First talk of 2016

Good morning fantastic people!

I just found my seat at the train towards Trondheim. I'm not going all the way, but getting off at Hamar - where I'm going to visit Hamar Katedralskole, which happen to be Anders' old high school :) There I'll be giving my first talk this year, to a bunch of 16/17 year olds, about "nuclear physics and research and stuff - the story about a pink nerd". As you might guess, it will be a personal talk about ups and downs from when I switched from ballet in high school until now, when I'm about to start wrapping up my PhD work... Hopefully some of them will be inspired, and maybe some of them will change their view on science and the scientist.

It's been exactly one year since I visited Hamar Katedralskole and gave the same kind of talk I'm giving today - so I guess I can take it as a compliment that they've asked me to come again this year ❤️❤️❤️

Submission successful!

Monday again! I've started this week by sending away an abstract for a conference i Belgium in the middle of September (if all goes according to my plan, this conference will be just the week after I have submitted my PhD thesis, and if I actually get to give a talk at there I will probably hate myself for submitting this abstract today :P ). The title of what I want to present ended up as:

Prompt fission gamma ray emission from the (d,p)-induced fission of 233U 

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After I had successfully submitted my abstract, the rest of the day was spent on working on my data analysis program, and looking at different plots, and try to understand details of the experiments we do, and stuff.

Then I got home, prepared for a talk I'll be giving in Hamar tomorrow, and then I made dinner for Anders and me - an easy, Indian thing this time. I'm working on another Working your ass off dinner, and when I have perfected the recipe I will share it with you guys - if you want me to, of course ;)

Now it's time to go to bed, since I'm getting up super early tomorrow... Kiss and hugs, and sleep tight <3

Friday Facts - gamma radiation

Friday again, darlings, and we know by now what day (normally) means: Friday Facts! This week I want to tell you about gamma radiation, since most of my (professional) life orbits around this kind of radiation these days.

1. gamma rays, or gamma radiation, is the same kind of radiation as light (both are "just" electromagnetic radiation) - it's just really really intense, and comes from the atomic nucleus. A gamma ray carries at least 10 000 times more energy than "normal" visible light ray
2. it doesn't have any mass or charge - as opposed to for example alpha or beta radiation
3. gamma radiation travels with the speed of light - maybe not a big surprise, since I say in number 1 that it's really the same kind of radiation as light ;)
4. gamma rays can be used to kill cancer cells, but it's not the standard for radiation treatment in Norway - where we use X-rays (when it comes to killing cells there's really no big difference between using gamma or X-rays )
5. gamma rays are kind of waves, with very high energy, and very short wavelength - of less than ten trillionths of a meter
6. gamma radiation goes through "everything" - at least compared to alpha and beat radiation, which are easily stopped. If you want to shield something from gamma radiation (and I often want to do just that), you (or I) use something very dense, like lead or actually depleted uranium is even better 
7. a nucleus will very often emit a gamma ray at the same time as it emits an alpha or beta particle; this happens because after emitting the alpha/beta, the nucleus has a lot of extra energy, which is called being excited, and to get rid of this extra energy (called "de-excite") it emits gamma radiation
8. measuring the gamma rays can be used to identify all kinds of different nuclei, since the different energies of the gamma rays sort of works like an id, or fingerprint, for one specific nucleus. For example we know for sure that oxygen-17 emits a gamma ray with an energy of 870 kilo-electron volts, and if we measure this we know that we have measured that exact oxygen isotope
9. we (people) emit gamma radiation: A person that weighs 70 kg emits 500 gamma rays that come from potassium-40 every second. Potassium is the main reason why humans are radioactive, and that's completely normal :)
10. I think it's so funny that we call a nucleus that has extra energy excited...I mean, this is me when I'm excited :D When I'm excited I don't emit more gamma rays than normal :P

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Now I have to run for our nuclear physics group meeting - but maybe I'll talk to you later today. Have a great Friday and soon weekend sweeties!

Late birthday present for my self

On Friday I decided enough is enough: I'm sick and tired of being cold all the time, and that what I needed was a real warm jacket. I've been thinking about getting a real winter jacket for a long time, but I always end up thinking everything is either too expensive, or it's ugly. But the combination of feeling cold all the time, plus my birthday was recently, made me go online to Nelly.no and search for warm winter coats and jackets, and after not very long I found the perfect fit for me - a PINK down parkas <3 It was even 30% off, but that was not the reason why I chose this, it was just an extra bonus ;)

I tested it outside for the first time today, and so far I'm super happy with this late birthday present from me to me!

Did I mention it's PINK?!? ;)

Since I was online, I also checked out the new year's sale, and two dresses and a black shirt was clicked home to Rose Castle. 

pink jacket // blue dress // pink dress // black shirt

Now I'm putting on my new pink favourite jacket, and I'm going out with Anders. We're going to get something to eat, and maybe a glass of wine (or two) - and I won't be cold :D

This week's work

As I told you on Monday, we have visitors this week. What we're actually doing is that we are studying fission - or to be more precise; gamma radiation from fission. 

As you might know, or remember from earlier blog posts, fission is when a heavy atomic nucleus splits in two (this can happen to for example uranium-235). When this happen, you will get these fission fragments (this is what the two parts of the original nucleus are called) that have A LOT of extra energy, and some of this energy will be sent away as gamma radiation. A little bit like when we're really hot we start to sweat, and when a nucleus is really hot it emits gamma radiation ;)

We want know everything about this type of radiation! For example it can have a lot of different energies, and we don't know how many gammas the fission fragments will emit and so on. Basically we want to know how and why and just all there is to know <3

my look yesterday: a white men's shirt (HM) and the statement necklace I got from my mother for Christmas (Aldo) <3

Visit

This week we have visitors from France (my great supervisor, Jon), Belgium, and Sweden. We're working on gamma radiation from fission (of uranium-233 and plutonium-239). It's a lot of hard, and EXTREMELY INTERESTING, work, and hopefully we'll get a very nice article out of this. If so, I'll very soon have the articles I need for writing up my thesis...wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!1

Now I need to get some sleep, so that I can get up early tomorrow, and finish preparing a talk I'm giving for a workshop and discussion we'll all have tomorrow.

Sleep tight darlings <3

Goal of the day

Today I've been at the library, writing all day. It takes forever, but I'm starting to get used to it - and therefore better at making goals and to do-list. My goals today were:

• finish (for now) the part about the so-called "Oslo Method" in my next paper
• fix/make a figure (that f****g Fig. 4)
• delete all the comments and thoughts (from my self) in the paper, so that it's actually possible to show it someone else without them saying WAT
• send a draft of the paper to Jon supervisor in Paris
• start making the talk I'm giving for our workshop on fission and gamma rays and stuff next week

By the end of the day I managed all but the one about the figure... "Figure 4"continues to look like a very bad drawing or something, and it will probably not be fixed tomorrow either, since then I have to work on thoughts for my actual thesis, since Jon plus more are coming next week. But the important thing is that I did send my draft to my supervisor even thought the figure isn't any good, and that was really the most important goal of the day :D :D :D

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Here's a picture of a typical staying at the library all day, writing and therefore trying to wear something comfortable, but isn't all that keen on wearing a sweat suit out in public-outfit: tight but stretchy jeans, a simple grey sweater, and my big Russian scarf that I got as a gift from Sunniva supervisor after I finished my master degree - and I love it <3