Happy 30th Anniversary, Z Boson!

Today (1^st of June, 2013) marks the 30^th anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of the Z boson at CERN. I did my BSc project on the production of Z bosons at the LHC, so I’ve been wanting to write about them for a while. So when I saw a post on the CERN’s facebook page yesterday morning about the anniversary, I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. So here we go!

What’s a Z Boson?

Matter is made of particles, and the best theory we have for describing these particles and how they interact is the Standard Model. According to the standard model, quarks and leptons make up matter, the gauge bosons mediate interactions between particles and the Higgs boson gives mass to particles.

Particles in the Standard Model (Image from: Wikimedia Commons)

In physics, there are four fundamental interactions: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational^*. According to quantum field theories, there are particles responsible for mediating each of these types of interactions. Strong interaction between particles is mediated by the exchange of gluons. Exchange of photons mediates the electromagnetic interaction and gravitons are responsible for gravity (gravitons have not yet been observed, though!). The particles responsible for mediating the weak interaction are the W and Z bosons.

Weak Interactions with “Neutral Currents”

By the early 1960s, physicists already knew about weak interactions (for example, beta decay is a weak interaction) but they believed that all weak interactions were mediated by the W bosons, which have a charge of either +1 or -1. Because the W boson is charged, the interactions with their involvement are called “charged current” interactions. In 1968, Glashow, Weinberg and Salam came up with a theory that unified electromagnetic interactions with weak interactions. According to this theory, however, there had to be another uncharged boson that was also a carrier for the weak force. Unfortunately, nobody had ever observed events with such “neutral current” interactions.

In 1973, neutral current events were observed for the first time at the Gargamelle bubble chamber at CERN:

A neutral current event from Gargamelle (Image from: http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/27904) ^# 

In the early observations, muon antineutrinos scatter off electrons inside the bubble chamber via neutral the current interaction:

They found three such events, and then the focus was shifted to events where the neutrinos interacted with protons or neutrons. If the interactions took place via the exchange of a W boson (charged current), muons should be produced, whereas when the interactions took place via the exchange of a Z boson (neutral current) muons would not be produced. Fortunately for for Glashow, Weinberg and Salam, the analysis found a large number of neutral current events, and so they went on to receive the Nobel prize in 1979.

Sixty Symbols did a nice video about Gargamelle and the discovery of neutral currents. Watch it!:

Sixty Symbols video: Gargamelle and Neutral Currents

Discovering the Z Boson

Even though neutral currents were discovered in 1973, the W and Z bosons themselves were not discovered for another decade. The problem with producing W and Z bosons in collisions was that they were quite heavy, which meant that  to produce them, particles needed to be accelerated to very high energies.

An Italian physicist, Carlo Rubbia, proposed to turn the “Super Proton Synchrotron” (or “SPS”) at CERN—which had been used only as a proton accelerator till then—to a machine that would collide a beam of protons with a beam of antiprotons (and this was called “SppS”). The energy produced in the resulting collisions would be enough to produce W and Z bosons.

The Z bosons produced in these collisions have very short lifetimes and so they can’t be detected directly. What can be detected are the decay products of the Z bosons, especially when Z bosons decay into the electron/positron or muon/antimuon pairs:

First, the detectors use a magnetic field to bend these decay products, and from the way they bend their momenta can be calculated. Eventually, they deposit their energy in specific parts of the detector and then the detector can measure their energy as well. Knowing the energies and momenta of these decay products, the details of the Z boson that produced them can be inferred.

At the experiment, two detectors, UA1 and UA2 were built, and the experiment started gathering data in 1981. On January 1983, the W boson’s discovery was announced. Finally, in April 1983, first events of Z bosons decaying into electron/positron and muon/antimuon pairs were detected. The picture below is apparently the first ever detection of a Z boson, taken from the UA1 experiment. Bear in mind, though, that unlike with the bubble chambers, it’s not the pictures themselves that are analysed. The data can be collected from the electronics directly. The pictures are reconstructed from the data. The two white lines show the two emerging electrons that have come from the decay of a Z boson. The white bars indicate that they’ve deposited their energy in the electromagnetic calorimeter of the detector.

The first Z boson decay event observed (Image from CERN: http://home.web.cern.ch)

The invariant mass of the Z boson is equal to the invariant mass of the system consisting of the electron/positron or the muon/antimuon pair, which I’m going to call the “di-lepton mass” from here on. As I indicated earlier, the di-lepton mass can be calculated once you know the energies and momenta of the decay products. Here’s a plot showing the data from UA1 and UA2 detectors, which I took from Rubbia’s Nobel lecture (did I forget to mention that Rubbia won the Nobel prize in 1984 for his role in the discovery of W and Z bosons? Well, he did!):

The invariant mass of Z bosons, measurements from UA1 and UA2 detectors (Image from http://www.nobelprize.org/)

From these measurements, Rubbia and his team concluded that the invariant mass of the Z boson must be around 95 GeV/c².

