Things here in Switzerland have been exceedingly busy.Who knew that pursuing a graduate degree in physics would require time and effort?

While my wife has been having a lovely time, meeting new people, and traveling around to nearby European countries, I’ve been madly studying, programming, and otherwise keeping busy.

Even though Switzerland is known for being a gun-friendly place, I haven’t had a chance to go shooting since I got here. It probably doesn’t help that my German is awful (I can order drinks at the bar but otherwise it’s terrible; language has never been one of my strengths). Perhaps in the new year?

When I’m focused on my work, I don’t really have much time to be homesick, but on the few occasions when I have some time off I really miss home — the locations, the people, the food, even some of the familiar brand names and businesses. Switzerland is without a doubt a wonderful country, but I spend so much time in the lab and classroom that I don’t really get a chance to meet people, practice my German, and integrate well. My wife’s having a better time at it, for sure.

We’re really looking forward to Christmas — my parents and sister are flying out here and we’re going to celebrate Christmas here. Afterwards, we’ll be traveling to Egypt and Jordan for about two weeks. Gotta get more stamps in the passport!

As the semester closes in a few weeks, I should hopefully have some more time to post. Otherwise, I’m really bogged down with work. Sorry.

While the program information mentioned that the classes would all be conducted in English, this is not the case: several are in English, but a few have English lectures and German-language handouts/PowerPoints, one has German lectures and English handouts/PowerPoints, while another is all-German.

Being that the local language here is German and the majority of students are Swiss, I don’t fault them for wanting to teach the majority of students in their native language. I’ve privately met with professors to discuss the issue, and they’re willing to be flexible and work with me so that I can succeed. That’s nice.

Fortunately, I am very much a learn-by-reading person, so I was pleased when one professor recommended a few textbooks that would get me the same information as the lectures.

The whole situation is mildly frustrating, to be certain, but it gives me more incentive to study harder. It also gives me an excuse to improve my German.

Note to those looking to study in a country or region that does not speak their native language: caveat emptor. Even though the courses here are listed as being conducted in English, this isn’t necessarily the case.

The results are in: I was accepted into three graduate schools: the University of Oslo in Norway, and the Universities of Zurich and Bern in Switzerland.

All are fine research institutions, but I ended up going with Bern, as it combined excellent research with a much more reasonable cost of living than Zurich or Oslo. We’ll be moving at the end of July.

In short, I’ll be spending the next two years of my life at a place like this:

Well, not quite. I’ll actually be in the science building, but it’s right next to the fancy old university building. I’ll probably be in the basement, though. Oh well.

It looks a lot nicer on the inside.

Alas, as the Swiss are nearly universally excellent shooters, it’s unlikely that there’ll be any need for me to introduce new shooters to the sport. Oh well. All the New Shooter Ammo Fund ammo is marked and store separately here in the US, so it’ll be available for teaching new shooters when I return to the US.

While the Swiss do permit me to import firearms for personal use, there’s a nominal bit of paperwork involved and I don’t want to deal with the hassle during the main move. Perhaps I’ll get the guns when I come back for holidays or something.

Much of my time in the next few months will be spent preparing for the move, so posting may be lighter than usual (amazingly enough).

I know it’s been a while since I last posted, which is mostly due to living in Arizona (arguably the least-restrictive state in regards to firearms laws, which makes things really boring when it comes to writing about firearms-related legal developments) and not having the time or money to get out and shoot as often as I’d like. Hopefully after moving to Switzerland, I’ll have a bit more opportunity to shoot. We’ll see.

It’s moving at 60,000 kph, and in just a few more years it’ll cross the threshold to interstellar space¹ and become the first manmade object to make it into enormous emptiness between the stars. “Enormous emptiness” doesn’t come close to conveying how hugely enormous and empty the space between stars is.

According to the Wikipedia, it’s been 33 years, 3 months, and 9 days since the probe was launched, and it’s been on-mission for 31 years, 11 months, and 10 days. That’s pretty incredible, considering the technology of the day.

Its radioactive power sources have enough fuel left to power the probe (with decreasing functionality as available power decreases) until about 2025.

Although it’s merely a tiny thing hurtling through space, it pleases me that it’s been operating since before I was born, and will continue its journey — albeit out of power — long after I’m dead. I can only hope that at some point in the future, humanity will venture to the stars. I hope that when that happens, they leave Voyager to coast though the inky blackness of space as a testament to the vision of those who sent it.

