Posted in February 2016
Tomohiro Yokoyama
has left us for further post-doc career in Japan. He stayed with me as a post-doc – eventually, a JSPS fellow, from 6.4.2014. We have worked on Andreev bound states in superconducting heterostructures, with and without spin-orbit interaction. We still have to finish a (very big) paper. Thank you, Tomohiro, with you I did the stuff I wouldn’t do otherwise. Best luck with your new job!
On blogging in general :)
I cannot blog on time. I cannot stop blogging at all: I have a feeling, most likely irrational , that the life passes by without a trace if I don’t do this. To balance between this, I’d like to use a rather dirty trick of back-dating. Please do not be surprised.
First lecture Advanced Quantum Mechanics: 2016
This year I got a very convenient lecture room, zaal E, that can house almost an infinite number of students and has a slanted floor. I gave the same course in this room yet 10 years ago. It took a bit of time to adjust: and I could enjoy again. An inconvenience is that the lectures take place on early Monday morning 🙁
Despite this, the audience was full – not unusual for the first lecture. I took time explaining the rules of the course (those I myself find rather complex). Not that I felt understood, but I said what I had to. The stuff went rather fast. Nobody has heard of Heisenberg picture, no single hand – all right, but with this it went only faster. Still I was very vague about qubits and had to skip the harmonic oscillator – too much time lost in the beginning.
I had like 4 minutes for density matrix – no preliminary knowledge as well. Looked enough, but I have discovered that the outlining of the partial trace is too abstract to be taught that quickly …
Fortunately, there was enough time on Thursday. The presentations were fine, including density matrix from thermodynamical point of view. And I told about partial trace, slowly and with details – that seemed to go into open ears. Fine!