After the Discovery

Since they’ve been discovered, properties of Z bosons have been studied at many detectors around the world. Specifically, the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider was built at CERN to investigate weak interactions. With this experiment, the mass of the Z boson was determined much more accurately.

Next, of course, came the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). LHC collides beams of protons at very high energies. In these collisions, the quarks and antiquarks from inside the protons can annihilate to give Z bosons. At LHC, Z boson production has been studied with ATLAS, CMS and LHCb detectors. The picture I’ve put below is from ATLAS, and it shows an electron and a positron from a Z boson decay (the yellow lines). The green area is the electromagnetic calorimeter of the detector, where the electrons deposit their energy. The yellow blobs in the calorimeter show where the energy has been deposited.

A Z boson decays into two electrons, from the ATLAS experiment (Image from http://www.atlas.ch/ ATLAS Experiment © 2013 CERN)

The video below is a simulation of a Z boson decaying into a muon and an antimuon at the ATLAS detector. (If you click around in youtube, you’ll also find a Z decay into an electron and a positron):

Simulation of a Z boson decaying into two muons at ATLAS

These graphs I’ve put below show the di-lepton mass distributions of Z boson to electron/positron decays from ATLAS and CMS publications with data from 2010. I just thought I should put them up, for comparison with the data from UA1 and UA2. We now know the invariant mass of the Z boson to be around 91.2 GeV (note that the c² factor has been dropped here by letting c = 1, which is something that particle physicists often do for convenience, which could sometimes lead to confusion!)

Di-lepton mass distributions for “central” Z → e⁺e^– decays at the LHC. Left: data from ATLAS publication, and on the right: data from CMS publication.

So why is knowing all this stuff about the Z boson important? To start with, knowing its properties help us understand the weak interaction . But more importantly with the LHC, since Z bosons are produced by colliding protons, looking at the properties of Z bosons that are produced in these collisions can help us learn about the structure of protons. For instance, Z boson decays have been used to determine the density of strange quarks that make up the proton. Z bosons are also very useful in studying the Higgs boson: one of the most convenient ways to detect a Higgs boson is via its decay into two Z bosons (each Z bosons could then decay into an electron/positron or a muon/antimuon pair like we saw earlier, and these particles are relatively easy to detect).

So as you can see, discovery of the Z boson 30 years ago was an important milestone in physics. Since then, we have studied the Z boson extensively, and we now know a great deal about it. Still, it continues to play an important role in some of the most exiting experiments carried out today. Happy 30^th anniversary, Z boson!

A Z boson plush toy from http://www.particlezoo.net/. I’m not being paid to advertise for them, mind you! It was too cute to resist not putting it in here! I’m buying one!

References

1. ATLAS Collaboration, 2011. Measurement of the inclusive W+- and Z/γ* cross sections in the electron and muon decay channels in pp collisions at √s= 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector, s.l.: arXiv:1109.5141v3 [hep-ex].
2. CERN COURIER, 1998. Twenty-five years of neutral currents. [Online]
   Available at: http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/27904
   [Accessed 01 June 2013].
3. CMS Collaboration, 2011. Measurement of the Inclusive W and Z Production Cross Sections in pp Collisions at √s = 7 TeV, s.l.: arXiv:1107.4789v1 [hep-ex].
4. Cundy, D., 2009. Gargamelle: the tale of a giant discovery. [Online]
   Available at: http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/40122
   [Accessed 01 June 2013].
5. Denegri, D., 2003. When CERN saw the end of the alphabet. [Online]
   Available at: http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/28849
   [Accessed 01 June 2013].
6. Griffiths, D., 2008. Introduction to Elementary Particles, Weinheim: WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co..
7. Haidt, D. P. A., 2012. The weak neutral current – discovery and impact. [Online]
   Available at: http://virgilio.mib.infn.it/~pullia/apdh4bisnuovo.pdf
   [Accessed 01 June 2013].
8. Halzen, F. & Martin, A. D., 1984. Quarks and Leptons: An Introductory Course in Modern Particle Physics. s.l.:John Wiley & Sons, Inc..
9. Izlar, K., 2013. Thirty years of the Z boson. [Online]
   Available at: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2013/05/thirty-years-z-boson
   [Accessed 01 June 2013].
10. Martin, B. & Shaw, G., 2008. Particle Physics. 3rd ed. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
11. Riesselmann, K., 2009. Weak neutral current. [Online]
    Available at: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/august-2009/weak-neutral-current
    [Accessed 01 June 2013].
12. Rubbia, C., 1984. Experimental Observation of the Intermediate Vector Bosons W+, W- and Z0. [Online]
    Available at: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1984/rubbia-lecture.html
    [Accessed 01 June 2013].

Links

[*] On YouTube, SciShow did a series of videos describing the four fundamental forces, you can find them here. Watch them if you haven’t seen them already!

[#] An “annotated” version of the neutral current image from Gargamelle can be found at here

Please bear in mind that I’m not an expert on particle physics. I’ve tried my best to be as technically accurate as possible, however there may still be errors in the article. If you notice any, kindly let me know.

