Norwegian Wood

上周趁史老师回国之前, 把committee meeting开了. 我记得原来这种meeting也就是走走形式, 开不开无所谓的. 最近两年系里抓的紧了点, 我都收到好几次email提醒说一年至少要开一次了, 而且还有流言说不开学校就不给钱了… 星期二定了人, 星期三准备, 星期四就开了. 一切都顺利, 就把前不久做的RPA的结果报告了一下.

周三和原来组里的人去了downtown一家sushi自助, August 8, 好像新开没多久, 名字取得像是跟北京奥运似的, 但开店的人好像不是中国人. 平时的中饭17块钱一个人, 比较好的地方是除了sushi以外, 还有dim sum可以选择. 一般中国饭店有的都有, 但手艺一般, 能将就吃吃. 这样屯里的四家sushi自助吃了三家, sushi star的服务太差, 札幌的东西还是比较不错的, 88的就多了点心, 但sushi没有其他两家好吃. 还有一家以前鹤面馆的地方, 就在牛头的背面, 听说比较便宜, 还没有机会去试试. 周五自己在家把上次在大统华买的乌鸡给做了. 上次去纽约ayh做了一次吃, 感觉很不错. 这次就放冷水煮, 加了点姜片和盐, 依然香得一塌糊涂, 一口气一顿就把一只鸡给解决了, 嘿嘿. 看来原材料的好坏还是蛮重要的.

书翻完了to kill a mocking bird, 电影也看了, 感觉不错, 有空在写点感想吧. 还看了部日本的Hero, 当年大学里看过连续剧的, 木村拓哉和松榕子主演的, 具体什么情节现在一点都不记得了, 电影还行. 木村拓哉还不怎么显老, 估计还能演演渡边, 如果村上能放版权的话…

上周末开车去了一次大统华. 第一次开车走比较远的高速, 开始还有点紧张, 但开起来后也就适应了, 再说就一个方向的车, 速度跑起来后蛮爽的. 比较难搞的是找高速的出口, 看样子路不熟的话可能还是要整个GPS的. 这次虽然有liuzhen所谓的人工GPS带路, 但回来的时候还是开岔了路, 在burlinton应该接着403走却开到了去大瀑布的路上, 然后从burlington几乎是开着local回屯里的.

在mississauga吃了顿中饭, imperial buffet, 中式的自助餐, 感觉很不错. 菜的味道还可以, 有一个红烧茄子做得相当够味道. 有日本sushi, 种类也挺全的. 特别是价钱很合理, 13块钱lunch, 能吃得很饱. 相比较而言, 周四去的山上mandarin就一般了, 一是中国菜的品种少了不少, 二来lunch要17块钱. 主要是一对比觉得mandarin还是有差距的, 但毕竟就在屯里, 近了不少, 太饿的时候可以去凑合凑合.

另外周六的时候xuwei从ottawa过来开会, 顺便小聚了一会. 晚饭去了山上的食神, 就在limeridge mall旁边. 菜是粤菜, 做的很精致而且清淡, 感觉做工算是屯里最好的了. 有一个姜葱霸王鸡不错, 像上海的三黄鸡. 据说点心很不错, 下次可以去尝尝.

这一周都是天气闷热, 空气就像高中时候梅雨季节的棉被, 挤得出水, 人身上总是粘粘糊糊的. 周末下了一场好雨, 气温降了下来, 晚上睡觉也觉得舒坦了许多. 最近在读to kill a mockingbird, 书是去年年初就从mills图书馆找了出来的, 当时刚看完电影capote, 发现里面turman capote和harper lee竟然是从小长大的朋友, capote写过breakfast at tiffany’s和in cold blood, 风格截然不同的作品, lee最著名的作品就是to kill a mockingbird了. 当时看了大概1/3, 最近再读发现很多都不记得了, 只好重头再来. 电脑上还有下的同名电影, 等翻完了书再看可能好点.

