Living LIGO's Belated 3rd Anniversary

This past Saturday, 5 October, was the 3rd anniversary of the Living LIGO blog (you can see the first ever post here).  I remember that because it also happens to be my birthday - I started this out of a desire to do something I always wanted to so what a better day to start than your own birthday.  (If you must know, I've just celebrated the 6th anniversary of turning 29.)

I know it has been a long time since I've posted.  I've been teaching at LSU and doing research at LIGO.  On paper my life looks great but the reality is that there are many details, both personal and professional, that have added up to me not being in a great place for a while.  I've been getting my jobs done but after that I've been pretty exhausted, at least mentally.  This has happened to me before, so I thought I would direct you to my thoughts on what it's like being down but getting up again anyway here.  (Also see my last section below: "A WORD OF ADVICE...".)

But there is one thought that has come up many times in the last few months:  "I'd like to write a blog post on that."  There are many different things, like continuing the series of posts I've started about methods of looking for gravitational waves or telling the story of where silver and gold come from (as in, how did it come to be on Earth).  So, I am going to dig myself out of my slump and get back on my metaphorical horse - starting now!


WHAT I DID THIS SUMMER

Let me tell you a little about what I've been doing since I've last posted.  I got to go to a large meeting called the GR20/Amaldi10 Meeting in Warsaw, Poland (where almost 850 gravity theorists and experimentalists gathered for this joint meeting) and gave 2 invited talks.  The first was a formal talk on outreach skills and media (featuring this blog) and the other was less formal and was on the benefits searching for gravitational waves can bring mankind focusing on spin-off technology (I've written about this before here).

This is a picture of the gates of the Uniwersytet Warszawski where GR20/Amaldi10 took place.

A view through the gates at my colleagues on a coffee break in the distance.

One of the best parts of meetings like this is that the meeting dinner is usually somewhere a normal person couldn't go.  Our dinner was at the in the Royal Castle in Warsaw.  And this is my husband and I on the lawn beforehand:

My husband, Derek, and I on the lawn behind the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland.

Just before my trip to Warsaw, I took a short holiday to Paris, France.  There was a debacle with lost luggage and then wrong luggage being delivered to us, but outside of wearing the same clothes for a few days (this is why I always pack extra underwear in my carry-on luggage), my husband and I had a great time just relaxing and wondering around.  My new phone takes panoramic pictures and this is a good one I got of the Louvre:

Panoramic view of the Louvre (Paris, France)
Click on the picture for a larger view.

Once I returned home to the United States, I had tons of work to do.  I've talked before about how LIGO has been testing its data infrastructure to prepare for Advanced LIGO here.  We are then had our 4th software engineering run; that means that I had to improve upon the gravitational wave simulation software I wrote to perform better, faster, and incorporate more features.  It was a bit stressful come the deadline, but it all got done and turned out well.


... AND THEN SCHOOL STARTED AGAIN

Then school started again.  I am teaching (at LSU) the first semester of physical science (sometimes referred to as "Physics for Poets" since it is more conceptually based than mathematically focused).  Most of my students in this class (this year my lecture has only about 100 students) are elementary education majors.  Some might think that teaching an "easy" class like this would be, well... easy.  But it is far from it.  The less math you can rely on to teach the subject matter, the better you have to be as a teacher in communicating what the math means.  Since I love challenges like this, this is one of my favorite classes to teach.  I am also team teaching a junior/senior level class on Science Methods for secondary education pre-service teachers majoring in science or math.  This class shows them how science is done by doing experiments using the scientific method, analyzing their data and reporting it in both papers and presentation (since these are the two main means that scientists communicate with each other).

At LIGO, I am working on a paper with a group of other LIGO scientists who are looking for gravitational waves from supernovae that may have occurred while LIGO and/or other gravitational wave observatories were in operation (before the advanced detector upgrade began).  And, as always, I continue to refine my gravitational wave simulation software.


A QUICK WORD OF ADVICE...

I'll be writing again soon (probably next week).  When I first started this blog, I promised you a peek into the life of a working scientist.  Lately I've been answering lots of questions about gravity and how to look for gravitational waves.  But since there has been something major going on in my life, and it kept me from writing my blog as I would have liked, I wanted to share that with you.

I am lucky since even though I know I have times when depression can get the better of me, I have wonderful support from my husband, friends, and family.  I'm not sure why, but they all seem to love me even when I can't stand to be around myself. 

For anyone reading this who has issues with depression and/or anxiety:  Don't fool yourself that everything you are feeling inside is not affecting you because you may be able to keep it together and have others think you are happy.  This will eat at you and everything you are feeling will come out sometime (and usually at the least opportune time).  If you are sad or anxious for long periods of time, even if it's on-and-off, find some help.  It is not weak to seek help (I've been told that before and it's usually by people who need help for themselves and are too afraid to get it).  It takes an inner strength to admit when you are hurting and need a hand up, an ear to listen to you, or a shoulder to cry on.  If that's not enough, talk to your doctor.  Not once has a doctor been anything but 100% supportive of me when I've gone to them seeking medical help.  NOT ONCE did they look down on me, or suggest that my feelings will pass, or that I need to "buck up".  With support and help, I've always clawed my way back to feeling like a normal person.  You can too!

Lessons From My Childhood on How to Teach

One of the best parts of my job is getting to do outreach.  This is going out and teaching the public about the research that I do.  Since I love what I do and those that I encounter are usually interested in what I have to say or they wouldn't be there (like you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't want to), it is almost always a rewarding experience all around.  However, I had some childhood experiences with outreach that were, well, a little traumatic.  However, they have taught me lessons that I use every time I teach whether in the classroom, engaging the public at LIGO, or writing for you.

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"HAIR-RAISING" TRAUMA

Ever since I was a young child, I've always known that where I am now is where I wanted to be.  That is, I've always known that I wanted to be a physicist or an astronomer.  Of course, that's not what I said; I wanted to be an astronaut since that is the hero job for the physical sciences.  My family has also been supportive of me and one of my favorite things to do was go to the planetarium.  At the time, I lived outside of Pittsburgh, PA and we would go to the Buhl Planetarium (before it became part of the newer Carnegie Science Center - the building is now part of the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh).