I have given links to all the images and videos I have taken from other sources, however if you believe that I have misused one of your images/videos, please let me know and I will remove it from the blog.

A Rambling about Stone-skipping and its Physics

During one of our school trips a couple of years ago, we stopped by a lake somewhere to stretch our legs. Somehow we ended up stone-skipping on the lake and naturally, this progressed into a competition to see which of us could get the stone to skip the most number of times. Also naturally, I was having the worst luck and couldn’t get a single stone to skip, not even once.

Disappointed, I gave up and tried to figure out the physics behind stone-skipping. I couldn’t, and I promised myself I’d look into this mystery once I got back home.

The rest of the trip was much more exciting however (It was a rainy day, we were in a rainforest and we… uh… thoroughly experienced the dominance of leeches on the local food chains) and in all that excitement I forgot about the whole stone-skipping episode and I didn’t remember it again until a few months ago.  When I did, I immediately turned to Ask.com Google and what I found was really interesting. So I thought of sharing some of that information with you (aren’t I just so adorably generous?).

Ordinary experience tells us that if we chuck a stone into water, it would sink. Clearly this is not the case with stone-skipping and we can sort-of intuitively tell that it has something to do with the way the stone is being thrown.

Now to the physics. Newton’s Third law tells us that every force comes with a reaction force (which has the same size as the original force but acts in the opposite direction). When you’re sitting on a chair, for example, you are pushing the chair downwards and in turn the chair is pushing you back up, allowing you to (hopefully) sit comfortably without falling down. If you drop a stone into water, similarly the stone pushes down on the water and the water pushes the stone back up (or in other words, gives a “lift” to the stone). However, there is another force—gravity, that’s trying to pull the stone right down. If the lift trying to push the stone up is not as strong as the force of gravity pulling the stone down, the stone—you guessed it—falls down.

Things are slightly different in stone-skipping, and I’ll try to explain why.

A French physicist named Lydéric Bocquet has published a mathematical description of stone-skipping¹ (amongst other serious publications, he has also published a paper on cooking potato wedges and soon another one of his papers on ironing and the anatomy of wrinkles will be appearing in Soft Matter—needless to say I like this guy!). He calculates that the lift experienced by the stone is proportional to the square of the stone’s velocity. In other words, the faster the stone travels, the greater the lift. By playing around with maths, he came up with an expression that gave a critical velocity (i.e. a “speed limit”) for the stone. If the stone travelled at a velocity lower than this critical velocity, it would sink. In fact, the physics here is similar to that experienced by a water-skater. If a skater is travelling very slowly, he or she obviously can’t skate on the water and would sink.

Bocquet also realized that each time the stone hit the water surface, it experienced friction and this reduced the stone’s kinetic energy. This led him to calculate another critical velocity for the stone. For a typical stone, it turns out that this second critical velocity (needed to ensure that the stone has enough kinetic energy to skip) is greater than the critical velocity necessary for the stone to get “lifted”.

The stone also has to hit the water surface at an angle. The lift is much less for a stone that lands “flat” on the water and it would almost certainly sink. Boquet experimented extensively on the angle with some other scientists—and published his results in 2004. It turns out that an angle of about 20^o gives the most number of skips regardless of the stone’s velocity and other such conditions². He also found that there is no skipping if the angle between the stone and the water is greater than 45^{o 3}.

It is also very important that the stone is spinning. Spinning gives the stone some angular momentum, and thanks to conservation of angular momentum, the stone’s angle to the water does not change by a great deal as the stone skips (Conservation of angular momentum is also the reason why you feel much more stable when you’re riding a bicycle at a higher speed). If the stone was not spinning, it would topple as soon as it hit the water and then sink right down. So much for skipping.

So what should you do to get a good skip of a stone? Get a flat, rounded stone. Throw it fast, at an angle (preferably 20^o) to the water, and take care to make it spin (without wobbling!). If you have better luck than me (you most likely will, trust me,) you’ll get the stone to do splendid skips on the water. You might even break the world record.

This is the point where you realize that stone-skipping is actually a pretty established hobby.  Stone-skipping enthusiasts even organize competitions (check out http://stoneskipping.com/ for details on the 43^rd annual Stone-Skipping Tournament). The world record right now is an amazing 51 skips. Yes. Fifty-one (as opposed to my all-time high of zero). The person who set the record is a guy named Russ Byars, and his website even gives you tips on how to get the perfect skip. The man is a professional. Watch this footage of Russ Byars setting the world record, and see if you can actually count the 51 skips (and have fun doing that! :P). In any case you just have to admit there’s something awesome about the way the stone just keeps skipping…

Alright. I’ve described the stone-skipping process rather simply. The actual situation can be more complex and I don’t want to get into all that. If you’re interested I’ll add these references, you can follow up and read them (and I highly encourage you to!).

