In 2013 there was a big train crash in Spain, Syrian children died of nerve gas and the Philippines got hit by a major typhoon, while Edward Snowden dramatically demonstrated the relativity of privacy. The Boston marathon got startled by a bombing, a Nairobi shopping mall got invaded by terrorists. Belgium changed Kings from Albert to Filip, the Vatican traded Benedictus for Franciscus. 

In Thirteen, Europe didn't fall apart and the recovery from crisis times has really begun. May Europe really overcome its internal struggles in 2014 and may European solidarity regain its true meaning. May Ryanair fly you to pretty European cities! May new generations of European students become the continent's ambassadors, educated in different countries through Erasmus exchanges. From Belgium to Denmark, Germany through Greece, in Romania or Spain, places are beautiful and people are pretty. May you discover the continent, great in diversity! A Europe which can unify and aid where necessary and preserve all the unique cultures, is a wonderful project which deserves your optimism and encouragement! For the people from Belgium, I wish for us to be a bit more conscious and proud of the great things our little but beautiful country possesses, and of course that we may be victorious at the World Cup in Brasil!

A year ago, I wrote here about my New Year's resolutions for the past year. I announced I would start to play the piano again, as well as to learn the Danish language and speak it fluently. I did buy myself an electric piano and have played it a bit, albeit not nearly regularly enough to really improve on my (very basic) skill level. I have spent most of the year in Danish class at LaerDansk, where I unfortunately missed the exam of the final module 5, as I was in the US in November. However, people will now have a hard time gossiping about me in my presence, and I can watch Borgen without subtitles. 

So perhaps there is still a little bit of room for improvement for both - does anyone know a nice piano teacher in Aarhus? And for my Danish colleagues, så snakker vi kun på Dansk! Jeg kan godt forstå det, du må bare hjælpe mig lidt! - but largely, mission accomplished! The biggest personal achievements during the year Thirteen have really been job related. I published a paper in Summer and had another one accepted for publication. I talked about this last one - of which I am especially proud and in which we discovered a new interesting exoplanet! - at MIT and at Harvard and presented it on a poster at the NASA Kepler conference. I've been to the US three times in the past year, I operated a telescope for the very first time in La Palma, I had a great summer school at the beautiful Onsala in Sweden. I've been teaching students about exoplanets, during a course which only two years ago was my own very first introduction to the research field. 

'13 for me has also meant really settling down in Aarhus. Many nice new friends have made me feel at home. While an international environment inevitably means no one stays forever - sadly, Sandra, one of the nicest people who was there from day one of my Erasmus experience, went back to Spain a few weeks ago - I have high hopes for there to be some lasting friendships nevertheless. Finding a lovely apartment in the middle of town and an even greater roommate Catalina has also played a big role in calling Aarhus home!

As publicly announcing resolutions appears to be beneficial for their chances of success, here it is again. In 2014 I intend to explain more astronomy to everyone. Many scientists do really great research, largely funded by tax payer's money. Unfortunately is often complex and difficult to bring to a broad audience. I will make my own little contribution by attempting to explain some of the universe's most interesting mysteries to anyone that may be interested. I will be happy to talk about extra-solar planets which may be quite like or unlike our Earth and some of which may have life. No matter your scientific background, as long as you are interested or intrigued. Secondly, I want to find the time in 2014 to travel for longer than two weeks and discover a country I haven't seen before.

What I finally wish for everyone for 2014 is spelled out in the Holstee Manifesto at the bottom of this page. This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. Life is short. Live your dream. Wear your passion. Hello 2014! Happy New Year!

Vincent

On 15:59 | 0 reacties

November 2013 was the third time I met with the United States this year, and this time we saw each other for more than a few days. The first destination: San Francisco, or more precisely, Mountain View. The headquarters of NASA Ames is located there, and they were hosting the second Kepler science conference. Despite a worthy try by the American politicians to interfere with the conference by shutting down the government only weeks before, the science meeting took place as scheduled and we spent a week discussing results using the Kepler satelite's data, and their implications on exoplanet research.

