Impressions of the HEP Group on an Imperial undergraduate

I have been working in the HEP Group on level 5 for some months now. My first encounter with particle physics was during First Year at Imperial, where a partner and I investigated a theorised supersymmetric Higgs boson with MC data from the Tevatron at Fermilab. This is how I got to know Per, who has been my link to the Group and indeed, the ideal project supervisor. During the last summer, I worked under his supervision within an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programme (UROP), doing analysis in T2K. The primary goal of my project was to devise an analysis into the noise hit level upon the ECalorimeters of the Near Detector (ND280). Since then, I have been working in the Group on my BSc proejct about the Comet experiment.

Upon starting the work, the first thing I told myself was: "this particle physics is a tough job!".
This was not least due to the fact that on the first few days, being logged into the Group's linux machines through a small terminal with an even smaller font, I felt my eyes were gradually melting. It was hard for me to grasp that particle physicists actually spend full days in front of bulks of code..!
However, as I learned to get to know the people in the Group, I realised how good they were with computing and code. The first one to standout was Clarence, whom I found out to be a Swede only after weeks when I had thought him to be an Englishman.

Figure 1: Eyes-melting code terminal. Font would not go bigger!  

Not only he was immensely helpful in helping me fix code problems and teach me how to write Bash scripts, but also he seamed to be a genuine computer mogul. He has tried to rebuilt his laptop's hard disk with a screwdriver and some tools and even knows a bit how to programme in Assembly, virtually talking to the computer, in the latter's language. Another "fun fact" with which he managed to amaze me was that apparently GPUs are sometimes more useful than CPUs in performing the latter's job. That is, he suggested using graphics processing units to conduct data analysis - crazy!

On the first day on the job, I was told that I needed to investigate piles of this code to determine where did one data container was filled, and that I needed to modify it. When people entered our office, they were therefore not surprised to find me looking for that needle in the haystack.

Figure 2: Roy during his UROP internship. Somewhere in that haystack hid a container that was filling with neutrino and noise hit data!

The software installation process took only a week (...) but that was fine given it followed a light read of the technical report about the ND280 ECals which was witty, vibrant and thrilling, all at the same time...! Nonetheless, after the preliminaries were over, I was on-the-go, coding and running scripts in linux!

Upon starting to go about the Group's different offices, I started to realise how deeply-cemented was the programming aspect of the work, in virtually everyone. I encountered an ancient debate which dichotomically divided the Group, believed to be so antiquated a debate, to have originated between Plato and Socrates: whether to use EMacs or Vim. As I was firstly introduced to the former, people were flabbergasted when they noticed I opened a new terminal in order to code. I remember I told myself "how far does this go to?" when Phill told me one may write Latex documents using EMacs.
Thereafter, I gradually started moving "to the other side", resulting in being an ardent believer in Vim. But this was only the tip of the iceberg.

As I was getting to know the people more, I understood what a considerable part of their lives comprised of programming. The highlight of that discovery was of course Yoshi, who holds any sort of computer interface in contempt. Indeed, I was dazzled (understatement) to find he was doing EVERYTHING (literally) via the linux command line - including emailing and booking plane tickets. Before that moment I had believed such people only existed in The Matrix but I was proven wrong!

Figure 3: Yoshi about his regular business, reading emails and shopping online. 

This got me thinking on the education one has received from childhood - too many interfaces, not enough programming and command lines. I thought to myself, how good of a programmer would I have been today, had I been introduced to bleak linux command line from birth, instead of my first-ever computer, Comfy.

Figure 4: Comfy, A Computer Experience for the "little ones". 

Considering this, I thought more on whether humanity was endangered by those stupefying baby games, making whole generations unfit to face the Rise of the Machines against us humans. I thought such people as Imperial HEP Group members would partake in the army against that rise, to secure our future on Earth...!