References

1. Bocquet, L., 2002. The physics of stone skipping. arXiv:physics/0210015v1. [This paper has the mathematical description, if you’re interested].
2. Plus Magazine, 2002. In skimming, spin’s the thing. [online] Available at: <http://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue22/news/skimming/index> [Accessed 31 January 2012]. [This gives a very nice description for an average reader, outlining the simplest aspects of maths as well].
3. Clanet, C., Hersen, F. and Bocquet, L., 2004. Secrets of successful stone-skipping. Nature, 427 (29), p.29. [Got some nice close-up shots of a stone’s “skip” in progress].

Some other articles with “simpler” explanations that might interest you:

• http://discovermagazine.com/2003/aug/featscienceof
• http://io9.com/5530350/why-do-stones-skip-across-the-water
• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0107_040108_stoneskipping_2.html

This next one is actually a more recent study done by scientists at University of British Columbia and University of Cambridge. They refine Bocquet’s model by adding in more parameters, especially how the shape of water in changes as the stone collides with water. I didn’t read much of it, but it looks pretty interesting:

• http://www.math.ubc.ca/~njb/Research/skipping.pdf

…and that’s that. I shall see you with my next blog post. Whenever that is. I know this post is rather vague… I’ll try my best to read up and do a better job next time! ;). Adios! 😀

ETA: A slow-motion video of a stone skipping. Can’t believe I missed this! 😀

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSMFYoqm4wI

Sinhala Digits? Is this for real?

Hello again, coming back to you after such a long time to give such a short blog post! And I updated my theme as well. I have to learn some CSS and start creating my own themes… most of these free WordPress themes are so badly-designed!

Well! I stumbled across this website completely by accident. According to this site, there are apparently Sinhala “digits”. Uh… who knew.

Here’s the link: http://www.sinhala-online.com/sinhala-digits-number-page.html

The site offers a “number converter”, and it doesn’t take a long time to figure out how to construct numbers using these digits. They look rather cool, very curvy, curly and artistic. (I’d love to have a T-shirt featuring number 80!) On the down side, they look way too complicated to be used in any kind of fast writing! Look at 70! That’s one monster of a digit. By the time you write that character, you could probably write around ten 70’s using your good old European digits!

Apparently, there has been some efforts to get these characters into Unicode, but they haven’t succeeded. It’ll be “cool” to have them just for the sake of having them in Unicode… but let’s be realistic. It’s not like anyone is going to be using these! Now that I think of it, I wonder if anyone has ever used them. Maybe they were used by the old kings, who didn’t mind spending an hour writing a simple number…

At this point I’m thinking “maybe everybody else knows this and I’m the only one who doesn’t”… but a part of me is still sceptical. It sounds like some kind of an elaborate prank. Well I guess this is real.

I also discovered that there are actually Tamil digits that have been put into Unicode. You can see them here. (And here too) I don’t know about Tamil digits much, but aren’t most of these Tamil letters as well? Now, the Unicode character code points are different, but how can the reader know the difference? For instance, the Tamil digit 1 (௧) has Unicode code point U+0BE7 and the character “ka” (க) has the Unicode code point U+0B95 but can you spot it? They are essentially the same character! Maybe you need to specifically indicate you’re writing a number, just to avoid confusion! But then again, like Sinhala digits, I doubt anyone ever uses them! Well maybe a few eccentric people do…

Dark Thoughts and Sinhala vs. English

I feel very… dark. I mean, I feel like writing about gut-wrenchingly depressing and dark things. Sometimes I start writing them, but when I re-read them it all seems so childish and shallow. It’s hard to put the exact thoughts and feelings in my mind into words.

I feel trapped and unable to express myself. And then that fuels the dark thoughts more and on goes the whole vicious cycle.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not feeling depressed about my life or feeling suicidal or anything! I feel depressed about all humanity. I feel like writing about stupid wars and innocent people dying in them. But the words always fall short and I end up cursing myself.

I should’ve stuck to writing in Sinhala. I haven’t written in Sinhala in ages, and I’m terribly out of practice. So now, whenever I write in Sinhala it all comes out as an awkward mess.

I feel much more comfortable with English. I think my English skills are quite good, but being a writer and being able to express your feelings through your own words… that’s a whole other realm and I think I’m very far from that place.

Maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s because Sinhala is my mother-tongue, but I’ve always felt that Sinhala is more “effective” than English when it comes to “serious” literature. (No offense to English speakers!) I feel like there are too many words in English that are just “there” to make things grammatically correct, but all those meaningless words reduce the effect of the truly important words. Somehow I feel that Sinhala words have a more weight to them. I feel a much greater impact when I read the Sinhala translation of a book sometimes, than when I read the English (often original) versions.

But Sinhala (I feel) has its own set of drawbacks (no offence to Sinhala speakers! සමාවෙන්න! ). When it comes to comedy, I feel English is much more stronger and effective. For some reason. And then Sinhala has the whole written form/ spoken form dichotomy and the grammar is a bit nasty if you want to write something formal (although I must say—once you learn the grammar, using it isn’t complicated like it is in English. Gosh, English sentences can end up so complicated—another reason why English becomes less effective in “serious” literature). I’ve forgotten most of my basic Sinhala “writing” grammar, and so when I write in Sinhala I write in a weird “writing/ speaking hybrid” (so to speak) and it comes out more awkward than ever.

