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Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til 10 reasons why I love nuclear physics
Today I've been preparing for a talk that i'll be giving tomorrow: it's for high school students that are visiting the University, and my title is 10 reasons why I love nuclear physics.
 
 
Well, the title I was given was 10 reasons why I like nuclear physics, but of course I had to change the like into a love; I guess with me there's no in between - I either love something, or I hate it, and I love nuclear physics <3
  1. the idea of the atom is really a philosophical and "simple" idea
  2. the atom is more or less all empty space
  3. the nuclear force is the strongest one we know of - when we release it, fascinating (and scary) things can happen
  4. things are strange: mass can become energy, and energy can become mass (Einstein, Einstein, Einstein)
  5. nuclear power is environmental friendly: 1.053 grams of uranium-235 that all fission release the same amount of energy as if you burn 4 tons of coal
  6. nuclear power is the safest way (of all) of producing power, but interestingly that isn't the common perception
  7. it's all kind of mysterious - the nucleus radiates, and there's a lot of fear around this, but all in all it's "just" energy 🙂
  8. knowledge that can be used to produce weapons of mass destruction can also be used to cure cancer <3
  9. it's still sooo much we don't understand; 100 years after Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus, we are still doing extremely similar experiments
  10. the study of (some of) the smallest things (the nucleus) is suddenly the same as studying the biggest things (big explosions in space)

 

I have to get up super early tomorrow morning, to finish my slides, so I think I'll just say good night, and sleep tight <3<3<3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til TEDxBergen: Nuclear weapons and thorium and stuff

Finally, the video from the TEDxBergen conference is now on-line!

The subject of my talk was Could nuclear weapons save the planet? , and you can watch the entire thing here:
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Since I talked about how to dress as a female scientist in my last blogpost, I just have to show you a close-up of the shoes I wore. These shoes from Nelly ended up as my "statement" for this talk - which I felt that I needed, since the rest of the outfit was quite simple; just tight jeans, a loose shirt, and my hair in a bun (not the tightest, but not very messy either):
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One of the really great thing about this trip to Bergen (almost a month ago already!) - besides being allowed to give my third TEDx talk - was that Anders came and spent the weekend with me <3 There's nothing like sharing experiences like this with the one you love, and having Anders in the audience made me feel so much better and more secure than if I had been there all by myself... He was a great supprt!
perfect evening: I was dead tired after  a long day -  I do get really stressed before I'm giving a talk like this. We were thinking about either go to the after party with the rest of the people from the conference, or maybe go out in Bergen... But instead we stayed in the hotel; we took a looong bath (where we drank two bottles of Prosecco), before we ordered pizza to the room, ate it in bed and watched several episodes of the Big Bang Theory. It was just perfect <3
 

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Ten facts about nuclear weapons and the "Megatons to Megawatts" program

Friday again!

This week that means Bergen, and as (almost) always that means FACTS. This week I want to give you ten facts about nuclear weapons and the "Megatons to Megawatts" project - a little "taster" of what my talk tomorrow will be about (I don't know if there will be a live stream yet, but at least the entire confernce will be filmed, and go on-line later - I will of course share the link when it's ready 😉 )

 

  1. nuclear weapons have been used against humans two times; Hiroshima August 6th and Nagasaki August 9th, 1945 - hopefully NEVER again
  2. both "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" were fission bombs (getting their energy from fission); "Little Boy" was made of highly enriched uranium (uranium-235), and "Fat Man" was made of plutonium(-239)
  3. after WWII a nuclear arms race begun between the US and the Sovjet Union, and at one time there were more than 60 000 nuclear weapons in the world
  4. a nuclear weapon is ugly, but by mixing the fissile material in it with uranium or thorium, it can be changed into beautiful nuclear fuel (100% normal nuclear fuel for normal reactors) <3
  5. the "Megatons to Megawatts" program was an agreement between US and Sovjet/Russia that lasted from 1993 to 2013, where Sovjet made fuel out of their weapons (unfortunately not all of them) and US bought it
  6. during those 20 years (1993-2013), 500 tonnes of highly enriched uranium, from 20 000 Russian nuclear weapons have been converted into nuclear fuel and "burned" in reactors (more than 2 weapons destroyed every day!)
  7. the electricity generated from these weapons is the same amount as all the electricity in the US in two years(!)
  8. weapons uranium (highly enriched uranium) could be mixed with natural uranium to make fuel (as has been done in the program) - or, even better, with thorium
  9. if you mix weapons uranium with thorium, you can also recycle the spent fuel; this means that not only do you get rid of horrible weapons, you also get rid of a lot of nuclear waste (WIN WIN 😀 )
  10. today there are around 16 000 nuclear weapons in the world - much better than 65 000 (or whatever the peak number was), but still that's definitely 16 000 too many...:/
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(I bite my lip when I concentrate - haha)