去amazon定了两本书和一盒cd. 书是garder dozois的year’s best sf, 2007的, 这套书积了不少了, 抽空争取翻翻了. 还有一本the knockout furmula for finding great investments, morningstar上推荐的, 无聊的时候可以看看. cd是coldplay的新专辑viva la vida.

电影看了两部, 一部bee movie, 感觉很一般, 完全没有seinfeld的味道啊. 还有一部atonement, 很简单的情节, 不是故事说得还是很有手法的. 这周蝙蝠侠最新的一部上映, the dark knight, 本来打算去看的, 没找到时间. 上周终于把lost看到了最新的, 第四季结束后不但没解决多少疑点, 很多问题却出现了. 我对jack的看法也有了很大转变, 头两季的时候我还觉得jack比sawyer实在要强太多了, 到了第四季我跟倾向于sawyer了, jack太喜欢自己给自己找负担了, 活得多累啊…

刚才换日历, 才发现已经12月份了. 意味着这个学期马上就要结束了. 搬到楼上整天对着电脑也有两个来月, 随便记录点东西.

买了1月1号回国的飞机票. 感觉还是订迟了, 1500多块钱, 心疼啊. 这个价钱是有点离谱了, ayh走纽约才要1000不到, 而且最近加元比美元还贵. 比较便宜的机票应该是在12月初, 但是因为量子的ta走不了, 要改期末考试的卷子. 27号回来, 国内计划是上海, 北京, 湖南三角形跑一圈, 各地的同学准备好钱包了

说到量子的ta, 期中考试结果不是太好. 当时我拿到题目后觉得有把握的也就两道题. 我的感觉因为这毕竟是量子的第一次考试, 最好还是有一半的题目考比较基本的常识. 四道考题有三个分别是path integral, Aharonov-Bohm effect和WKB近似, 个人认为还是偏难了一点. 最郁闷的是考试前有同学来问题目, 我当时告诉他们路径积分太难了, 肯定不会出现在考试中, 结果就考了:-(

上个月去签了一次美国签证, 头一次交签证费给100加元还找我钱回来. 再次被check了. 几个物理专业的同学都是check, 所以看来还是专业的问题. 上周考车第三次总算是过了, 谢天谢地. 其实第二次就应该过了的, md, 回到停车场的时候犯了个大错给fail了, 郁闷致死… liangda上周回了国, 车子留给了我. 还希望在国内能辉煌腾达咱以后回去了也能沾沾光

研究上起色不大. 前不久算出来的planar confinement的情况, 后来查文献发现去年有人做出来了, 郁闷. 接着算柱的和球的confinement. 史老师回国开会, 临走前把一盆植物交给我看护. 星期二给我的, 接着的星期一才想起来要浇水, 一看盆子都干了, 植物你可要坚持住啊…

另外psp放办公室给偷了, 倒霉啊. 希望拿走我机子的玩上面的实况场场输0比3…

最近吃Bridges的pasta上瘾了, 那个spicy tai+rice pasta的组合颇有点当年樟树楼的味道了.

早上想去跑步, 没起来. 上午三个报告:

Dana Berkeland from Los Alamos talked about quantum simulations with trapped ions. By using Jordan-Wigner transformation, lots of condensed matter models can be mapped to trapped ions. The two key elements are spin-dependent force and constant magnetic field. She also introduced an interesting ladder ions configuration. Their group also realized photoionization loading (quant-ph/0608239).

Daniel Gottesman from PI talked about quantum statistics with classical particles. I think about 2/3 of the time of this talk was used to answer questions.

Tobias Schaetz from MPQ talked about towards small quantum simulations in large ion traps. They are also using magnesium ions. The main idea is Porra and Cirac’s paper PRL92, 207901. He also showed a very cool video about paul trap.

中饭sandwich, 下午三个报告:

Ana Marie Rey from Harvard talked about entanglement generation with strongly interacting atoms.

Robert Raussendorf from PI talked about fault-tolerant QIP on a 2D lattice of qubits.

