Week 6: Physics Conferences and Drafting Results
Rohan V -
Hi all, it’s Rohan!
This week has been lighter in the lab, as most of the members (myself included) are spending this week at the American Physical Society (APS) Global Summit in Anaheim! This conference brings together over 12,000 physicists from around the world to network and share their research. As a first-time attendee, I spent my time observing how advanced researchers present their research in many different fields of physics. This was an incredibly beneficial experience for me, as I was able to witness how even projects that stretch across multiple years can be summarized and fit into a ten minute presentation.
Spending time at APS also helped me understand how scientists contextualize and break down their research so that a less experienced audience may comprehend it. Despite this conference being by and for physicists, each physicist has a slightly different specialization: there’s a large difference between astrophysicists and those studying quantum mechanics, for instance. To make up for this specialization in different topics, a sizable portion of most presentations is spent establishing context in the field. Once this context has been established, a presenter is able to guide their audience through their work. This approach to presentation is one that I plan to implement in my final presentation, as well: starting out with a solid foundation will allow others to better comprehend my work.
Besides APS, I’ve also spent time this week continuing to develop my change point detection algorithm. At this point, the algorithm itself is finished and functional. Going back to last week, I mentioned how existing algorithms aren’t able to effectively capture conductance changes as the molecular junction evolves. The results I currently have demonstrate that my improved algorithm is able to effectively document even small conductance changes which other, older methods of single-molecule junction analysis were unable to do. This accurate depiction of conductance serves as a starting point for future researchers to analyze the molecular orientation which may cause a specific conductance value.
Looking ahead, my work in the next few weeks encompasses making final tweaks to the code, writing my final paper and a clear presentation. Much of the work here will be deciding which figures to use and which to leave out to ensure audience comprehension.
Thanks for tuning in!
Comments:
All viewpoints are welcome but profane, threatening, disrespectful, or harassing comments will not be tolerated and are subject to moderation up to, and including, full deletion.