Front entrance of the Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh, PA. [Source: Wikipedia]

On the fateful trip in question, I was no more than 7 or 8 years old and I was watching a demonstration in between planetarium shows with my father.  The presenter asked for a volunteer from the crowd, preferably with long fine hair.  The next thing I felt is my father's hand on my back pushing me forward.  I wasn't interested in being the center of attention, but the presenter thought that I would be perfect for the role.

She called me forward and had me stand on a plastic milk crate beside a metal dome that was bigger than my head.  She told me that I was going to have to hold on the the metal dome with one hand but I was not to do a list of things or I would get hurt.  Then I was worried.  She had me put one hand on the dome and turned the machine on.  It made a lot noise and I feel an odd tingling over my skin.  Then I was scared.  The presenter was very happy about everything and told me to shake my head.  I did so timidly.  Then she encouraged me to shake my head with more vigor.  I shook the heck out of my head so she would leave me alone and I could be done with all of this.  Then EVERYONE who is watching this demonstration WAS LAUGHING AT ME.  Then they applauded as the machine was turned off and I was helped down from my perch and left to think I was being laughed at.

The machine with the big metal dome attached to the top.  I later discovered that this is a Van de Graaff generator.  [Source: UMN Physics department]

It wasn't until I was in middle school that I figured out why everyone was laughing at me.  That machine was a Van de Graaff generator and it deposited static electricity on me.  The warnings that worried me were to prevent me from getting "zapped" and everyone was laughing at me because my hair was standing on end.  The harder I shook my head, the more the static electricity made my hair stand out.  A lot like this:

WHAT WENT WRONG?:  The presenter didn't show me what I looked like in a mirror (as is featured in the clip above) or tell me what I looked like.  I had no idea why everyone was laughing at me or what the point of the "hair raising" demonstration was.  Without this knowledge, I walked away from the experience thinking that everyone was really laughing at ME and not the effects of static electricity.

LESSON LEARNED:  If you use a volunteer in a demonstration, make sure that they understand what is happening.

I don't have many occasions where I need a volunteer for a demonstration, but when I do I make the volunteer the focus of the demonstration so that, at the very least, they walk away understanding what happened. 

Read more about how Van de Graaff generators work.

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SWINGING FOR A "BREAKTHROUGH"

When I was too young for school, I wanted to be a big girl and play school.  Even then I loved science.  One day I convinced my father to play school with me.  Using the sliding green chalk board doors on my toy box, my father taught me about the layers of the Earth.

A toy box much like the one my father used to play school with me.  [Source: It's Still Life blog]

The Earth's layers can be generalized into 4 main layers: the crust at the surface where we live, then the mantle, and finally the outer and inner cores.

Diagram showing the layers of the Earth.  [Source: About Earth blog]

I was told that the crust was very thin and the mantle is hot molten rock (magma) [note: only the mantle near the outer core is molten but the mantle under the crust is about 1000^oF so I equated that to "molten" too as a child].  I'd seen documentaries about volcanoes on television and knew what "molten rock" meant.  This completely changed the way I saw the swing set in my back yard.  Why?  Well, have you noticed the divot under the swings where you drag your feet to slow the swing to a stop?  I saw that as eating away at the crust and I was afraid that I would break through to the mantle and sink my feet into molten rock!  I know that it really isn't logical since I'd seen deeper holes before and there was nothing but dirt at the bottom, but I was a little kid and didn't think like that.  Anyway, I then was afraid of breaking through the crust if I dragged my feet and I was too chicken to jump off.  That left me sitting on the swing waiting for it to slow down on its own.  The wait took a lot of the fun out of swinging!

WHAT WENT WRONG?:  The scale of "thick" and "thin" was not established.  When I heard that the crust was thin, I defined for myself what "thin" was.  I assumed it was only as deep as I could dig through it.  What "thin" really meant is compared to the size (radius) of the Earth.

For the record, the radius of the Earth is almost 4,000 miles and the crust is up to about 22 miles.  Since 22 miles is much, much less than 4,000 miles, the crust is indeed "thin" compared to the size of the Earth!

LESSON LEARNED:  When you tell someone that something is "big" or "small", make sure you establish what you are comparing that something to, i.e. make sure you set the scale for your comparison.

I sometimes tell this story after I admonish people to always ask a scientist how big or small they think "big" or "small" are.  I tell them that I think a "big" gravitational wave, one that we would only expect to see every 10 years or so, would change the length of LIGO's 4 km (2.5 mile) long arms less than 1/1000^th the diameter of a proton (10^-18 m).   That may be "big" to me now, but to a 5-year-old me something smaller than an atom would be most certainly be considered "small". 

Happy New Year!

I can't believe how long it's been since I've last blogged - I've had so many ideas of stories to post, but I've also had some life issues that have kept me away.  Not to worry!  My most important resolution for 2013 is to write blog posts a few weeks ahead of time so that I can still post weekly even when life gets in the way.  I will be back in full force in 2013!  Expect posts on Thursdays, unless there is something timely I want to share before then.  I will make sure to post on Twitter when I a new post is available so if you don't follow me already, please follow @livingligo.

This is a smiley face the deicing crew at the Pittsburgh International Airport made in the snow.  As seen through the deicing fluid on the window of my plane on the evening of 29 December 2012.

2012

This year has been a year of many changes for me.  My days as a postdoc have come to an end and I now hold a dual position with Caltech as a scientist at the LIGO Livingston Observatory and as a physics instructor at LSU.  It is great being back in the classroom but that is also something that has kept me from posting as much as I would like.  It takes a lot of time to create interesting lectures for a class of 150 students and handle all of the class administration myself (office hours, grading, etc.).  This semester I am teaching the second semester of physical science (astronomy, chemistry, earth science) and will only have a 30 students.  I am very excited about the more personal instruction I will be able to do!

There have also been many changes at LIGO.  When I first started working at the Livingston observatory in 2007, there were about 25-30 people who worked there on a daily basis.  Starting with the Advanced LIGO preparations in 2010, we nearly doubled the number of daily staff.  Since the installation is well underway, we no longer need to have so many people on site (having too many people on site while we are looking for gravitational waves will cause ground vibrations that will decrease our sensitivity).  The parking lots are noticeably less full and it is starting to feel a little lonely even though we still have more people working on site than when I started.

