Introduction

So, I guess I'll just start with a brief intro to my whereabouts - it should provide a nice transition into the subject of my first topic that, I am told, has created a lot of excitement.

Most of you are aware that I did my undergraduate studies at Colgate University in New York - majoring officially in Physics and Computer Science. Following a hectic, but thoroughly enjoyable senior year, I moved from NY to the "middling" lands of Illinois.

I am currently at Urbana-Champaign in Illinois, doing my Ph.D. in the Physics Department, under the auspicies of Dr. Benjamin Lev. I've been here for a year now, and I must admit that it's been a very interesting one.

I spent most of last year getting used to Urbana-Champaign. It should suffice to say, that coming from Colgate - a school whose town, Hamilton, changes definition from town to village over summer - to UIUC that houses more than 250,000, took some getting used to. But then again, given my background in cities like Calcutta, London, and NYC - it was perhaps not that bad...
or was it? I don't want to be disingenuous - I really miss the cosmopolitan atmosphere. On the other hand though, one of the reasons I chose to come to UIUC, was to escape "distractions" that would undoubtedly get the best of me, and I wouldn't be able to focus on Science.

Physics at UIUC is quite spectacular. It is incredibly exciting to work with some of the smartest and most creative people on the planet. My own group, at the moment, consists of my advisor, Professor Lev, and two graduate students - Mingwu Lu and Seo Ho Youn. We will soon have a Post Doc., Brian Kash joining us. Our first experiment involves the study of a very exotic atom called Dysprosium (Dy) - the idea being the utilization of its humongous 10 Bohr-Magneton magnetic dipole moment, which is the strongest of all atoms in the Universe. On the 10th of April, 2009 at 5:05 pm, we were the first people in the world to be able to laser cool and trap Dy atoms in a Magneto-Optical Trap (MOT) We are still in the process of studying its properties and getting ready to publish. There is a short summary of the project on physics.uiuc.edu. Hopefully, it'll be up for sometime; however, I intend to post several articles on the experiment on this blog - with ample background information to help those who are curious to know about it.