scientific development.

This is it, building 500!

2008-07-06 (Lindau Post Visit Day 2)

Green light, bicycle move please…

After the longer than expected discussion about the Lindau report, it was the first time for me to walk in one of the old city in Europe. (Geneva, if you did not read my previous post.) The buildings here are well preserved and it was like a modern city in a traditional outlook. I do not have much to write for this day, “a picture speaks a thousand words”, enjoy!

(Side note: I do not know whether the Swiss watches here are cheaper, to me everything looks expensive.)

I supposed to visit all these in a day?!

2008-07-05 (Lindau Post Visit Day 1)

Migros.

We finally arrived to our hotel (Ramada Hotel) in Geneva after all the tiring transit flights. There was a Migros near our hotel, something like a big chain store of everything (you have Migros Restaurant, Migros supermarket, Migros currency exchange center, etc.) Swiss France is the currency used here and most of people in this part of Geneva speak French.

The schedule for the first day in Geneva was light. Our plan was visit the exhibitions in CERN. For those who had no idea what CERN was: CERN is currently holding the highest energy particle accelerator known as Large Hadron Collider (LHC). CERN is like a small town of its own and even has its own bus stop! The first place we visited in CERN was the Microcosm. Before we moved forward, we had our another bread-wrapped Kebab lunch. (Why so many Kebab around?)

2008-07-04 (Lindau Day 6)

Today was the last day of the 2008 Lindau Meeting. I took the usual 8.30am bus and alighted at the train station stop instead of the usual one, since my destination today was the Lindau Harbour. Some of the participants, who were taking the train straight after the boat ride, had checked-in the baggage at the counter in the Inselhalle. We just arrived in time and the participants had already lined up to enter the boat. (To fit in more than 600 people, you will need a big boat.) The boat departed at 9am, stopped and picked up the Nobel Laureates from Hotel Bad Schachen. The boat ride took around three hours to reach its destination, the Isle of Mainau, a place that resembles a flower park.

The famous light house.

2008-07-03 (Lindau Day 5)

Today theme was optics in the early morning and more to general science in the late morning. Dr. Glaser started his lecture by showing us the 2-dot apparent motion, he demonstrated that the human vision can be manipulated to observe what actually was not there, and this is commonly known as optical illusion. I was too busy trying his optical illusion until I forgot to take photos of his slides. He studied about how human eyes and brain coordinated and functioned, and further manipulated its mechanism to create optical illusion. It was very interesting as this would mean that we are studying our brain, the part of our human body that we understand the least.

Another interesting Nobel Laureate. Dr. Bloembergen said that he was not so good with power point presentation; therefore he used an old and nostalgic way for his presentation, the overhead projector (OHP)! He reminded me about the time I was studying in the University, copying notes from the OHP slides.

2008-07-02 (Lindau Day 4)

Today was the day for theoretical physicists. I could felt Khai Ming’s excitement as well, even though he did not show it explicitly. For some unknown reasons, Prof. Dr. Cronin's presentation was canceled. But the transition went well, Prof. Dr. Riccardo Giacconi started the talk on astrophysics and later Prof. Dr. George Smoot told us about the big bang and the development that finally formed the universe we had today. His presentation was rather multimedia rich, showing us many animations such as the view of the stars from our galactic plane, and the development of our universe. (Sorry, only photo available here, too amazed.)

 

C for Cosmic.

2008-07-01 (Lindau Day 3)

 Another Germany morning.

Today we had three Chemistry Nobel Laureates (1988) presented instead of the Physics one, and in the late morning we had the panel discussion instead of another series of lectures. Besides that, nothing much had change for me, boarded the bus at 8.30am, alighted at 8.44am, then sat in the hall waiting for the session to start.

2008-06-30 (Lindau Day 2)

30th June 2008 marked the beginning of the series of morning lectures and afternoon discussions that lasted for four consecutive days. The morning lectures were scheduled to start at 9 am, but since my breakfast was only available after 8 am and I would not want to miss it, I decided to take the 8.30 am bus. (With punctuality promised, this was the first time in my life that I could really plan my bus trip.)

After I walked into the breakfast dining room, I browsed through the food options that were available for me. Let’s see... Breads, more breads, corn flakes and cereals with milk, fruits salads, mayonnaise, yogurt dressing, more dressings (I do not really know the name), hams, meats (I had no idea what the meats were,  maybe pork or turkey?), etc. At first, I thought the meats were raw because they were so cold and so pink! After having our breakfast, my roommate and I took the 8.30 am bus and it was crowded by fellow attendees.

Nobel Laureates’ lectures series.

2008-06-29 (Lindau Day 1)

Germany here we come!

Four of us had arrived at Frankfurt around 6.30 am. Frankfurt International Airport is very big, and confusing! It took us sometime to find the transfer desk, as it was located in the First Class section. Finally, we took a transfer flight to Friedrichshafen Regional Airport (I still have problem pronouncing this place until today) and then found our taxi driver rather quickly. Since it was still too early for the registration, we planned to check-in to the hotels and my hotel was the first, Schachener Hof Hotel, simply because my hotel is the nearest to the regional airport.

The Big Euro Sign.

Lindau 2008 Experience

Lindau is a small island located in Germany, what makes Lindau so special is the meeting held here every year. Dedicated to foster better interaction between Nobel Laureates and the young scientist/researchers, I am lucky to have the chance to attend the 2008 Lindau meeting, dedicated to physics. The meeting starts at 29th June and ends at 4th of July. After the meeting, we visited a few places around Europe. And the journey begins.