As far as my personal life is concerned, I'm glad that 2012 is over.  It has been full of drama and uncertainty and it is one of the things that have been getting in the way of keeping up with this blog and my career in general.  But I wouldn't change a moment of it since I have so many great people around me, at home and at work, who care for me. 


2013

This coming year will prove to be exciting!  The installation of Advanced LIGO should be completed and the first commissioning (use of the detector to fine tune it to its best sensitivity) started.  This is always an interesting time when you get to use the detector for the first time and solve novel problems.  I will be sure to tell you all about them here! 

I will also continue teaching at LSU.  As I mentioned above, I will be teaching the second semester of physical science with about 30 students.  I also expect to teach a masters degree class on inquiry learning for in-service teachers this summer (I've done this class twice before with LSU).  

Of course, the most exciting events are usually the unexpected.  I look forward to sharing the professional and personal excitement with you here.

Thank you to all of my readers, followers on Twitter, and those who found me through a search engine!  Keep coming back for more!

What are you looking forward to this year?

Happy Halloween!

Wow!  I can't believe how long it has been since I've posted.  I've been horribly busy keeping up with teaching at LSU (and trying my best to make my lectures interesting), getting my LIGO work done (we are preparing for the 3rd software engineering run for Advanced LIGO [read about the first one here]), and some personal life complications that we all deal with from time to time.  I understand better why the blessing, "May you live in interesting times," is more of a curse.

So, to tide you over until my next full post (tomorrow), here is the feature presentation of the Science Education Center's monthly Science Saturday - Halloween Edition (2011):

Here, William Katzman (Science Education Center Lead) plays a laid back fellow with some paranormal explanations of "spooky phenomena".  I play a scientist who explains all of the phenomena in terms of science.  Before the day of the presentation, we decided what spooky phenomena we were going to use, but we never rehearsed the show - I'm surprised it turned out so well (if I say so myself)!

The Two-Body Problem: Relationships and Physicists

THE PROBLEM OF DUAL CAREER RELATIONSHIPS IN ACADEMIA

One of the more difficult things about being a physicist in a relationship is that your partner is usually also a professional in a technical field as well.  Working in specialized fields make finding jobs in the same location as your partner difficult.  So many of us have experienced these issues that we have a special name assigned to it - the two-body problem (re-purposing the phrase referring  to the physics of two masses interacting, say in orbit).

The problem isn't about finding work, but finding work working in our specialties.  For example, I am a skilled physics educator and every college and university teaches physics at some level so there are job opportunities for me in that respect.  Of course, these jobs are still very competitive to earn, but you get the idea that there is work out there.  But many of these jobs would likely be strictly or mostly teaching without much in the way of research opportunities.  I could be employed but I would likely not be able to continue my LIGO research which is important to me.  There are about 80 institutions from across the country and around the world that work in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (click here for a list of these institutions).  While this sounds like many, the odds of not only landing a job at one of these institutions and having fulfilling job prospects for a spouse isn't great.

My two-body problem was made official in 2003.

MY TWO-BODY PROBLEM

This is usually most difficult for us academics as we finish our degrees (or when an appointment ends if the relationship started when not a student - mine did so this is what I reference).  For me, it was especially stressful since I finished my doctorate before my husband finished his.  My solution to the two-body problem: take a mini retirement.  He was supposed to graduate next semester so I figured that I would wait for him.  Besides, after writing my dissertation, I was quite burned out on research.  Well, next semester turned into the next next semester and I started to quickly lose my mind as I wasn't nearly as burned out as I thought.  I had a small contract teaching job at Penn State, but it was something that I had been doing for years as a graduate student and it wasn't challenging or time consuming.  Then I discovered vampire books and decided to do a normal person job for fun (almost all of my work previously has been in academia).  One of my students gave me tips on where to apply for a waitressing  job.  I was looking for something in the evening, like in a bar, but I ended up with breakfast/lunch service at a hotel restaurant.  Except for the very early start time (I had to be there for 6 AM, which I know isn't that early, but doesn't exist in my universe), I loved the work!  I met lots of new people and none of them treated me like I was odd because I was a physicist (since they didn't know).  This did come at a potentially steep cost professionally since effectively being out of the field for nearly a year (like I was) is usually career suicide.

Finally, there came a job I was willing to suffer a long distance relationship for - the one I have right now.  It was pure serendipity that they were also hiring engineers with my husband's skills at the same time.  We both got jobs and we are both happily employed at LIGO now.  This is EXTREMELY rare.

Now my concern is maintaining the ability to sleep under the same roof with my husband in the future.  My job here is a postdoctoral scholar is temporary, much like a medical doctor's residency.  I've been at this job for almost 5 years now (I did get promoted to senior postdoctoral scholar after my third year) which is a long time to be a postdoc at the same place.  That's not to say that it's unusual to have several postdoc appointments at different places for more than 5 years.

What to do now?  Well, I am trying to work out a new position but I don't want to jinx by talking about it here now.  This solution would let me stay put but definitely mix things up a bit for me.  Fingers crossed!

THE TWO-BODY PROBLEMS OF MY MENTORS

To give you an idea of how lucky I am to live with my husband through our transition from student to scientist, I've had two advisors on my way to getting my Ph.D. who both had extended long-distance relationships due to the two-body problem.  The first was Gabriela Gonzalez who left Penn State to go with her husband (also at Penn State) to LSU where he was offered a prestigious position and she would be able to work much closer to LIGO.  Before they found the Penn State (and then LSU) solution to their two-body problem, they worked for about 6 years hours apart from each other (you can read about their story here - you may need to register, but it's free).  When I turned down the opportunity to go to LSU with her (due to my own relationship), I then worked for Sam Finn at Penn State.  He and his wife also spent about a decade apart before they found their solution.

Conclusion, I am lucky beyond belief to not only have a job that I love but to have the one I love with me as well.

Read More:

A Dual Dilemma  (NatureJobs.com)
Is the Husband Going to be a Problem?  (New York Times)
Women in Academia: The Two Body Problem  (Persephone Magazine)

News on LISA and Some Personal Stuff

LISA NEWS...