 

 Now I'm soon off to NHH, where the conference tomorrow will be held, for sound check, and just "feel" the stage. And when I come back to the hotel again, Anders will be here! I'm so incredibly happy he could join me here in Bergen this weekend!!! We're here until Sunday afternoon, so hopefully we'll have time to actually experience something while we're here - any recommendations from my readers?
Anyway: happy weekend to everyone <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til TBT – Japan

Tonight I just have to do a little "throwback Thursday": I've been going through a lot of my pictures as I've been preparing for Saturday's TEDx (sorry for talking so much about it, but it's pretty much all I've been doing today, and all I can think of 😉 ), and suddenly the folder was there - "Sushi&Nuclear" - and I had to take a peek.
In one way it feels like I was never there, and it was all just a dream... 
Of course it wasn't: It was such a great trip, and it would have been fantastic to go back again! 
<3

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Tomorrow I'm off to Bergen, and so far I have almost no clue as to what my outfit will be. I think my slides are almost a little too little pink (I just finished them, and emailed them off to Bergen), so I'm considering to wear pink to sort of balance it out. 
The only thing I'm pretty sure about is that these new, pretty little things from Nelly will be on my feet on Saturday...;) I am considering beige chinos and a pink top (and the shoes, of course) - what do you think?

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Excited (and need help)

Tonight I'm super excited to tell you that I'm going to give a talk at TEDxBergen in just a little bit more than a month - 3rd of October that is!!!
The topic of the conference in Bergen this year is "The (Im)possible redefined", and they describe it like this on their web pages:

This topic addresses the human tendency of creating boundaries in our heads, which are shaped by what we know and what we can imagine. These boundaries are what we believe is "possible". This topic addresses not only the boundaries that are possible but, indirectly, impossible. With these thoughts we hope to create an inspiring TEDx event and to invite speakers that redefine the (im)possible throughout a broad variety of domains, such as science, nature, lifestyle and technology.

They asked me to be one of the speakers just the other day, so I have barely had any time to think about what I should/want to talk about this time, and I thought why don't I ask you guys for help: WHAT SHOULD I TALK ABOUT? I have some ideas already, but it would be so much fun if you had some thoughts, and/or maybe suggestions for a title - so please help! 🙂

I've talked at two other TEDx events earlier - the first one was in Oslo in 2013, and then at Institut Le Rosey (outside of Geneva) in 2014. In Oslo I gave the talk How bad is it really? Nuclear technology - facts and feelings - see it HERE, and at Le Rosey I gave the talk Why science should be more pink - see it HERE.

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til My plan
A while ago (January or February) I had a very brief plan for the rest of my time as a PhD student, and how I should manage to finish my degree. Since that time, some things have changed; first of all, my contract at the University of Oslo lasts until the end of 2016, so I wont be submitting my thesis in December this year, but rather next fall.
An updatet, and more detailed version of my progress towards the Big Day (which is what I will refer to when I talk about the day when I submit everything from now on) now looks like this: 
So this is not a plan all the way to the Big Day, but rather a list of the first half of 2015. The rest on this list should be finished by the end of June - if I don't manage to do that I'll have to work (much more than I've been planning on) during July, and then it's bye bye summer vacation...:/ I hope there wont be any big surprises during the next five weeks, so I don't have to use my "buffer" (July), but I'm still optimistic, and the feeling of crossing out stuff on the to do-list is amazing! I think I should make these updated lists every month, actually 🙂
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Yesterday I gave a talk for the INSEAD Alumni group on the topic of nuclear energy and thorium from a Norwegian perspective, with the title "Thorium is Norway's "new oil" - or is it?". My (very) short answer to this is a very, very careful "Maaaaybeeee"...;) I felt it went pretty ok, and some even wrote that it was a great talk - so I guess I shouldn't argue with the audience 😛 Anyway, it was great fun, and I met a lot of nice people; and since several of the people in the audience stayed after the talk (and 30 minutes with questions and discussions), I guess it wasn't too bad 🙂
If you want to hear more about it (thorium and nuclear and stuff), you can come to the "breakfast talk" I'm giving next Monday at the University <3  