Now all this is just jabbering, and I’ve got no evidence to prove any of this. Just telling how I feel. Killing my time. Usual stuff.

I’ll be heading off to Australia next week. Don’t know how the internet connection’s going to be over there. (well I know it’s very bad!) So I won’t be writing frequently until September. But then I haven’t really written in this blog in the past couple of months so I guess it won’t make a difference.

I’ve started reading more “serious” literature as well. I’ve just about finished the first quarter of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. (More fuel for dark thoughts! Hooray!) I find the book fascinating. [spoiler, highlight to read!] I just couldn’t wait till Roskolnikov murdered Alyona Ivanova, though, does that make me a bad person? I hope not!

Oh, and I can’t wait to get my hands on A Dance With Dragons! July 12th, come soon!

Alright, I’m feeling sleepy. This will have to do for now.

My Thoughts on… Cricket?

I wonder if writing about cricket is a terrible mistake! (My knowledge of cricket is very poor for a Sri Lankan!) But yesterday’s Sri Lankan cricket match against England has brought back all sorts of memories and emotions and I think I should write about it!

I was never really “into” cricket. But of course, when you live in Sri Lanka you have to know about cricket. It’s everywhere. It’s almost a part of our identity. Wait, it is a part of our identity!

I was quite moved when I saw all the facebook statuses from my Sri Lankan friends, congratulating the team on their recent victory. Nothing brings us Sri Lankans together like a good cricket match, no wonder cricket has such a huge impact in our lives.

Kids are awfully passionate about cricket. They take whatever they can find (a plastic ball, a chopped-off bit of a coconut branch and a couple of sticks to mark the wicket is all they need.) and play cricket whenever (morning, noon, afternoon, evening and even in the night while their mothers are scolding them to get back inside) and wherever (paddy fields, deserted roads, home gardens, river banks, beaches etc.) they get a chance. They use old trees as boundaries of the field and decide on a set of strict penalties for anyone who would bat the ball into a nearby bush (it takes hours to find the ball!) or worse (to the dismay of their grandmothers) into a house window. Of course, once they start playing they end up arguing and bantering more than playing, but hey! That’s how kids are!

When there is cricket, the whole country comes to a standstill. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing! In fact I think it just brings all of us together in our own weird Sri Lankan way. The kids would put up a fight with their moms to stay home and “watch the match”, the dads (and moms) would make up excuses at work to get into the directors’ rooms (which often have TV’s which are, of course, broadcasting the cricket matches live). The bus drivers and the lottery-sellers would blare off the cricket match on the streets on their ever so loud radios, and people would scramble outside TV shops trying to take a peak at the action going on the screens inside the shop. And once the cricket match is over, it would be the main topic of discussion for days—or even weeks—for everybody in every stratum of society from business CEOs to village farmers.

I remember 1996. It was exciting. Cricket was everywhere. They were giving free cricketers’ stickers with every packet of Edna chocolate and all of my classmates (I was in grade 2) were in a mad rush to “collect the whole set”. To us back then, owning the whole set of stickers was like being the president of USA or being on the moon. Unfortunately I only had two stickers (out of possibly 120—my parents were not keen on me eating too much chocolate!).

Romesh Kaluwitharana was the wicket-keeper. There was Asanka Gurusinghe who kept tapping the ground with his bat for extended periods of time (I used to find it very amusing, being seven years old!) but nevertheless was a good batsman. Hashan Thilakarathne, Aravinda De Silva, Arjuna Ranathunga, Roshan Mahanama… I used to know the whole team back then! (Now I don’t.)

After we won the world cup in 1996 the whole country was in celebration. People were on the streets, waving flags… it was beautiful.

During the last world cup, we came very, very close again. The whole country was once again holding its breath collectively. The match got delayed by rain (I remember calling up TNL and requesting them to play “Rain Wizard” by Black Stone Cherry!) and there was some controversy when the match had to stop halfway through because of poor lighting conditions. I can’t remember the details now. Anyway it was a crushing disappointment for us when the Aussies took the cup home. But in a sense that also brought all of us together.

But then there’s also a dark side to our cricket. Politics of the country is putting heavy strains on the team at times, but they’ve managed to stick together. For that I commend  and congratulate them.

And then there are the racists. Some people get completely carried away and forget that in sports we’re supposed to admit victories and defeats with the same equanimity. I feel extremely angry and frustrated when I see some of their comments. It is one thing to support your favourite team, but it is a completely different (and unacceptable!!) thing when people take things a step too far. I sincerely hope that these people would grow up!!

Anyway now we’ve qualified for the semifinals. Hopefully we’ll beat New Zealand and then we can beat (India/ Pakistan) in the finals and take the cup. My fingers are crossed ever so tight. Good Luck, fellow lions! And oh, God(s)! Please, please PLEASE let us win this time!!!!