The LISA Symposium was in Paris this week and the result of this meeting was a strengthening of the efforts to put a gravitational-wave detector into space and the formation of the eLISA Consortium.  Below is a statement issued by the Consortium:

Getting ready for next time:

European gravitational wave community strengthens its space collaboration

During the 9th international LISA Symposium, held May 21 – 25 in Paris, the international LISA* community analyzed the new situation after ESA´s decision to choose JUICE for Europe´s next large space science mission. As the eLISA** mission, despite not being selected, was reported to have been unanimously ranked first by ESA´s scientific review committee in terms of scientific interest, strategic value for science and strategic value for the projects in Europe, the community is in good spirits: this is the first time that any space agency committee has ranked a gravitational wave observatory as its highest scientific priority. In order to prepare a strongest possible bid for the next launch opportunity the community has decided to continue its collaboration as the self-funded and independent eLISA consortium.

Besides preparing for the next competition the consortium will strongly support ESA's LISA Pathfinder mission, whose launch in 2014 will finally open the door to approval of a full gravitational wave mission. LPF will demonstrate key gravity-measuring technologies in space for the first time, preparing the way not only for gravitational wave detectors but also for next-generation Earth and planetary gravimetry.

The eLISA consortium consists of a management board, a steering committee, and working groups in science, technology and data analysis. It represents the European states involved in eLISA, i.e. Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and UK. The consortium is led by Prof. Dr. Karsten Danzmann, who chaired the former LISA International Science Team and is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) and a professor at the Leibniz Universität in Hannover, Germany.

“Our goal is to keep this highly motivated and effective scientific community together. It has attracted many young and excellent researchers. The knowledge and innovative potential of our community is documented in more than 2000 published scientific papers - we want to keep it working on a strong science, technology and data analysis programme”, says Karsten Danzmann, describing the role of the eLISA consortium.

Colleagues from the US, China and possibly other interested countries will be invited to participate. At the LISA Symposium, US participants presented results on a comparative study of low-cost LISA variants and expressed interest in contributing to an ESA-led mission. And for the first time, a large Chinese delegation participated in the LISA Symposium and announced their scientific interest in a close collaboration on a gravitational wave mission. The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Space Agency are developing their own plans for a gravitational wave detector in space.  

LISA*: Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

eLISA**: evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, also known as NGO (New Gravitational-Wave Observatory)

PERSONAL STUFF...

It's been a long while since I posted on here about myself.  One of the reasons I started this blog was that I wanted to humanize scientists and the work they do; you wouldn't believe how often visitors tell me that I'm not what they expected from a scientist (they mean that as a compliment) or that I was more normal than they expected.  I pulled back on writing much about myself simply because I wasn't nearly as interesting as I first thought.  I can be summed up pretty well by: loves vampires, has migraines, and is sometimes insecure about her professional worth.  (This post is even being published a day late because a migraine.)


But there has been some excitement in my life.  Over the last two weeks I have been catching up on all of my routine doctors appointments I have been putting off due to my work schedule and my husband's (and we share a car since we work at the same place).  He was out of town for nearly 2 weeks so I had the car to myself!  I've seen by dermatologist (I am very fair skinned and I get checked out for skin cancer), my gynecologist, my dentist, my cardiologist, and my urologist.  The good news is that everything is going well even though I was up to 6 months behind on being seen.  The bad news is that I've let my depression get the better of me these past few months and I didn't realize what a bad place I was in until I had time to myself.

I've been wondering whether or not to talk about this on my blog since I have had some outright ignorant reactions when I mention that I have depression.  But, May is Mental Health Month and I would like to talk a little about dealing with depression and anxiety and why you should seek treatment if you suffer from this as well.

I was an anxious little kid who was sad a lot.  As I grew up and started to have more adult problems, these tendencies became more pronounced.  It took a traumatic event for a doctor to recommend treatment for depression.  This treatment took some time to work, but when it did I realized that I had basically lived my whole life depressed to some extent and simply thought that was what normal was.  I don't need constant treatment for it, but if I'm not careful depression can sneak up on me so slowly that I don't notice it happening until it becomes horrible.  That is what happened for me recently and even then it took a doctor to bring the point up (I guess I'm not as good at covering it up as I thought I was).  I'm being treated again and things are starting to look brighter.  At least I don't feel alone and isolated even when I am surrounded by friends and colleagues.

My point is, if you think you are depressed or feel anxious for extended periods of time, talk to a doctor, medical or psychological.  I've been told to just "get over it" or called weak because I have sought treatment for my depression.  Well, will power can only help you look like nothing is wrong but you will still be depressed.  And I have discovered that most of the people who call me weak have similar problems of their own that they won't seek help for.  Truly, treating my depression is the best thing that I have ever done and I am not sure if I would be where I am today if I had not.

King Cakes, Elevators, and More Questions!

On King Cake...

One of the great things about living in Louisiana between between the Epiphany and Mardi Gras is a wonderful sweet called King Cake.  Before I moved here, I'd never heard of it (although I did see something about it on the Food Network shortly after I moved here).  If you've never heard of it, let me tell you a little about it.

King Cake (from Wikipedia)

First, King Cake isn't a cake at all.  It is more like a very large cinnamon roll.  Instead of cutting individual rolls from a log of dough swirled with cinnamon, the log is turned back onto itself to make a circle (anywhere from about a foot in diameter to as large as the baker can handle).  Once the "cake" is baked, it is covered with icing (anything from a doughnut glaze type of icing to a cream cheese icing) and then covered in colored sugar, usually in the Mardi Gras colors of purple, yellow, and green.  Inside (or underneath) the cake somewhere is a trinket, usually a plastic baby.  Whoever gets the baby gets some sort of priviledge (in Mardi Gras tradition, the person who got the baby literally was the king for whatever their Mardi Gras celebration was).

Here at LIGO, King Cakes can usually be found in our kitchens (there is a full kitchen in the main observatory building and a kitchenette in the building across the street that houses the Science Education Center and other things - like my office).  If you get the baby, you get to buy the next King Cake.  But I've been noticing that there has been a shortage of King Cake in the kitchenette in the building were my office is!  Where has all the King Cake gone?

