Catacombs of Paris

Catacomb in general

During the course of my life (as of 2014) that I have been traveling to many places around–mostly in few countries, I have seen many strange things that I could not believe they could be attractions for tourism such as a wreckage from a nuclear bomb in Hiroshima (not that I found this site boring, rather it left me a powerful image of how devastating nuclear bombs could be) or empty desert in Iran. But I would say the Catacombs of Paris is the weirdest places that I have ever visited so far. And I'm not sure whether I mean it in the positive sense or the negative one.

Château de Chambord & Château de Blois

Chateau de Chambord, Chambord, France

My first impression of Château de Chambord wasn't really a good one. When we talk about castle, I tend to think about those huge castle from the Disney Land and in all the Disney movies. But this one is different. I once learned afterward that this is not exactly a castle, but instead a courthouse. It was built by King François I in 1519 as a hunting lodge and not a permanent residence for any royal families. The structure itself was built by limestone because it is lighter than other materials like marble, but it also absorbs moisture making the itself cold and humid.

First Story in Paris: Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower–one of the most iconic structures in the world

I want to start my story about Paris with one of the most iconic structures in the world, the Eiffel Tower. Once I have some free time after settling down, I decided to walk to the Eiffel tower to be able to see the tower from different views. Some people might think that it is just a tower that happened to be famous but, personally, I always think that I want to see the Eiffel Tower from different angles and took great photos of it. Even though I still have no little knowledge about the tower itself, it still made me excited every time I came to see it. One of the reasons for this might be from a story when I was in middle school.

Comment on Primordial Gravitational Waves by Prof. Daniel Holz

Primordial gravitational waves may have been detected in this swirly pattern of light from the early universe. Image: BICEP2 Collaboration

I took a class called Spacetime and Black Holes during the fall quarter of my third year and the professor for that class was Prof. Daniel Holz. Some of his work also relates to gravitational wave and general relativity. After the announcement of the discovery, he gave us a comment about this latest and most excited finding so far this year about the first direct detection of gravitational waves and how it becomes an evidence for the inflation theory of the early universe. I thought I would like to share this here since we are all in a moment of history where most physics might start to change from this point on.

Ryerson Astronomical Society (RAS) in 1950s

As a science major student, I always learned about history of science, specifically physics and astrophysics. For example, Galileo created the first telescope, or Newton invented Newton's three laws of motion, then Einstein found Relativity that contradicted with almost everything Newton said. "Why do we have to learn Newton's three laws then?" I often asked myself why they have to teach about the history of science since it will never help me solve Schrödinger equation equations or any physics equations.

It is not until I learned that these discoveries did not happen far away from where my classes are that I realized how amazing it felt to be a part of the big community of science. Milikan's oil drop experiment occurred in the basement of where I took my first-year Calculus, or Enrico Fermi engineered the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction happened at the library where I often cramped my final exam studies until the last minute. 

Prof. Vandervoort gave a talk on the history of RAS on 1/27/2014

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space - Carl Saga

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spaceprobe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. 

Unexpected Trip Back to the US

I was meant to write this blog since I arrived Chicago during the summer. But because of my sickness and other stuffs that are coming during school year, I have not had a chance to write this until today. This is my little journey back from Bangkok to Chicago during the end of the 2013 summer.

 The first thing that happened for this trip is that I thought my flight was one day later than it supposed to be. I checked email that morning and got a message saying that I should check in 24-hour before the flight, and that when I realized that I got the date of my flight wrong. Fortunately, I packed all my stuffs before (Thanks to mom), so I am basically ready to go to the airport.

After saying goodbye to my family, I got on a plane as it supposed to be. However they said that there was some technical problem at the engine,  so we have to wait in the airplane for two hours. While waiting, I watched "The Internship" and almost forgot that we were still on the ground and haven't moved an inch for two hours. Then, they said that we had to catch the next flight next morning (10 am), and that was about 2 am. We took a bus to Novotel near the airport. Here is the view from my hotel suit.

View from my hotel near the airport