1. The heliopause.

In the past, I’ve normally waited until just before the deadline, but I’ve decided to get things out early — the application to the University of Oregon got out within a week of the opening of the application period, and the applications to schools in Sweden were out within a day of the period opening. International mail, while usually reliable, can be somewhat delayed, so my applications to schools overseas are getting sent out early to avoid any such problems.

In less then a year, I may have to change the name here to “The Swiss Rifleman”. Now there’s a thought…

I’m staying at a friend’s place this week, and there’s an iRobot Scooba driving around the living room cleaning.

As amazing and futuristic as this is, it’s somewhat creepy.

Or, more precisely, the observatory got an upgrade: light bulbs.

Due to various mishaps over the last few years, the incandescent-bulbs-dipped-in-red-paint have burnt out, shattered, or otherwise stopped working. They’ve been replaced with red-tinted CFL bulbs, which run a lot cooler, and have the tinting applied at the factory. Presumably they’re designed to deal with the extra insulation of the red coating without overheating.

That, and one of the PhD students put a red rope light around the elevated platform and steps, so undergrads coming to observe for their classes don’t trip and die on the steps.

Before, it was difficult and dangerous to negotiate the observatory floor due to poor lighting. Now it’s downright festive.

Who knew that such small improvements would be so nice?

More details after we publish. No sense in counting our chickens before they hatch. I’m just excited though.

Now, it’s a glorified mall cellphone kiosk with a few token items for hobbyists, but those are tucked away in the back, seemingly out of shame.

As a scientist and a tinkerer, I enjoy getting data on things that I’m working on. As an example, if I was building a solar array that would charge batteries, I’d want to know the current voltage on the batteries in the array (to determine state-of-charge) and the current from the panels to the charge controller and from the batteries to the load.

Going with this example, I was in RadioShack yesterday with a friend (she needed a new coin-cell battery for her calculator) and asked if they had panel voltmeters and ammeters (see here for an example) for such a system.

One of the employees thought about it, and said “No, I’m afraid we don’t carry those. Sorry.” Although not the answer I was looking for, he was honest and helpful, which I appreciate.

The other employee said, “Why do you want that? Why not just use one of the multimeters we have here?”, waving at the back of the store.

Me: “I already have three multimeters, and they all max out at 10 amps, and they can only support such currents for 30 seconds with a few minutes to cool down. I’d like something that can handle 20-50 amps indefinitely. Panel meters don’t require batteries, which is a major benefit. Also, I’d like something a bit more elegant to put into a display console.”

Employee: “Why not use one of the clamp-type multimeters we have to measure larger currents?”

Me: “The ones you have here only work on AC, not DC, which is what I’ll be working with.”

Employee: “Why not power your multimeters with a small solar cell or power them from the source and mount them in your console?”

Me, suspecting this conversation has started going downhill: “Because the multimeters are not rated for the currents I’ll need them for, a solar panel would provide intermittent power by not working at night [where knowing the state of charge is important], and the source voltage is very different from what the meter requires, as the meter runs on AA batteries. Panel meters are much more appropriate, and look quite a bit nicer.”

Employee: “Why would you need to deal with such currents at all? The biggest solar panel that RadioShack sells is a 5 watt panel that sits on your car dashboard that keeps your car battery topped off.”

Me: “I have no use for such a panel at all; my project would involve an array of big panels that would charge a battery bank that could power a small house. I’d like a permanently-wired, nice looking console that would have some meters in it so I could know, at a glance, the current state of the battery bank.”

Employee: [blank look]

Me: “Nevermind. Have a nice day.”

I have no problem with an expert (or even an enthusiastic amateur) discussing project requirements with me. Indeed, they may have a better idea of setting up such a system than I, which would be very helpful.

However, I rather dislike it when someone not only makes inappropriate suggestions, but argues about basic design goals (e.g. I want a nice-looking monitoring console, not a kludge of multimeters and wires running everywhere). Yes, I could put some shunts into the circuit and measure high currents safely with a standard multimeter; such a setup would be great for testing and bench work, but not for a final product.

RadioShack certainly isn’t what it used to be.

Fortunately, the internet allows me to order the meters I want for less than $10 each, and have them shipped to me from Thailand in less than a week. I also don’t need to interact with people like this RadioShack employee.

Like most major demolitions, there’s video of it.

Unlike most major demolitions, there’s panoramic video from inside the stadium. Way cool.