AMBER'S DIABOLICAL PLAN FOR MORE KING CAKE...

I have come up with a plan to increase the King Cake near my office.  Over the years, I have collected my own little orphanage of plastic babies.  This one has been living in my desk for a long while now (I almost decapitated this little fella when I cut into his cake):

 

I plan on seeding the kitchenette with a King Cake and stuffing it full of babies!  Mwa-ha-ha!!!  Today, 1 King Cake...  Tomorrow, MANY King Cakes!!!


Well, since I am writing about it in by blog I'm not really going to do this, but it was a thought. ;)

On Elevators...

One of the questions I get from students visiting LIGO is, "Wow!  You must be a genius!"  Not hardly.  I wasn't always a good student and even once I was, I always had a struggle to be the good student I wanted to be.  My elevator story below proves my "not a genius" claim.

I got on the elevator this morning (they are painting the exterior stairs so they are temporarily off limits).  I have been in this elevator many times before, but today I stop and look at the control panel:

 

This elevator only goes between 2 floors and yet there is a button for each floor.  Wouldn't it make sense just to have a single button that took you to the "other" floor?  Really, if I am on the first floor and just entered the elevator, where else would I want to go.  While I am having these deep thoughts, the door closes and after about a minute or so I am standing there wondering why the elevator isn't moving.  It turns out that pushing any button is a good start but that was a mental leap I simply didn't make.  (Of course, I did eventually push 2 and it delivered me there directly.)  At least I was alone in a elevator so no one knows the depths my brilliance can plunge (except for you and I am sure you won't tell anyone, right?). 

More Questions Please! 

So, I am starting to run out of questions from you, my wonderful readers!  Please send me more!!!  (In the comments below or on Twitter to @livingligo.)  However, I have figured out a "sneaky" way to start digging up those questions you are wondering about but never asked.  You tend to Google them and you may end up on my site.  When this happens, the terms you Googled show up in my statistics for how people found my blog.  Here are some of the questions I have found this way:

• Is there anything like LIGO outside of the USA?  Answered on 17 February 2012
• Has LIGO seen anything yet?
• What does LIGO look like?  Answered on 15 March 2012

Starting next week, I will begin answering these questions (and the few that I have left over from the last time I made a call for questions).  Please ask me more!  If you are a teacher and you have students who may have questions, please have them ask (or you can for them).

I look forward to hearing from you!


UPDATE:

@Astroguyz asked:

• Where do you see gravity wave/astronomy & physics a decade from now? 
• Are there really Vegas odds on GW detection?  Answered on 23 February 2012

Broken New Year's Resolution and Priorities for 2012

I really do know better than to make New Year's resolutions.  Truly.  But there is one thing that I want to do more of and that is to make more blog posts.  I've noticed that it is easiest for me to make posts on Thursdays so I resolved to post weekly on Thursday.

Then last Thursday happened...

I woke up with the most painful migraine I've had (at least in recent memory).  I felt like my head was going to explode all morning and early afternoon and when I finally took the correct meds (when you are alone and trying to keep your brains in your skull, you tend to lose a lot of common sense) and felt better, but not well, I was thoroughly exhausted.  I think I was asleep more hours than I was awake that day.  Between that and the fact that I had to write a last-minute abstract to present some new LIGO results at the upcoming APS April Meeting, my blog post never happened.

But, today is a new Thursday and the first new blog post of the year!

I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday season.  I didn't murder any family members so I'm counting mine in the win column (I'm kidding - I would never harm my family!).

So, what have I been doing as a LIGO scientist this year?

1. I've had a few projects in the works that I am trying to wrap up and complete (I love starting new and exciting projects and documenting completed computer programs is not exciting to me).  One of the things that has been simmering for a long while now is a survey of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration to assess the members' feelings on its diversity and climate (working environment).  I created and administered a similar survey just for us who work at the LIGO Lab (I am on the LIGO Lab Diversity Committee).  The point of surveys like these are to identify areas that can be improved to make everyone's working experience better and to find out what we are going right.  This survey is in a fairly-mature format and should be ready to release in the coming weeks.
2. There is a paper I have half written on multi-messenger astronomy and LIGO that I am targeting to  publish in The Physics Teacher.  This has been half done for a while now because other life issues have gotten in the way.  Notably, work and making an application to move up the career ladder and secure myself something more permanent (all postdoctoral positions are temporary like medical residencies - I talk about this a little in my post about "Becoming a Physicist").  This is high on my list of priorities for the near future. 
3. There is a new initiative in LIGO to write outreach abstracts (summaries) of the scientific papers we publish (like this one).  The papers themselves are almost always on the arXiv server (I can think of only 1 exception) and anyone can read these for free.  That is all well and good, but these papers are meant to be read by other experts and are horrible to wade through for someone who doesn't do that sort of thing for a living.  We are trying to make our results more accessible to everyone and these abstracts are written so that everyone can know what science we are doing.  I've been working on the outreach abstract for the paper discussing the methods employed to rapidly alert telescopes to search for possible optical counterparts to gravitational wave detections (this is the link to the scientific paper).  I've talked about working on this project before here.  When this abstract goes live, I will write more about it and discuss the other abstracts that have been written.
4. There are also numerable data analysis and software simulation projects that need to be further developed, but I won't go into those here (if you really want me to, let me know in the comments - I may tell you about it later anyway even if you don't).
5. I also still work extensively with the Science Education Center here at Livingston.  Yesterday, I traveled to a elementary school in Amite, LA to talk to about 120 kindergarteners over the course of the day.  Besides the fact that they were adorable and very interested, I had the cutest ambush of my life - a 20 little kid group hug! :)  And only a few of them where taller than my hips.  Little things like this (besides getting to discover new things about the Universe) is what truly makes my job amazing!
6. Finally, I have only a few questions left to answer from my previous call for questions!  These will be answered in the coming weeks.  If you have anything you would like to know about, let me know.  Also, I was thinking about having guest blogs from other LIGO scientists, engineers, etc.  Is that something you would be interested in?  (My husband is an engineer at LIGO Livingston with me, so I have one person that I can probably bribe into doing this.)  There are many different specialties here so this may be interesting.  Let me know!