Trey Porto from NIST talked about cold aom in a two-period state-dependent optical lattice.

晚上七点结束晚宴. caeser salad, french onion soup, pork steak (or very good beef, i can’t tell) with grilled vegetables, cheese cake. 十点完事, 去steamwork坐了坐, 回到酒店, 收拾行李, 睡觉… 转眼三天会议就结束了, 感觉吃得实在太爽了.

早上六点起来, 去跑步, 找了半天才找到seawalk, 沿着跑到stanley park. 很久没跑了, 感觉8-9k的时候, 时间已经过了一个小时, 才跑了1/3. 看来环绕stanley park是不可能, 横穿回酒店了.

上午三个报告:

Arun Paramekanti from Toronto talked about Hubbard-type models. Well, it is a nice talk and i got some vague ideas, but i think the talk started way too high for me, at least.

Ken O’Hara from PennState talked about realizing 2D Hubbard model using 6Li. Very good experimental talk and i can follow most of the talk. The fiber laser they are using are 100W!

Chris Monroe from Michigan talked about quantum simulations with trapped ions. Finally we got a ion talk. Since this is the last talk and he didn’t get enough time to finish his slides. A lot of good stuff is missed.

中饭有salmon, grilled vegetables. 然后一起去downtown, 逛了一圈街. 3点回来, 下午两个报告:
Hans Peter Buchler from Innsbruck talked about strongly correlated 2D quantum phase with polar molecules.

Dave DeMille from Yale talked about polar molecules as quantum tools. Another excellent experimental talk. Basically get all the key ideas in polar molecules quantum computation.

晚饭在gastown的steamwork, irish pub. 一行10多个人, 挤了两个桌子. starter featured soup; 正菜pasta, panfried tiger prawn linguini, with black bean, cilantro, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, delicious. 啤酒点了coal porter, black ones. 十点回家, 十一点睡觉.

酒店的床实在是太舒服了, 特别是枕头, 又大又软, 还有四个. 一觉睡到早上七点.

早饭酒店的continental breakfast, 水果不错. 上午三个报告.

Guifre Vidal from Queesland talked about classical simulation of quantum system. The normal ways to do simulation are exact diagonalization (very slow), density matrix renormalization group (DMRP, for 1D system), quantum Monte Carlo (sign problem). They proposed a new method called tensor networks. Not quite got the idea.

Markus Greiner from Havard talked about progress towards a cold atom microscope, which are addressing the most difficult technique problem in cold atoms: single site addressability. Their proposal is to strongly confine neutral atoms using two super imposed evanescent waves in 2D and then try to use optical imaging. The fluorescence collecting can be as large as 10-20%, very impressive.

David Feder form Calgary talked about quantum information processing using neutral atoms and intruduced a very powerful one way computation, at least in theory.

中饭酒店的buffet, 有个salad里面有笋子, 好久没尝过了. 接着是poster session, 四处逛了逛, 和Tobias聊了聊天, 唉, 他们在MPQ搭一个跟我们差不多的Mg ion trap, 开始得比我们晚, 但他们已经有trapped ion做实验了.

下午两个报告.

David Weiss from PennState talked about benchmarks for quantum simulation. At the beginning, he distinguished two types of quantum simulation: universal and dedicated. The universal one seems to just be a quantum computer; the dedicated one has no qubits and the Hamiltonians are directly implemented in quantum system. He said those simulations were used to call “experiments”.

Anatoli Polkovnikov form Boston Univ. talked about quantum simulation of low-dimensional systems using interference experiments. Lost in 10 minutes.