Roughly on a weekly basis, the Group's lovely Phd students, summer students and postdocs, went to Imperial's Prince's Gardens to throw a Frisbee. This was a great way to end a week of facts, figures and code. Nonetheless, the occasional pub crawls proved to be an amazingly enjoyable experience. Most of all, I loved how people from such different backgrounds ended-up working together in the divine realm of particle physics. I thought to myself - that's brilliant, science does bring people together - another proof of its positive force in the world.

A particularly great experience was going to lunch with the rest of the Group. College had temporarily allowed for undergraduate summer students to eat at the SCR, which is regularly closed to us. It served great food for reasonable prices. This was a remarkable opportunity to enjoy good food at Imperial, and coincidentally avoid the usual poison sold at the god-forsaken rat-infested library!

Another routine I particularly enjoyed was the weekly T2K group meetings. Apart from presenting my own progress, I learned a lot from the comments and suggestions made by the other members. Moreover, listening to the work that had been done by the rest was especially captivating and enabled me to have a broader view of Imperial's invaluable contributions to this experiment.

Nonetheless, working in 536, I got to know other people also, thus to hear about the exiting experiments they were working on, like the SoLid neutrino experiment and the Comet muon experiment, which I am currently working on. I also found that a substantial part of the knowledge is shared between people working on different experiments, and that prior knowledge and experience in one experiment may well be useful to be working on others. First and foremost is ROOT, which I find rather cool, whereas I know I am in the minority, as all I have ever heard from other people about it were complaints. In any matter, lovely people from other experiments were able to help me in ROOT and advise on quicker and more efficient ways to go about things.

In general, I had had a wonderful time to be working here during the summer. It was a memorable opportunity to be conducting research in particle physics and more importantly, get to know amazing talented people working in the Group, who were always very helpful and patient to me. I was glad to gain experience of how it is to be working in a physics research group generally and particularly, see what particle physics actually entails. Whilst observing the day-to-day basis of the people here, coding, discussing and presenting, I told myself "I want to be able to do this. I want to know what they know, I want to be able to do fruitful work with them". Indeed, as physicists, I felt that the people in the Group set me an example and consequently increased my motivation to pursue particle physics further. This has led me to conduct my BSc project on Comet and gain more experience whilst being an undergraduate student here. I can just hope to do more work in the field in the future, and wish it to gradually become more fruitful, more useful and more relevant. Without any physics-related wishes, I hope to keep in touch with the dear people here, wherever they or I may be.

Figure 5: Your humble servant posing on level 8's terrace, in front of the Royal Albert Hall .

A Day in the Life of a Summer Student from the Far East - Part 2 -

After getting fuelled up with coffee-power that would last for another few hours, people once again absorbed themselves in exploring physics, mostly by means of coding. In that sense, our lifestyle more or less resembled that of a tech start-up, rather than a layman's imagination of physicists spending their time in a lab full of mysterious devices, although it might have been different during the developmental stage of the detectors and the electronics. (Toby, a PhD student who is actually building something called Gabor Lens, might have been the closest to a layman's physicist while I was there.)

Toby's cool Gabor Lens!

My research project was almost 100% computer work, predominantly C/C++ and ROOT. I could see how complicated the experiments and analyses nowadays have become, and accordingly I could understand why we can't help relying on computers as we probe deeper into physics. After spending two months at a HEP research group, I've come to admire computers as super-smart masochists who would do any sort of complex numerical calculation for just a little charge on electricity bill, but at the same time I've come to despise those arseholes with zero flexibility for causing all the unwanted troubles, despite the upsetting fact that most of the times I'm the one who is solely responsible for those troubles.

Computer ridiculing human stupidity.

Probably at least twice in every week, we went outside to play Frisbee around 5-6 in the afternoon when people ran out of patience to sit still in the office. Clarence the coffee-loving Swede was usually the initiator in this case, and he had developed a sort of conditioned reflex inside me so that I just couldn't resist associating a joy of running all over the grass to catch a saucer with him holding a Frisbee and making a suggestive facial expression. We usually played Frisbee at Hyde Park or at Queen's Lawn, but my favourite place to play Frisbee was Prince's Gardens where there's a university-run pub nearby so that we could enjoy Frisbee with a cup of beer in one hand. My supervisor Morgan once dropped by the pub and bought a pint for all of us playing Frisbee. That was awesome, but the best part of playing outside was always watching physicists helplessly throwing things to take down a Frisbee stuck on a tree.