Hope to hear from you soon!

~~~

Today's picture comes from my office and its new vampy inhabitants:

From left to right: Vampire Julius from Paul Frank, Count Chocula from the cereal of the same name, and The Count from Sesame Street

You may remember from previous posts that not only do I have a nearly unhealthy love for vampire books, but I also have a collection of stuffed undead (do NOT call them dolls).  Here is a previously posted picture of my office with a few of the figures in the background:

And another of my name tag covered light (which really doesn't function so well as a light since I've added even more tags) with a few other figures:

2 Questions: "Can there be a gravitational wave detection before Advanced LIGO?" & "What does it mean if gravitational waves aren't detected with aLIGO?"

Sorry for being away from the blog for as long as I have.  What has been keeping me away from you, you say?  Well, I got sick :(  The one thing that I am very susceptible to is sinus infections (ever since I was a kid) and autumn is prime time for me to catch one.  That kept me basically in bed for about 4 days with a few days before and after still feeling miserable but ambulatory.  My waterfall of post-nasal drip has begun to slow down but my coughing is starting to taste funny again.  I'm off to the after-hours clinic tonight to see if I need antibiotics to clear this up.

There was also a meeting at the LIGO Livingston Observatory where I work that brought astronomers and LIGO scientists together to discuss what data of ours they would like to have access to and what is the best way for them to get the data.  This is all in an effort to make the data the the American taxpayer has paid for available to other scientists.  This is an interesting topic because most of us here at LIGO have neuroses about making a detection claim that later turns out to be false.  Because of that, we tend to keep our data close to the vest until we are certain what is in it.  Anyway, I will talk about this more in a later blog post.

Now, back to answering reader questions!  Since I have been away so long I figured I would answer 2:

QUESTION #1

@AstroGuyz asked:

You know the question on every science bloggers' mind is the Big One; "When will LIGO discover gravity waves?"  Are the prospects for gravitational wave detection good before AdLIGO goes online?  Think we'll nab it before the Higgs?

First off, there is very little probability of detecting gravitational waves before Advanced LIGO is ready.  Notice I didn't say it was impossible.  There are 2 situations that could produce a pre-Advanced LIGO detection.

The first possibility is a joint run between two or more detectors outside of the United States.  This happened over this past summer when GEO and Virgo were both operational and while we are still looking at this data, we haven't seen anything yet.  Now that Virgo has commenced its upgrade efforts in earnest, there isn't really another chance for a joint run until Advanced LIGO is ready.  (FYI: you can see what gravitational wave detectors are operating right now on the GWIstat page, which is always displayed under my "Interesting Links" to the right.  Note that not all of these are interferometric (laser) detectors.)

The second chance for detection is going to rely on a single detector, mainly GEO, to be operating when a significant astronomical event is observed using other astronomy observations.  For example, if a supernova is detected in the sky at the same time a very strong event is detected in GEO, then chances are that these two events are related and there is a real gravitational wave detection.  That is why GEO is continually running while LIGO and Virgo undergo their upgrades - so that we don't miss something that is basically obvious.

So, unless one of these two situations happens, we will all need to wait for Advanced LIGO to be done.  And I wouldn't expect a detection as soon as we turn it on either...  It will take a while for us to get all of the new equipment "tuned-up" to the point that it is working to the best of its abilities.  Don't quote me on this, but I wouldn't expect anything until 2016-2017.

As far as detecting gravitational waves before the Higgs particle, I can't say but I am thinking about writing a post about what all the excitement over this particle is about in another post!

QUESTION #2

@EclipseMaps asked:

What are consequences for theory of gravity/relativity if null results for gravitational waves after extended observations?

From my last question, I mentioned not to expect a detection of gravitational waves until about 2016-2017.  Even if that time comes and goes, I still wouldn't get too worried.  However, if 2020 or so comes by (remember, this is just my opinion and not that of LIGO) and we firmly see no evidence of a detection, then this does have some implications.

The first thing most people would think is that LIGO has been a failure.  Actually, that is very far from the truth.  I, along with over 800 scientists in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, have dedicated our careers to this as well as used taxpayer dollars to search for gravitational wave and we haven't done this on a hunch.  The 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for proof that gravitational waves exist by observing their affects on an astronomical system.  We simply want to detect them affecting our own detectors so that we can do astronomy with them.

Not detecting gravitational waves after we have detectors that clearly should be detecting them tells us that there is something we don't understand about general relativity (the theory where gravitational waves originate) or that we don't understand enough about the composition of our universe, namely how many of those things we expect to produce detectable gravitational waves exist.  This would be extraordinarily interesting (although a bit disappointing to me).  So much so, that there would be whole conferences of physicists and astronomers debating the populations of gravitational wave sources to exotic interference such as gravitational waves leaking into separated universes (see my discussion about how gravitons behave in string theory here).

PICTURE FOR THE DAY:

My "Lucky Yen"

This is my "Lucky Yen".  There really isn't anything special about it other than it was given to me by my first physics professor in college, Dr. Plitnik, who gave this to me on my birthday in 1997.  It was just after the Fall semester started.  I know it is kind of dumb, but it meant a lot to me and I have carried it in whatever bag I used through college, grad school and now.  It has even earned its own coin case (which has a higher market value than the coin).

Night Life at the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration Meeting

I've talked before in this blog about what it is like being at various scientific conferences including the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration (LVC) Meetings.  At the March LVC Meeting, I was able to share the exciting news about the "Big Dog" blind injection (my blog about it | official LIGO release) and discuss the value of blind tests in science.  Last week I was at the September LVC Meeting in Gainesville, FL and, while there was much to talk about, nothing was truly exciting except to those of us in the business.  So, I decided that I would share with you what the night life is like at a meeting like this.

On the evening of Tuesday September 27th, A good friend of mine called me to ask if I had any plans.  Since I didn't I asked what she had in mind and she told me that she and a bunch of other LIGO people were going out to a trivia night.  I had to think about this for a minute since I am very much a homebody and was looking forward to finishing the book I was reading, but then I realized that I tend to have no life at all and should go out.  So, off I went!

