Dec 7, 2024

I know, it has been a long time. But this traidion does dot die completely. I still keep the journal from time to time, and now when I have more time, I have always been trying to make this. Also, there is actually an increasing amount of my journal now that I would prefer to keep it myself, but anyway, now we see this coming back of the old series, which (hopefully) was expected by some old ppl. I still remember when one friend of mine suddenly asked me:"Gabe, did you not do that series anymore?" Well, I am, and now here it is.

You can see from the graph below that I do this from time to time, but there was a big block of blank from August to November, and that is my fault. Ok, junior year is busy, but I'll try to make it better.

Monday

Now I finally start to have time to pick up my diary. I think winter is really a good time cuz the sky gets dark really early and I don't have sports and drama (yet) so there is plenty of time for me to reflect and jot down my thought. So the weekly dairy will get back.

Today we have our first meeting for the winter play, That Hideous Strength. We have our Crew Head Meeting and basically we are going to decide the crews for this winter play. Today is the first day we return from Thanksgiving break and it seems that a lot of people enjoyed their break though they did not like turkey. But it is also two weeks from the final, and most final exams (AP Euro, Spanish, math, English, and Bible) are everything from the start of the school year to now. So it is a little scary, but I still try to do this journal. Look at that.

Tuesday

There is an interesting article I found today about how to journal. Here is the website and the archive Journaling is Annoying. Here’s What I Do Instead. Basically he is saying that journals should not take more than 10 minutes, and you can just write down 10 things in your mind. The whole point of journal is to get your brain "hmm"ing, and this intellectual morning exercise is over. Since I am following digital product (especially APP development), there are a ton of journal apps, partially because their relatively easy implement and relatively broad target user. One APP stands out to me though. It is minimal, and it will give you a prompt, like "what are you grateful for today?" And you just need to type a word or a short sentence. Then it will use AI to ask follow up question and again, you just type a word or a short sentence. Finally, the APP will use AI again to combine your answer to create an entry for you.

I am not saying this kind of APP (and its variant) is the best way to journal, as obviously, I do not use this way to journal (I def won't say it's because of my budget). But this is for sure a kind of reflective journal that all it cares about is the process of journaling, but not what you actually write down. This APP is also good for people who just do not know what to write for the journal. But as I mentioned, I do think that journal should have some parts that are reflecive and only kept to oneself, which is also the trend that my journal is going to. However, don't worry, I have a version for myself and this published one is some thoughts that I think are worth sharing, and it is not that big burden for me.

Tomorrow we are going to have junior chapel and I am going to read John 13

Wednesday

Today, I did the reading for junior chapel. I think it went well, I mean I did receive a lot of congratulations, ok, well, I think yes it is pretty good overall.

And today henry asked Mrs. Hill whether this is her favorite chapel, and she says her favorite one is the one after COVID, and there is one prayer in Russian (?) basically she said that everyone participated and did what they really wanted to do.

(like this day I have more parts kept to myself, so it is a little shorter, bear with me for that)

Thursday

Today, I went to MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Lab with my classmates. including Johnson, Eric, Oscar, Hugh, Grace, Eme, Trix, Patrick, Sonia, Sam, Nina. (I think there is one more person but pardon me, I really can't think). We were 30 minutes late, but the trip overall was still really interesting. First, Bryan gave us an overall speech about inertial fusion, which his team was studying about. There are two kinds of fusion, inertial confinement fusion and magnetic confinement fusion[^1], and both are studied in MIT. Currently INF is studied more and they reach their input energy to plasma < output energy from plasma in 2022. However, they use laser to heat up the plasma, and laser has low energy efficiency, so the total energy efficiency is actually lower overall compared with magnetic confinement fusion.

So they introduced about how they studied (for ICF, they focused more on the analysis and diagnosis part), and actually for a complicated project like this, it requires not only the advancement of theories but also engineering techniques. Like before 201x, the laser was not mature enough so that can not directly heat up the plasma because it would not be consistent in all directions. So the breakthrough of the energy output is the combined efforts of multiple groups on different fields.

However, MCF used a different technique. They use magnetic field to confine the plasma but actually their plasma is rotating in the central donut at hundreds km/s. They used microwave to head up the plasma because it can penetrate well. When the fusion took place, they would release the neutron which will carry away 80% of the energy. During the reaction process, the operator will keep adjusting the magnetic field to keep the plasma away from the wall or any wires. The plasma in the reaction have such high energy that it will melt any metal whenever they contact. And they operate and lead the remains of the plasma after reaction to a bottom section where their energy is safely conducted.

This is the D-shaped magnetic that is used to confine the plasma. The magnets are really strong: In September 2021, the project successfully tested a prototype toroidal high-field coil, achieving a record for high-temperature superconducting magnets, with a field strength of 20 Tesla at the temperature of 20K. And here is the report on the magnets. SPARC uses yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) high-temperature superconducting magnets that retain superconductivity at temperatures as high as 77 K (optimally at 10 K).

We also learn about low temperature and its superconductivity. And here is a superconductive material in liquid nitrogen:

This is the future imagined by SPARC, and every neighborhood can get this power plant to produce electricity.

This is the lab in ICF and its particle accelerator.

[^1]: The difference between Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and Magnetic Confinement Fusion (MCF) can be found here

Friday

Today, we had our first all cast and crew meeting, and I introduced myself as the light crew head, with my crew member Jacob KJ and Richard. I am personally really excited about the show, we have a lot of good casts and good crews, though this year the team is huge also. (I think even bigger than Hamlet). Anyway, I planned to read the book during Christmas break, but I need to finish my mid term first. I need to review for euro and we have the eulogy on Tuesday, as we are really close to killing him.