Being together with a few hundred colleagues from all over the world to discuss science always has something inspirational to it. The conference's public lecture was given by prof. Frank Drake, known to astronomers and non-astronomers alike as the person behind the Drake equation. This equation, which he failed to mention at any point during his talk, predicts the chance of having life on another planet by multiplying factors such as the amount of stars, the amount of planets and the amount of planets which can support life. I share a sense of optimism with most exoplanet researchers that there is likely life somewhere out there, and that we might be able to detect it in the not too distant future. Or to paraphrase Frank Drake, perhaps we will soon connect to the intergalactic internet.

As with any conference, you need something remarkable to happen to make it worth remembering. This time the price went to my advisor, whose rental car turned out to be a white Mustang (with remarkably little space in the back seats).

On 19:20 | 0 reacties

About five months after the start of my PhD in Denmark, I got out of the country for my first university travel. And not just any travel, because we were headed for Boston, United States.

Together with some colleagues from Aarhus, I was attending a two-day workshop at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The aim was to exchange knowledge about exoplanet atmospheres and set up future collaborations. Naturally, the research group at MIT was a very strong one, so I was excited and a little nervous about the trip. It all worked out really well, and I had some very interesting discussions with a number of people.

The head of the group, Sara Seager, is the author of a book that was my first introduction to the field of exoplanets. It was great to meet her in person. Actually, we already 'met' her on the airplane to Boston: one of the in-flight entertainment videos was titled "Alien Worlds", and guess which scientist was interviewed for it? Exactly.

As we arrived on Saturday night (local time), we had a full Sunday to see a bit of the city. Boston turned out to be a quite enjoyable, and a long walk along the Freedom Trail took us for some sightseeing. After having been in Denmark for a while, the American friendliness takes a bit of getting used to, and our hotel had a fully automatic pancake machine (!), but other than that, the city seemed somewhat European. I certainly wouldn't mind to return here for a while!

But first, on the plane to Belgium! Another workshop awaits me there, but so do my parents and friends. I'm coming home!

Groetjes, kusjes en liefde,

Vincent

On 18:44 | 0 reacties

Dat het niet genoeg over inhoud gaat. Commentaar op de Belgische politiek is het niet (meer), maar op de teksten op mijn blog. Studeer jij daar ook, zo vroeg mijn vader.

Affirmatief, want terwijl men in Leuven de schachten nog niet eens heeft kunnen dopen heb ik mijn eerste kwartaal er al op zitten. Vier blokken, een feest. Gewoonlijk volgt men hier dan drie vakken van vijf studiepunten in zo'n kwartaal. Omwille van mijn masterthesis dit jaar had ik de afgelopen zeven weken slechts twee vakken: "Advanced Data Analysis" en "Exoplanets".

Dat laatste gaat over alle planeten buiten die van onze zon. De honderden, verre en onbekende planeten in de rest van onze kosmos dus. Een tak van de sterrenkunde die bijzonder jong is, vijftien jaar lang detecteren we nu deze planeten. Ze variëren in afmetingen en eigenschappen, van warm tot koud en van grote gasplaneten (vergelijk met bijvoorbeeld Jupiter of Saturnus) tot kleine aardse planeten. Detectie van deze kleine, donkere objecten naast grote, heldere sterren is wat moeilijker dan - ik zeg maar wat - het opmeten van de snelheid van een paar neutrino's in het CERN.

De mooiste quote van het boek staat alvast op de eerste pagina te lezen:

"Dedicated to all the people on this planet who have big dreams and succeed in making them happen."