We ended up going to The Laboratory which is a science themed pub/cafe.  Below is a picture of me standing in front of The Laboratory:

Me in front of The Laboratory

When I got inside, I saw that the place was definitely "no frills" and a little divey but the atmosphere was still fun and settled in for an evening of showing off my vast intellectual prowess (read: know a few of the answers and hope my other team mates know more than I do).  I grabbed one of the few menus and took pictures for your enjoyment:

Front of menu (FYI: the URL listed on this menu does not work)

Back of menu

All of the food has a science themed title.  I chose the Dr. Hawking chicken sandwich (the item on the left bottom corner on the back of the menu pictured above).  How could I possibly order any other sandwich since I specialize in relativity?  I was so hungry when it arrived that I dove right in and forgot to take a picture for you.  So, here what it looked like when I woke from my hunger craze and took a picture:

What was left of my Dr. Hawking when I remembered to take a picture

As I was eating, more and more people started showing up for the trivia event.  And the place ended up being nearly overrun by all of the usuals and the mass amounts of LIGO people who showed up as well (I didn't actually count, but there wer about 20 of us).  The lights went off, the black lights came on and the trivia started, hosted by none other than Doc (get it?).  We settled into teams of about 6 people and played the night away.  There were 20 questions.  After each question the DJ played a song and that song usually had some kind of hint to it.  Once the song was over, the team had to turn in the answer on a slip of paper and you got a seconds chance (for reduced points) if it was wrong.  I'm not sure exactly where our team finished (not first and not last) but we had a great time.  Below is a picture of the row of us LIGO people who invaded (and we stick together).  And this isn't even everyone since some stragglers ended up sitting at their own table to the right of the picture:

Just some of the LIGO people who showed up for trivia (yes, all the way to the back of the picture)

And what would a science themed cafe be without lab coats?  Here is one of us brilliant specimens modeling one (with a nice glow from the black lights):

A real scientist in a real lab coat at The Laboratory

After trivia fun was over, a few of my friends and I headed back to the hotel since there was another day of the meeting the next day, but I also had to pack since I left the meeting after lunch to head home (which was an adventure in itself since my plane from Atlanta to Baton Rouge was diverted to Jackson, MS just before we started our decent due to a really horrible storm.  As you can tell, after hours of sitting in a closed airport I did indeed make it home.  And I was glad for it since I was away on travel to Long Island, NY for an APS Executive Board Meeting just before this trip.  Remember how I said I was a homebody?  This body was very glad to be home!

Slaying My Own Dragons

I haven't written in a while.  I've been working and traveling but that isn't why I haven't been writing.  I've stayed away because I have recently been dealing with my own personal demons (which surface for me at least on an annual basis)... 

When I first started this blog, I promised a look into my everyday life as a LIGO scientist.  Almost everything that I have shared has been positive and, truly, that is how the majority of my life passes - I am blessed beyond my dreams and I love my life and my work.  However, there are the other days where I feel like nothing I've done has amounted to anything other than keeping me busy.  Deep down, I know that isn't true but I have a horrible way of marginalizing everything I do.  Basically, if I did it then anyone could have or it wasn't meaningful.  This is a well known phenomenon called the Impostor Syndrome.  I've heard about this is various places; I think most recently it was in regard to women in physics but this is a widespread phenomenon in both genders. 

Honestly, I am hesitant to even write about this here.  Physics is a competitive profession.  I feel like a person's worth is usually judged on what you've done lately.  I am always afraid that I haven't accomplished enough to not be forgotten let alone respected.  And with my job being a temporary (I am a postdoctoral scholar - this is much like when a medical doctor goes through residencies after earning their medical degree) and on a yearly contract, not constantly earning respect means that I could lose my job all together.

It isn't something that I discuss with my co-workers; after all these are the people whose respect I am trying to earn and maintain.  I don't even bring it up to my friends because, since I really don't have much of a life outside of work, my friends are also physicists - sometimes even people I feel are my competition.  On my latest trip (to Santa Barbara, CA for the APS Executive Board retreat), I did bring this up in conversation over dinner (I felt more comfortable around these physicists since they are not in the same research circle as myself and I rarely see them).  As soon and I mentioned I'd been dealing with a bit of Impostor Syndrome the immediate response I got was, "We all feel that way."  At that, I didn't know how to respond since I was surprised at how open this person was with me.

So, how do I go about slaying this dragon?  Well, the first stage is messy and usually involves much anxiety and panic about the difference between what I feel I've accomplished and what I should have accomplished.  This then moves into a planning phase where I decide what I am going to do and is followed by a series of email feelers to people I need to collaborate with to perform the work.  By this time, I have usually exhausted myself (at least emotionally) and I wait for responses from collaborators.  If they are prompt, a new determined calm can begin to take root; otherwise, the anxiety increases again.  I start thinking, "Wow, I was right and everyone thinks so little of me that they don't want to work with me!"  (Note to self: next time check your spam filter before you flip out again.)  With a new plan of action intact, I get to start the cycle of the Impostor Syndrome again: "I have all this great work to do but I don't think that I am talented enough to complete it."  But, I plug away at it, complete tasks and rarely acknowledge what I've done.

The one good thing that comes from these episodes of mine is that it jump starts new projects for me.  It also reminds me of how lucky I am to have my husband since he is the only person with whom I share this insecurity.  The poor guy is my sounding board for all of the anxiety I've built up and there really isn't anything he can do for me.

A double rainbow taken from the LIGO Livingston Observatory parking lot on 30 June 2008.

This is a good article on the Impostor Syndrome: Laursen, Lucas, "No, You're Not an Impostor", Science Careers (15 February 2008).

***

Revised Erdös Number: 4

A friend of mine read my last blog post and showed that both of us (as members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration) have a lower Erdös Number (4) than I noted in that post.  Here are the references establishing this network:

1: Paul Erdős & Mark Kac
    Erdös, P.; Kac, M. "The Gaussian law of errors in the theory of additive number theoretic functions",  Amer. J. Math.  62,  (1940). 738–742.
2: Mark Kac & Theodore A. Jacobson
    Gaveau B.; Jacobson T. ; Kac M.; Schulman L. S. "Relativistic extension of the analogy between quantum mechanics and Brownian motion", Phys. Rev. Lett. 53 (1984), no. 5, 419–422.