Catching Up, The You-Know-What (i.e. Exams), etc.

Wow. It’s been a while.

I’m happy to let you know that I’m alive and well. I hope you’re alive and well too.

That’s pleasantries for ya. Now back to business.

Usually whenever I have an exam, I get super-addicted to non-exam related stuff. This time it was YouTube. Yes, I know, I thought I couldn’t get more addicted to YouTube, but turns out I was wrong! I’m actually going to do a post soon about YouTube. Anticipate that. (Like you keep anticipating most of the things I’ve promised to do on this blog.)

I figure this blog post is going to be just general how-my-life’s-been kinda thing. Feel free to let your mind wander for the rest of the post if you find my life excruciatingly boring. Then again, how dare you!

I’m not going to talk about my exams (even though they went reasonably well). Instead I’m going to talk about stuff I found online while surfing the web as usual. Hope you find them interesting . Or not.

Oh, This is exciting. They’ve released two more new trailers for A Game of Thrones and also an 11-minute video titled Inside Game of Thrones.  The show is going to premier on 17^th April on HBO, and I’m extremely excited because not only am I a huge George R. R. Martin fan, I’m also a huge George R. R. Martin fan . You should seriously watch this series, and also read the books, they’re amazing, I tell you! And have I ever lied to you? Wait. Don’t answer that.

OK, OK, here’s probably my favourite of the teasers:

My second favourite:

Finally, the 11-minute video. Watch. It.

Aaaah, the excitement.

Now, I’’m also a big fan of YouTube channel Vihart. Here’s one of my favourite videos by her. It’s about Möbius strips, and it’s very very creative. Double thumbs up. Check it out too:

I found lots of other interesting stuff online, but I don’t want to overload this page with links but this web page was featured on Yahoo, and I found it hilarious. Check out 10 illegal baby names. It’s amazing what some parents want to name their kids. Thank God some of these names are illegal, I can imagine the kind of things some of these kids could’ve experienced in schools if the parents had had their way!

I started listening to some music as soon as I came home after the exams. It’s been a while since I had a chance to listen to music. Aaah, for some reason, I was listening to "Rambari by Lahiru Perera, and it brought back all sorts of memories of being in crowded buses and listening to Sri FM and that endless (and extremely annoying at times) Saagaraya se Aadarei radio drama. Chirist, I miss Sri Lanka. Well here’s the video, which I think is an EPIC fail, considering the lyrics, which are brilliant. I mean, I wanted to see the guys at a cyver kade tapping on tables and singing this song. I wanted to see fat merchants with beelte-leaf stained teeth in village shops. I really wanted to see a leaking roof, and some scrawny kids sitting inches away, their eyes glued to a black-and-white TV watching a John Cena wrestling match. This goes on to show how over-commercialized Sri Lankan music has become. I mean, somewhere down the line, some producer guy had decided that this is the video they should come up with, which doesn’t relate to the song at all. Bad. Very bad. Oh well… sigh.

 

I just finished watching the YouTube project Life in a Day, which is a documentary made from various people’s video recordings from 24th July 2010.  It’s really interesting because the videos come from all corners of the world. I was pretty inspired by it. Maybe I’ll do a blog post about that…

But that has to wait. I’m tired of typing this already. I need to go and get some well-deserved rest. So until next time, good-bye! And if you think you like this blog (you do? Wow!) subscribe!!!

 

If One Blog Wasn’t Enough…

Ted Williams (NOT Tad Williams the fantasy author. Ted. Not Tad. See?) was a homeless guy, and when this video became viral on media and on the net—and he ended up being hired by the MSNBC. Wonder why? Check this out (I don’t know if this is the original video though):

And here’s the guy, being interviewed by CBS a couple of weeks later (kinda emotional. In a good way.):

Just. Amazing.

OK, enough about Ted Williams. Time to get to another (non-homeless) guy with a (self-proclaimed) golden voice—me!

Unfortunately, my life has been less dramatic. For starters, I didn’t get hired by a media giant in the past couple of weeks. In fact, nothing interesting happened. But I guess that’s mostly because I was stuck at home, studying. Or trying to. There’s a hopeless mess of equations and formulae in my head right now… hmm… want to hear one at random? No? OK…

I needed to take my mind off the impending you-know-what. (That means e8x8a8m8s—when you remove the 8’s between letters. Seeing the word gives me a panic attack these days. *shudder*) So, to take my mind off the you-know-what, I started another blog. In Sinhala. (called “නිපුණගේ බ්ලොග් එක”)If you want to check it out, it’s at http://nipunablogs2.wordpress.com/. It still needs some work, I just about set it up. If you decide to read it, though, bear in mind that I haven’t written in Sinhala for quite some time—so the language comes out a little awkward. In fact, I’m worried that I’ll lose the ability to write in proper Sinhala. That’s one of the main reasons why I started that blog.

Last week, I was obsessed a little with secret codes and cryptography. I meant to write a nice post about cryptography (or what little I discovered about it—it’s a very broad subject and can involve lots of math), but I guess that’ll have to wait until my exams are over! So. Wait in anticipation. Sorry about the relatively short and meaningless blog post.