Summer students taking a video of physicists being desperate with a Frisbee.

We played Frisbee for hours and then went to a pub to quench our thirst and grab a bite. Anyone ordering food like nachos and chips to share with everyone was always welcomed, although one time during the final week of my stay, people got so generous that we ended up having three big plates of pure nachos (which could easily be shared by 3-4) for just three people, as well as other miscellaneous food which were not as intimidating as nachos. Besides that experience of nachophobia, my experience in English pubs had been always very delightful, and I was always looking forward to trying out all different sorts of draft beer whenever we went to a pub. Enjoying a pint of unacquainted beer sitting on a garden table outside the union pub while feeling the English evening breeze was always a great reward after a day's work. 

I usually headed straight to dorm after work, but sometimes I went out to explore the cultural side of London for which I got several recommendations. One of my favourites was the Proms, even though I had no prior knowledge or interest in classical music. At the Proms, I could experience 3 hours of complete eargasm for just £6, which is an unimaginable price in the Far East. What was even better was that I could go see it everyday by just crossing the road, during my whole stay in London! What a perfect location and timing.

Royal Albert Hall is just around the corner!

Another favourite cultural event that I enjoyed was Championship football, which was recommended by Yoshi, who is a passionate Palace supporter himself and also the one who encouraged me to write this post. On the way from Bermondsey station to the Den, the home of Millwall F.C., I could see a whole different side of London which was in stark contrast to the Exhibition Road in South Kensington, which I believed to be what London would be like throughout the entire city. Evidently I was wrong.

When I arrived at the Den, at first I was quite intimidated by the number of white, muscular, short-haired males with beards. At the moment, I could only hope they would be nice. Some stared at me while I was passing through, as if I was an unwanted corgi in a bulldog family. That’s why I had to buy a Millwall shirt, to camouflage myself as much as I could.

My first experience of Championship football.

I'm not sure if that really worked, but it definitely helped to practise some of their chants on YouTube beforehand, because I could feel like home as I sang along those derogatory chants together with all the supporters around me. Whenever the referee blew the whistle against our team, or whenever our player made a mistake, everyone stood up from their seats and just went MAD. I could hear all sorts of creative British cursing and I thought it was actually a good way of learning natural English. The language of Millwall supporters was far from my image of English gentlemen and they behaved so differently from many people I know at Imperial or people I met at the Proms, but they were good people. When we scored, we danced and hugged each other and jumped and shouted "bbooooohhh" together. I felt like I was in a huge loving family. It was also interesting to see a little Millwall fan, seemingly terrified by all the swearing and noises by the adults, bravely stand up to shout "Go Millwall!" when the team was in danger. Yoshi was right. I could feel the unique charm of English, working-class football that I couldn't experience at a fancy stadium like Wembley.

  

Weekly dose of salted caramel.

After all the work and excursions, my typical day as a summer student ended with having a scoop of Jude's salted caramel ice cream before going to bed. It was indeed great British ice cream as advertised, and I bought it at Sainsbury's every week on the way home.

I miss you, T2K office!

So this is the end of my day-in-the-life story! Now I bet all of you understand how awesome my days were. I've learned a lot of things during my stay there, but the greatest lesson I've learned from my daily life at Imperial T2K was that, enjoying is the priority! 

I'm enjoying a week's holiday back in the Far East now, and some weird-looking birds are chirping in the backyard as I'm writing this blog post. I feel like everything was just a part of a summer night's dream, but I'm very sure that these dream-like days I had with this amazing group will stay longer in my memory than any other dream that I've had in my life.

A Day in the Life of a Summer Student from the Far East - Part 1 -

I was this year's summer exchange student at Imperial from Seoul National University, and I studied how the sensitivities of neutrino oscillation parameters change with different far-detector locations for the future T2K experiment. I'd be very happy to explain to all of you how awesome my days were while I was at the Imperial T2K group.

