I recently traveled to Argonne National Lab to meet with colleagues from the XSD-OPT team at the Advanced Photon Source.
I recently traveled to Argonne National Lab to meet with colleagues from the XSD-OPT team at the Advanced Photon Source.
During the pandemic, I’ve been more and more into ambient music. Perhaps it’s the absence of lyrics, mirroring the absence of conversations due to social distancing, or simply the sheet beauty of long progression from nothing to nothing. In any cases, here are a few recommendations for your listening pleasure!
I am very happy to announce that was granted en Early Career Research Award by the US Department of Energy, to work on the DREAM beam: Diffraction-limited Radiation Enhancement with Adaptive Mirrors for x-ray coherent beamlines.
Here are some news releases:Yesterday we received a visit of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who came to Berkeley lab for a press conference around the COMPETES act, which aims to bolster STEM education in the US and revive semiconductor manufacturing.
Full video: Speaker Pelosi Holds Event on America COMPETES ActWhen people ask me what are the answers to some of the challenges that we face, I always say the same thing: Science, Science, Science and Science – Nancy Pelosi
We are quite honored that she chose the Advanced Light Source as backdrop for the announcement. There were also other congresswomen Barbara Lee and Doris Matsui, together with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and UC President Michael Drake.
Nancy Pelosi speaking in front of the Advanced Light Source
That day felt almost normal – I haven’t seen that many people from the lab in two years. And at the same time, the situation was quite absurd: me right here, among people with the power to change science, at the dawn of WWIII. Continue readingSongs have this ability to make me travel in the past. Every time I hear a song I like, I can associate a corresponding time in my life. This is very helpful to keep track of seasons, especially at a time where it’s hard to separate events from each other, where even the concept of event has become some blurry. I was going through my Spotify playlists lately , and each playlist tells a story: of elation, of break ups; of happiness and of sadness.
I also like to put songs together, to bend the passing of time and bring together eras and ideas. Here’s a list of tandem listen I curated. I hope you’ll enjoy these pairings!Tandem #1: Obamas
No Man Is Big Enough for My Arms, Ibeyi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzxDKqdfPr0
Una Rosa Blanca, Ibrahim Maalouf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY2CGLWpkuI
There isn’t much representation of scientists in popular culture, with a only few movies standing out, such as a “A Beautiful Mind” (on John Nash) or “Good Will Hunting.” There’s been a few more in the biopic genre lately, such as the “Imitation Game” on Alan Turing or “The Theory of Everything” on Stephen Hawking, and soon a movie on Robert Oppenheimer by Chris Nolan.
But the representation of women in science and technology is even less frequent. Things seem to be changing, and during the pandemic there’s been a few biopics on women scientists, to which I want to bring attention to:During the pandemic, I had the leisure to read more poetry, and revisit some poems that I have enjoyed over the years. Here’s a small selection: they’re mostly about love, for it is the most pleasant subject of poetry and something that philosophy isn’t capable to treat seriously (see Poetry as philosophy in action.)
We’ll start by English poets, with Lord Byron, a giant of poetry (where I came to by way of Stendhal):
6.
Lord Byron – Epistle to Augusta
Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
Within me—or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air
(For even to this may change of soul refer,
And with light armour we may learn to bear),
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.
We’re almost out of the pandemic, and it seems that a lot of people around me are starting podcasts. Here are three podcasts from friends or looser acquaintances that I found very entertaining. Check them out!
I must confess I did try to start a podcast, inspired by my favorite French show “Remède à la mélancolie” (now reborn as “L’Embellie“) I did two episode, but I quickly realized that would take much more effort than I thought if I wanted to get anywhere…
Among other podcast I listen to regularly: Science en question and Femmes puissantes (both in French, I hope there was an English version of these great shows! French public radio is awesome – see La black liste for excellent soul music and and Si l’Amerique m’etait contée for a history of America)EUV lithography is now part of everything – including the chips in your iPhone 12 and beyond. I don’t know if it’s because of the chip shortage, the $50B investment of the US government in semiconductor manufacturing, or the realization that having a nearly monopolistic market with its biggest player in Taiwan, at the mercy of an invasion, but there’s a lot of press on EUV lithography right now (I’ve been talking about my work on the topic at Berkeley Lab here: SHARP and MET5, and shared some thoughts on Moore’s law here.)
Here’s a few pieces:
In this story, ASML is the quiet powerhouse – they have a de facto monopoly (their stock rose 10x over the last 5 years) and they keep expanding (ASML opens new state-of-the-art R&D facility in Silicon Valley.) There’s been some hardball played here, with the US pressuring the European company not to sell their technology with China (Reuters), as if it made any sense.
Besides, I am stoked to see my former colleagues from the Center for X-Ray Optics receive recognition for their work!I hope we’ll get to develop new techniques with x-rays using diffraction-limited beams to further the advances in semiconductors and microchips – skyrmions, superconductivity, memristors, and so many other cool things!I recently read the amazing book “New Expressions in Origami Art” by Meher McArthur, that I found at the shop Paper Tree in the Japan Town of San Fransisco (it’s one of my favorite shops; they always have stunning origami on display, some for sale, from many origamists featured in the book.)
Every page of the book is a delight, where a modern twists (abstraction, wet folding, tessellation) on origami always bring something very fresh.While reading the book and learning about Goran Konjevod (who seems to be a colleague from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), I stumbled on the work of Amanda Ghassaei, who has created the Origami Simulator and many other cool simulation tools producing mesmerizing results.
https://twitter.com/amandaghassaei/status/1352605937077522434 Continue reading