… and, just like that, another year ends!

Wow. 2010 felt like a roller-coaster ride. looking back at the year, from January up to this point… just wow. Honestly. This time last year, if anyone came up to me and told me that one year later, I’d be sitting in Liverpool as a physics student, or that I’d be writing a blog post about what a year it’s been , I wouldn’t have believed it. Not at all.

I was at APIIT at the beginning of the year, and I did have some unforgettable moments with the guys… I remember getting repeatedly stuck on my DBDS assignment—programs crashing all over the place—but then after hours and hours of hard work with my team we finally got the program to work, and even added a couple of extra features… and it was a happy day.

Then there were the VB assignments, and the familiar rush in the last few minutes to get the thing printed and submitted on time. I must confess that I feel a bit sorry for the printing shop-guy at Jubilee Hall. I mean the APIIT students may get stressed out four or five times a term, but that guy—he gets stressed every time there’s a submission at APIIT. Oh well, I guess he makes enough profit to more than compensate for the stress!

Possibly the most dreadful thing I had to do in 2010 was having to make that cartoon. After enduring hours and hours of Flash, and trying to make things move in a sensible way—I came to realize that animation was not my thing.  But, by actually going through the process, I developed a great respect for animators. The amount of effort they have to put into making a cartoon is just—astronomical.

Around this time my parents were back from Australia and all of a sudden, my dad decided that I should give a try to apply to UK universities again. And I did. At first there was a bit of confusion—whether I should apply for microbiology, physics or continue doing IT. My maths A-levels hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, and my parents were worried about me taking physics. There’s something about maths exams that gives me a brain-freeze. But I realized that what I had was a rare opportunity—and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to study the stuff that I loved. It was a life-changing decision. I chose physics, and held on to it.

In July I got the chance to go to Canberra. It was nice to be back in Australia again, even for a short period of time. It brought back all sorts of memories—and I had a pretty good time even though I didn’t get to travel much.

When I came back I had to apply for UK visa. It was nerve-wreaking. I remember filling the applications very, very carefully, reading through again and again, checking every full stop—it literally took hours. And then, after an even more nervous wait at the application submission center, my application was submitted—followed by the agonizing weeks of waiting to find out the decision.

The decision never seemed to come. But then, it finally came, while I was in a bus on my way home. After that, it was just a mad rush. I had to visit my relatives, arrange my travel tickets, buy things for the travel all in the space of a couple of weeks. But things somehow worked out, and then I suddenly found myself, saying good bye to my aunt and my grandparents, hopping into (well, more like dragging myself in with all the baggage) the van and going off to the airport.

The flight went to Dubai, where I got off for a transit, and had a moment of panic when I saw all the airplane schedules in Arabic. I was doomed, I thought, but it turned out there was a big screen with the times in English a couple of feet away. In my panic, it took me a few minutes to find it. And then at the security checks, I was embarrassed because I just couldn’t get my belt to remove itself and, as if that wasn’t enough, when I had to take off the shoes I realized there were holes in my socks. What a moment. Fortunately the officers didn’t think that I was a security risk, and then I was off to Manchester.

I stayed at a lodge in Manchester that night, and returned to the airport next morning to meet up with the team from University of Liverpool. Just to add more drama, a section of the airport was closed off that day because they had found some suspicious baggage. But it was pretty uneventful.

Later that day, I arrived at the Melville Grove, unpacked and walked around to find out where the shops were. Surprisingly, I managed not to get lost.

The next week was orientation. There were so many talks for international students, and then there was another orientation into the physics department.

Following that week, we (that is, the physics students) worked in teams to come up with a mission that would take people to Mars and bring them back. Hopefully alive. In the end, our team didn’t win (even though we still think that our design was the best) so we didn’t get cool T-shirts. (But we got Mars bars. Ironic, right? )

Then my lectures started, and I joined with the Scribble writers’ group of the Drama Society. I’m not a good writer, but being in the group allowed me to take part in two plays—something I love to do. There’s something about being on a stage that makes any other mortal experience seem pale in comparison. I still need to do a truckload (or a spaceship-load, if you find them more fancy) of work on my acting skills, but the experience was enjoyable.

I also joined the Physics Outreach Group, which conducts many physics-related workshops for school kids. I only got to take part in one workshop, but it was a rewarding experience. To see the kids (they were in grade 10 I think) actually learn something from your presentations— it’s just amazing. I also learned that corn flour, mixed with the right amount of water (so that it forms a non-Newtonian liquid), could be a source of endless fun.

And now I find myself at the end of another year—the most eventful year ever in my life—and a new year has just begun. (I started writing this in 2010, and I finished in 2011. You’re looking at a blog post that took an year to complete!) I want to take some time out to thank everyone who’s been wonderful in 2010, and to ask for forgiveness from anybody that I’ve hurt, intentionally or unintentionally. It’s ben one hell of a roller-coaster ride indeed. I still feel dizzy. Wonder what 2011 holds. Well, I guess we’ll find out!