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Collapse
I'm dead tired right now... After I held my talk yesterday (outfit above; trying to "be me" but just enough "conservative" at the same time) I felt like I just collapsed (I managed to take part in the conference dinner, luckily 😛 ), and this morning I just slept through my alarm - which never happens, except maybe if my body is trying to tell me a needed a couple of extra hours sleep. I've been really stressed about the talk yesterday, and the (preliminary) results that I showed was finished on Wednesday afternoon. Being so "last minute" didn't exactly feel great, and that was probably one reason why I was so nervous.
It has been a great week though; and even if I really  just want to go home now, and go to sleep, I'm going out with all my great nuclear physicist colleagues from all over the world <3
Wishing everyone a great Friday and a great (long) weekend!
(from my snap chat story - follow me at sunnivarose ;))
- in action -

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Getting there…
My talk is tomorrow.
It's not finished yet.
I feel nervous, but also excited...
Nervous, because I wish I had come further than I have, and that I understood "everything". Excited, because I actually do have results, and they are nice, and they make sense. They make me believe that I will actually do this; not just the talk tomorrow, but I will finish my next paper (article/publication) in June (or maybe July - but hoping for June). After that I will start directly to analyse the second part of the uranium experiment, and hopefully it will be much "easier" since I have already done it once 😉 
I'm in my bed right now, working on the presentation for tomorrow, which is around 11. Think I will work for around 30 more minutes, and then go to sleep. I'd rather get up at 5 tomorrow morning, and finish it then.
Wish me luck <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Foredrag i morgen

God mandag alle 🙂

Ny uke betyr nye muligheter, og denne uken betyr det også mulighet for gratis frokost og foredrag i morgen, klokken 0900 på Kristine Bonnevies hus (biologibygningen på Blindern). Der skal jeg holde et uformelt frokostforedrag om kjernekraft og litt thorium, og muligheter og utfordringer og kanskje noen myter - KJEMPEKOS hvis akkurat DU vil komme!

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Ellers sitter jeg i skrivende stund fremedeles i sengen; har drukket dagens første kopp kaffe og jobbet med gammadetektorene mine. Har beveget meg noen museskritt fremover, men føler meg frustrert og litt dum :/ Mål for dagen er at de j@*$% detektorne skal være helt ferdigkalibrert før jeg forlater kontoret i kveld *fingerscrossed*.
Jeg er mer fraværende på bloggen enn det jeg liker om dagen (pga konferansen vi har på Blindern neste uke, der jeg SKAL presentere resultater av analysen) - men jeg snapper en god del, så følg meg gjerne på snap på sunnivarose!
Ok, da tror jeg jeg skal sprette ut av sengen, bevege meg inn på kjøkkenet og lage meg en kopp til med kaffe, og så gå på badet og sminke meg - er vel på tide å komme seg avgårde til Universitetet nå...? 😉

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Lazy Sunday, crazy week
This week will be crazy - at least the three first days... Tomorrow and Tuesday will be the last two days with meetings with the Ludvigsen committee - after Tuesday, everything is supposed to be more or less ready for the Minister *feeling pressure*. Then, on Wednesday I will give a talk at the Women in Tech conference in Oslo (program HERE). The talk is not (a 100%) finished yet, and naturally I'm feeling pressure here too. My talk is called "Hva har kjernefysikk og rosablogging til felles?" (what are the similarities of nuclear physics and girly blogging), but I think I will have the subtitle from my talk at Le Rossey in November; "why science should be more pink" - I'm really excited and a little bit scared, but I think (hopefully) it will be ok 😉
Thursday and Friday have to be 100% dedicated to SCIENCE; I'm so close to knowing what the gamma energies of my ALFNA matrix are now. You know that feeling when you've been working on a big puzzle, and suddenly you only have 30 pieces left? That's about how I'm feeling right know, and in a way I wish I could be at the office, working on those last 30 pieces tomorrow... However, that's life, and I think Thursday and Friday will be some very productive days <3
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We have spent a fantastic day at Sognsvann today - with Anders, Joakim, Lise, Alexandra, and me; here are some snaps from a great day! (Yes, you're right; this is how I look without any makeup on...I feel naked 😛 )