晚饭在1133 Robson, Savory Coast Cucina Mediterranea, west coast italian cuisine. 吃完了觉得有点贵, 50块钱, 后来一想, three courses and one whisky, 在加上很优雅娴静的就餐环境, 其实还是比较合理. starter: potato and leek soup, laura后来说她点的roasted beets and blue cheese salad很不错, 配料里有绿色的beets, 很特别; 正餐是albacore tuna grilled rare: lentils, smoky bacon, asparagus, soy balsamic reduction, tuna大概是五成熟, 所以尝起来比一般烧的鱼要嫩; brian点了红酒; dessert是vanilla pannacotta: tahitian vanilla bean, cherry amarone reduction, 很可口, 有点像蛋黄蛋糕; 看到dessert menu上有whisky, 忍不住点了laphroaig, 果然名不虚传, 闻起来smoking, 很烈, 但入口后过上一阵子感觉很好, single male的酒入口感觉就是比一般的whisky柔和.

回酒店, 看了半场nba, 睡觉…

早上5点半起来, 洗漱, 早饭. 等jason的cab, 去接laura, 然后去hamilton机场. 接近6个小时的飞机, 中途停calgary, vancouver天气还行, 至少没有下雨.

叫了一个cab去Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, 就在canada place旁边. 问了前台的服务员, 3点才能check-in, 于是在酒店里存了包, 去downtown吃饭. 老地方, tsunami sushi, 水车屋, 吃得比较节制, 三个人才80块钱. 时间还早, 于是在robson上逛. 买了一双新皮鞋, 还不错. 3点多回到酒店, 房间1420, 风景不错.

6点多出去吃晚饭. 1160 robson street, thai house. appetizer共享的som tum malagor, green papaya seasoned with lime juice, peanuts and thai spices, 很爽口; soup是tom yum goong, spciy and sour soup with prawns, mushrooms, lemon grass and thai spices, 每次去thai restaurant都点的; 正菜是kaeng phed bhed yang, boneless roasted long island duck stir-fried with green beans, clery and fresh basil, 好久没吃鸭子了, 味道还不错; dessert是deep-fried banana with mango ice cream, 还点了white wine.

酒足饭饱, 聊了一会天, 10点多回到酒店, 看了会电视, 写superhero的信, 睡觉.

Canadian Whisky

• Canadian Club: tried c.c 6-year old. golden amber color, 80-proof.
  

Scotch

list of single malts can be found here (whisky.com). wikipedia has an ok article about scotch.

• Aberlour: speyside single-malt
• Ardberg: east islay single-malt
• Glenfiddich: highland single-malt
  
• Highland Park: island single-malt
• Laphroaig: east islay single-malt. Laphroaig is considered one of the most strongly flavoured of all scotch whiskies. “bottled smoke”.

Tennessee Whiskey

• Jack Daniel: known for its rectangular bottle and black label. 80-proof. one of my favorites.
  

周六, 去toronto, 在union会和fanghao, 观光toronto, cn tower -> lake -> chinatown. 中饭在一家川菜馆, 好久没吃辣得很爽的饭了. ut -> eaton centre -> city hall. 晚饭church上的一家泰国店, Golden Tai, 强烈推荐. 点的一个套餐, appetizer是spring rolls和rice rolls; soup是mushroom shrimp; 正菜是pai tai, mix vegetables, 烤猪肉串, 还有一个面条. 味道都不错, pai tai放了百合, 按fanghao说法是尝起来像牙膏, 很爽口. 还有desert, fried banana.

周日, 去大瀑布. 冷. 超级冷.

laura bought me some quinoa today. quinoa is a small, round grain which can be cooked just like rice. got an “toasted garlic quinoa” recipe from runner’s world (a little bit change by me):

bring two parts of water to a boil with one part of quinoa, cover at a low simmer and cook for 10 minutes. the germ will be separated from the seed. the cooked germ looks like a tiny curl and have a slight bite to it. drain well. saute smashed clove garlic in canola oil in a non-stick pan; cook over high heat for two minutes. add quinoa, plus a little more canola oil. reduce heat to medium and toast, stirring constantly, until the quinoa turns brown about 10 minutes. add stock, salt and parsley leaves and bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 5 minutes until liquid is absorbed.

stir fry some broccoli and green beans and grill a piece of salmon. quinoa has a slightly fluffy texture and nutty flavor. very delicious.