Dat het een gebied is dat tot de verbeelding spreekt, komt ook meerdere malen aan bod. Ook voor mezelf is dit waar. Ooit begon ik niet aan bio-chemie ("om mensen te klonen") maar aan fysica ("het ontdekken van buitenaards leven!"). Na drie jaar in de fysica koos ik uiteindelijk voor sterrenkunde, en via een omzwerving naar Denemarken kom ik uiteindelijk uit bij een onderwerp dat dit thema luidop durft behandelen. Of, zoals Sara Seager het schrijft:

"This is a unique time in human history - for the first time, we are on the technological brink of being able to answer questions that have been around for thousands of years: Are there other planets like Earth? Are they common? Do any have signs of life? The field of exoplanets is rapidly moving toward answering these questions."

"This is the promise and hope for exoplanets - the detection and characterization of habitable worlds. We are on the verge of, if not in the very midst of, the greatest change in perspective of our place in the universe since the time of Copernicus."

Ook in mijn masterthesis komen deze exoplaneten trouwens voor - maar daarover later meer. Voor u een al te romantisch beeld krijgt, we hebben het in de cursus voornamelijk over detectietechnieken en marsmannetjes komen voorlopig niet echt aan bod. Maar toch.

Zeven verschillende thema's kregen we van tevoren, compleet met een pdf-file met allerlei figuren en formules. Op het examen kregen we dan donderdag een thema toegewezen, en mochten we hierover aan de hand van het document beginnen vertellen. Waarna de discussie uiteraard verder gaat over de rest van het vak. Een externe professor is tevens aanwezig op het mondeling, om de neutraliteit te waarborgen. Na 25 minuten praten, mag je enkele minuten het lokaal verlaten. Vervolgens krijg je het resultaat meteen te horen: een 7 (12, 10, 7, 4, 2, 0, -3 zijn de mogelijke Deense resultaten, waarvan de laatste twee niet geslaagd zijn - het nut van deze vreemde getallen ontgaat mij evenzeer als u). Soit, in Leuven wordt dit voor mij in principe omgerekend naar een 14. Niet fantastisch, maar ook niet slecht natuurlijk!

Vervolgens het examen van de gevorderde data-analyse. Statistiek dus, en echt interessant is dat nooit. Niemand houdt er van, maar nuttig en nodig is het wel. Een bijzonder goed gedoceerd vak werd het ook, steeds toegepast op wat nodig is in experimentele of observationele fysica (denk aan foutenberekening en het modelleren/fitten van data). Of zoals R.J. Barlow het schrijft in het handboek:

"Many science students acquire a distinctly negative attitude towards the subject of statistics. The reasons for this are clear. The traditional first year concentrated statistics course of derivations and exhortations makes little impact on the young undergraduates, who want to get to grips with the basic truths of their chosen subject and have no interest in sordid details like error bars. The hapless students then go to laboratory classes, in which their enjoyment of the experiments is marred by the awful chore of the "error analysis" at the end, where, whatever they do, they inevitably get harshly criticised for doing it wrong. Under such circumstances, statistics can soon become a collection of meaningless ritual, to be gone through correctly if harsh words and bad marks are to be avoided. As a student, I was no different from any other in this respect."

Een handboek dat ik mijn Leuvense collega-wetenschapsstudenten zeker kan aanbevelen, gecombineerd met een goed docent en het werd een aangenaam vak. Voor de thesis zal ik er ongetwijfeld nog vele malen op terugblikken. Door de aard van het vak krijgen we geen echte graad, slechts een pass/fail-beoordeling. "Passed, of course, and in a very nice way," zo sprak Karsten Riisager na het mondeling.

Ziezo, op naar kwartaal twee. Slechts een vak daar, "Advanced Cosmology", en dus dringend tijd om dat thesis wat hoger op het lijstje met prioriteiten te plaatsen.

Maar eerst - via het "werk" in het Studenterhus - gratis naar het Deense basket gaan kijken, een feestje bouwen en vrijdag voor een week naar Noorwegen trekken. Het moet hier ook niet altijd over inhoud gaan hé.

Groetjes, kusjes en liefde,
Vinnie

On 16:13 | 0 reacties