3. Theodore A. Jacobson & Bruce Allen
    Allen, Bruce; Jacobson, Theodore "Vector two-point functions in maximally symmetric spaces", Comm. Math. Phys. 103 (1986), no. 4, 669–692. 
4. Bruce Allen & Amber Stuver
    Abbott, B.; et al. "Detector description and performance for the first coincidence observations between LIGO and GEO," Nucl. Instrum. Methods A 517 (2004), 154 – 179.

How I Came Into Blogging

I never thought that anyone would be interested in what I had to say, especially in an ongoing basis.  I go to work (albeit to a pretty cool job), go home and do normal things that everyone else does.  Who'd be interested in that?

But then I thought about how scientists are usually perceived.  I've noticed that people who were having a normal conversation with me will talk to me differently when they find out I'm a physicist.  I've had adult visitors to LIGO be in awe and mention that they have never met a physicist before.  My response to that is that they don't really know that - the person in line behind them in Walmart could have been a physicist and they would never know it.  When scientists are portrayed in media, there is usually something about them that puts them apart from the "everyday" person.  I admit that the characters on CBS's "The Big Bang Theory" have gotten a lot of the quirks right (I can label the characters with my friends) but the show only shows the interesting parts of their lives where their quirkiness comes to the fore - I can guarantee you that if these were real people, their 'boring' times are just like everyone else's.

Still, I didn't think that this was enough to base a blog on.  Last February "Astro Guyz" David Dickinson requested a tour of the LIGO Livingston facility so that he could blog about it.  I was more than happy to take him around (regular readers of this blog know that I LOVE to talk about LIGO to anyone who will listen).  After showing David and his wife around we talked about their experiences blogging (they are both experienced bloggers).  They were very encouraging and I was intrigued.  Read Astro Guyz blog post from his visit to LIGO here.  Below is a picture of William Katzman (LIGO Livingston Science Education Center lead), me, and David Dickinson from this post:

Astro Guyz also gave me my YouTube debut:

Months later, on my birthday, I decided that there is no better time than the present to start my blog and see if anyone was interested in following what being a scientist is really like (not just the stereotypes).  Now I had to find a way to let others know that the blog exists.  For that I turned to Astro Guyz and sciencegeekgirl.com (a blog run by Stephanie Chasteen - a well known science education and communication expert who I was acquainted with).  They were both very helpful in giving me hints and their common advice was along the lines of "if you write it, they will come" and to "use Twitter".

And here you are!  :)

I hope that this blog is serving its purpose by letting you see what I do on a daily basis.  I know not everything is thrilling (like this post) but every now and then I get to tell you about a bit of excitement (like the "Big Dog" blind injection - which was picked up by Discover Magazine's Cosmic Variance blog and Discovery News).

I'd love to hear your thoughts!  Is there anything you would like me to talk about?  Just drop a comment below or send an email to amber@livingligo.org.

Visit and Seminar at Rice University

Last Monday, I gave a seminar at Rice University on LIGO and gravitational wave astronomy.  Rice does not have a LIGO group or a group that works on relativistic physics, so the talk needed to start from the foundations of gravitational waves.  I do this sort of thing all the time at work when I do outreach, but I assume that the visitor isn't a physics expert.  So, I was a little worried about pitching it too low and insulting the audience or pitching it too high and having no one really understand what I'm talking about.

It turns out that I was worried for no reason and this was one of the most enjoyable talks I've ever given.  The topic is very dear to my heart since the entire reason I became involved with LIGO when I started grad school in 1999 was to be part of this new field of gravitational wave astronomy.  Through this talk, I got to start with the basics about gravitational waves and LIGO and then go into all of the personally exciting fronts on gravitational wave astronomy.  The audience was not shy and asked questions throughout the talk (which I usually interpret as them being excited about the topic).  In the end, the talk & questions went on for an hour and a half (the seminar was scheduled for 55 minutes) and only a few people who had other commitments (like teaching) had to leave early.  It felt so fulfilling to give a talk to such a wonderful group of physicists.

After the talk, the organizer mentioned that the older gentleman who asked me a few questions was none other than Dr. Robert Curl, the Nobel Prize winning (1996) chemist who was one of the scientists who discovered C60 (Buckminsterfullerene or Buckyballs).  In case you are not familiar, buckyballs are spherical shells of carbon atoms that resemble the geometry of the geodesic domes (think Spaceship Earth at EPCOT Center) that Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller popularized.  These buckyballs began the new field of research in carbon nanotubes which is full of promising new technology.

I can't believe that I held my own with a Nobel Prize winner!  (Not that I am usually proud of myself for answering questions correctly, but I'm usually not questioned by someone so famous.)

After the talk I was treated to a tour of campus.  I must admit, it is one of the most beautiful campuses I have seen in a long time.  The week before, they dedicated their new physics building.  Outside on the top of the support columns, were symbols with physics themes (this is common on other buildings on campus with the symbols showing the respective subject of study).  On the top of one column was a diagram of a mass warping space-time and a schematic of how an interferometer works:

I was also told the story of the founding of Rice.  I won't spoil all of it here, but it is a murder mystery where the butler really did do it (along with a corrupt lawyer).  The day was topped off by dinner with the organizer and her husband.  The food was excellent and the conversation even better!

The cherry on top of this trip happened 2 days before the talk.  Nearly 6 years ago I donated bone marrow to a 16-year-old young lady with ALL.  We communicated through the donation coordinators for a year (we were not allowed to know each other's identity for a year due to privacy issues) and then signed the paperwork to release our personal information to each other.  She and her family live outside of Houston, TX so I took this opportunity to meet her for the first time in person.  She is beautiful both physically and in spirit!  The most meaningful thing I have ever done with my life is help her beat her cancer (she has been cancer free since the transplant).

If you are interested in learning more about registering to donate bone marrow or peripheral stem cells (basically what they need from bone marrow that can be taken from the blood), visit The National Marrow Donor Program.  Most people will never be a match to someone in need.  I was called in the first 9 months and haven't been called since.  However, I would welcome the opportunity to do it again.

P.S.  If you are interested in my donation story, you can read it here:  www.marrowdonor.net.  I wrote it shortly after donation and it could use a bit of editing, but the story is complete.