All the best for everyone! And thanks for taking your time to visit my blog.

Happy new year!

Snow!!

[sorry about the font size. This is a bit messed up.]

YES! SNOW!

I’ve just realized that I have a major obsession for snow. It snowed quite a lot on Friday evening—and on Saturday morning I was off snapping photos around Liverpool—photos of trees with snow, roads with snow, statues with snow, buildings with snow and just snow. You can just imagine my excitement. You can find the photos here, on my facebook page.

The Project For Awesome 2010 was happening this week. Thousands of YouTubers were uploading videos they’ve made about their favourite charities to YouTube. Some of the videos are amazing. Please take your time to go to YouTube, check these videos and to like and favourite them. And if you’re a generous person (and I know you are!), please go ahead and donate to these charities, they need your support. Here’s a link to Project for Awesome’s official website, and you can check out their main YouTube channel here.

Speaking of Project 4 Awesome, I want to participate next year. I want to make a video about a charity organization and put it up on YouTube. I’m trying to think of some good Sri Lankan charities that have the ability to accept money from donors online. I’m thinking about Sarvodaya, but if you guys have other ideas, let me know. It’ll be nice to go around and actually do some interviews, but that depends on whether I can get back to Sri Lanka for the summer holidays. We’ll see.

I quite like how Meenu puts a couple of music videos and other stuff on her blog posts. I think I’m going to do a similar thing—I’ll put interesting stuff that I come across on my blog posts.  If you guys are as jobless as me, you’ll probably have time to look at them.

In case you missed it, the trailer for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie is out. Yay! It’s called On Stranger Tides. I’m very, very excited to see Jack Sparrow again! Well here’s the trailer:

Vlogbrothers’ YouTube channel featured this awesome channel Vihart, you must check it out, I love it. Here’s one video from the channel:

RayWilliamJhonson’s YouTube channel featured this video this week, and it was damn funny, I thought I’ should share it with you. I want to make it very clear that I don’t acknowledge slavery before you watch it though!

And this Deep Purple song, Soldier of Fortune keeps playing in my mind. So. Here’s a video of that! (I love embedding videos! ) Well, this is not really a video, just some pictures with the song in background, but what a song…

I can see that this blog post is quite boring. Sorry . But I’m trying to keep up my promise to do an entry at least every week. Well, it’s a little over a week already, but I’m trying to make this a regular-ish thing. I have some good ideas to blog about, so subscribe—and you’ll know when I write a (hopefully better) blog article.

Tongue-Twisters (Inspired by Vlogbrothers’ Video)

Aaah what a week it’s been! <—blatant exaggeration!

Probably the most exciting thing this week was taking part in the electromagnetic spectrum workshop for the Physics Outreach Group. It was my first time at a workshop so it was exciting/ nerve-wrecking. There were around 20 grade 10 students altogether in our group, and they seemed quite interested. My bit of the talk went reasonably well (actually, the whole talk went reasonably well), and they didn’t get bored with the laser game like I thought they would. Whenever I asked them questions, they gave pretty good answers—it was pretty impressive! So all in all, it was a great experience.

The rest of the week was not that interesting—I’ll spare you the details.

There was an interesting video this week from the Vlogbrothers about tongue-twisters. I already put a link to it on my facebook page, but in case you missed it, here it is:

This got me wondering about tongue-twisters in Sinhala. I’m sure I used to know a lot of them when I was a kid, but all I can remember now is රතු චීත්ත දෙජාතියයි (rathu cheeththa dhejaathiyayi) and චූටි ටීචර් ගෙ චූටි ටෝච් එක (chooti teacher ge chooti torch eka)—well that one was partially English . If you guys can remember any tongue twisters in Sinhala or Tamil, leave them on the comments. I’d love to see them. Actually, if you know any cool tounge twisters in any language, leave them underneath. I’ll have fun trying to read them fast .

If you’re more interested in getting your twing tusted—I mean TONGUE TWISTED, do a Google search. You’ll find lots of stuff to keep your tongue occupied. Don’t start imaging stuff now, kids—I meant that in a very wholesome way.

I’m still reading through Joe Abrecrombie’s Before They Are Hanged. This book is much better than the first book, pretty impressive. But still, not on par with George R. R. Martin and Robin Hobb and the like. The plot just seems… shallow. I’m not saying it’s a bad book, but it lacks that… I’m searching for a word here… complexity? I don’t know.

That brings me to my reading wishlist. Here are some of the fantasy books/ series I can’t get wait to get my hands on. If you’ve read any of them, let me know how they are. Suggestions are welcome as well. (Don’t leave spoilers though !)

The Wishlist:

• Wheel of Time saga by Robert Jordan
• Rain Wild Chronicles series by Robin Hobb
• Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher
• Demon trilogy by Peter V. Brett
• The Edge Chronicles series by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
• Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss
• The Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan

etc. I’m such  a bookworm. I know .

I’m trying to make these blog posts a weekly thing. We’ll see how that goes!