My typical day as a summer student started with turning off an alarm, just like any other individual with a job. Sadly, it didn't always lead to waking up in my case, since our group was so blessed that I could work anywhere, anytime. I could get some more sleep and start working at home or at Hyde Park or anywhere else depending on the weather, or to be more precise, depending on my state of mind. Sometimes I went to the office as early as 8 in the morning (which isn't that early actually for most people), sometimes after lunch, and once, after 4 PM. I could leave the office in the morning if I wanted to, and also could stay in the office even after midnight but by risking a chance of being locked inside the building. It is actually a huge privilege that is really unheard of in the Far East, and I enjoyed it like a boss, letting go of any subconscious sense of obligation to be at work earlier than those in superior positions. 

However, there were some good reasons for me not to show up at work during nonsensical hours. One of them was Santander cycles, which I loved the most among all possible sorts of transportation in the UK (no air-conditioning on a subway, seriously?), and the problem was that the cycles at the docking station I always used were usually all gone by 10-11 in the morning because of all the commuters and tourists. Riding a Santander cycle across Hyde Park, from Queensway to the Queen's Gate and through the downhill towards Blackett Laboratory was so much fun, and I really didn't want to miss it any day. It never got old. I thought Santander was a bicycle manufacturer and wondered why there's a bicycle shop inside the student union building, until I was told to find a Santander cash machine by a street vendor at Portobello market. (I didn't have much trouble living without cash in London, and any Japanese visitor to London would be surprised!)

I love Santander cycles!

Another important event that I didn't want to miss was lunch at Imperial. The food served at SCR was exceptionally good, regardless of my prior low expectations on British food in general, and it was more affordable compared to other off-campus cafes or restaurants. Especially on Tuesdays and Fridays, lunch was something that could never be missed. There was a farmer's market every Tuesday, and fish and chips was served at SCR every Fried-ay. Thai Green Curry and Seafood Paella sold at the farmers' market were really good, and the brownie fudge sundae with two vanilla scoops was just the BEST. (I'm eating a self-made brownie fudge sundae while I'm writing this post, but it's nowhere near the BEST one. Vanilla ice cream and brownies made here taste surprisingly flavourless now!) Fish and chips with Rubicon Lychee was also one of my favourites, and it was even better than some of the fish and chips places outside the campus. 

Rubicon, I miss you!

One of the few peculiar things about the group was that, while there was no fixed working hours, the lunch time was strangely so strict that I could possibly measure the standard deviation to be smaller than 5 minutes. The holy initiator of lunch was Patrick, one of the two wonderful post-docs of the group from whom I had received much help during my stay in the UK, and even hungry Phill, the elder of the two, had to wait when Patrick said "we still have 10 more minutes 'til 12". (In the Far East, no one can dismiss a hungry elder suggesting to go for lunch. Confucius taught us not to.) There was actually some heretic movement to have lunch at some random absurd time like 12:30 while Patrick was on holiday, and now I can confess that I felt both guilty and excited for joining it.

Our Lovely Coffee Table!

After lunch, everyone drank coffee except me. Yes, I'm still talking about a British research group, and I hadn't seen anyone in our group drinking tea, except for one time when Clarence (who is Swedish and the main importer of expensive coffee beans to the office) tried to convince me that he also enjoys tea. Anyway, in our crammed office there was a separate desk for coffee machines and coffee beans (and Japanese coins for some reason) as if these were important members of the group, and people would gather around that desk every afternoon making themselves a cup of coffee. They talked about random stuffs ranging from the boring North Korean missile threats to one's PhD thesis, while ruining their own fatigue detection system and puffing out invisible smoke of heavy caffeine. As the only non-coffee-drinker in the office, I just pretended that I was holding an invisible coffee mug during the conversations. It reminded me of the old days when I was in the military where I was the only one who didn't smoke cigarettes. Although I didn't enjoy coffee or cigarettes, I loved chatting over random stuffs after lunch, and besides, I could get some good advice on my research project mostly during these conversations.

(To be continued...)