Category Archives: Life

Europe!

I just got back (well, a week ago now) from a two week trip through Europe. The trip was actually a May Session Global Seminar offered through the University of Minnesota. The course was entitled “Mysteries of the Universe in the 21st Century.” Each link below goes to a gallery of pictures I took on the trip. All of the photos from the trip are on Flickr for your browsing pleasure.

To begin, we flew from Minneapolis to Detroit to Rome, and then spent 3 days in Rome sightseeing. After Rome, we stopped off in nearby Tivoli to tour Villa d’Este and Villa Adriana.

The next stop was the remote Assergi (l’Aquila) near Gran Sasso. Here we had some lectures given by researchers working in the nearby Gran Sasso Laboratory. Due to some political reasons and safety concerns, we were not allowed to tour the Gran Sasso Laboratory (which is located deep within the heart of the mountain, connected to one of the tunnels thru the mountain).

Leaving Gran Sasso, we took a bus to Florence for some more sightseeing. There was a little bit of class work when we toured the European Gravitational Observatory about an hour outside of town. The EGO is looking for gravity waves using a very large interferometer. Neat stuff, really.

After spending a few nights in Florence, we stopped for the afternoon in Pisa before continuing on to Torino. Torino was just a quick layover until we left promptly the next morning for the Laboratory in the Frejus Tunnel (you know, the one that’s closed now because of the fire that killed 2 people).

Next stop was the beautiful Geneva, Switzerland, where we stayed 4 nights to tour the nearby CERN research facilities. After the 4th night in Geneva, we drove to Montreaux located on the other side of Lake Geneva to tour an old castle, Chateau de Chillon.

We then took the TGV from Geneva to Paris, a trip which lasted about 3.5 hours. After spending 3 nights in Paris (so 2 full days of sightseeing), the trip ended and we flew home.

I’ll try to write more about my experiences when I get the chance.

Brad on a Donkey

Brad on a Donkey

Brad on a Donkey, Originally uploaded by Brad Froehle.

You should check out Flickr, as it now has all of my pictures on it. Like this one, of me on a Donkey outside of Old City Hall in Boston, MA. You can also see a set of all the pictures from my trip to Boston.

I’ll try to do a good job posting notes here when I upload cool things to Flickr, you should also subscribe to the RSS feed to get instant updates.

Stressed, Pre-Finals Week Edition

With finals week rapidly approaching, I’m beginning to feel a little stressed about this semester.

I have all of my homework done for the rest of the semester, save for the Final Report in Methods of Experimental Physics (MXP). That paper is due on Friday, a rapidly approaching deadline!

However, I should be mostly home free after Friday — I only have two finals, one on Thursday and one on Friday.

Tonight wrapped up my Latin Dance class, something that I will definitely miss. Joy (the instructor) and I were talking afterwards — she asked what I was taking next year and then proceeded to suggest Swing Dance. Funny that I already signed up for that one. After class 20 or so of us headed over to Famous Dave’s for Salsa night. We stayed for a little under two hours, leaving pretty early because everybody has stuff to attend to.

So far 4/7 classes have wrapped up completely:

  • Latin Dance
  • Physics Seminar
  • Pepband
  • University Bands
  • Methods of Experimental Physics: Still have to finish that pesky report.
  • Analysis: Just a final exam.
  • Electricity and Magnetism: final exam.

Flickr Pro

I bought a Flickr Pro account a few days ago and went nuts uploading files, maxing out my 2GB limit for the month of April and using 10% of May’s allowance while uploading over 1700 pictures.

If you aren’t a friend or family, some 400 of those won’t be initially visible to you. If you are a Flickr user already, leave a message here and I’ll add you as a friend. If not, either leave your email and I’ll send you a password to get in, or sign up for Flickr and leave your screenname.

I’ve also put together about 30 photo sets that should be interesting to browse.

Ankle Sprain

On Thursday I managed to sprain my ankle with some severity (Class II, most likely) while playing softball. I slid into third base, but did so too late so I hit the bag while still going pretty fast. I must have rolled my ankle right underneath me.

At the time it wasn’t very painful. I managed to limp off the field without any problems, but soon realized that my ankle felt funny… swollen (but not painful). I layed on the ground, but refused an initial offer for ice. After another minute, my ankle started swelling and was soon quite large—maybe the size of a softball.

Intramural sports had already dispensed their only ice bag for the evening, so Rachelle had to ride over to McDonald’s to get some ice for me. Stepnick graciously drove me home.

I spent Thursday night in the dorms, but quickly realized that I’d have a much better time this weekend at home with a couch and a TV to watch. My mom picked me up Friday morning, and I have been home since.

My ankle has made considerable progress in the last 48 hours. I can now walk on the ankle in a sort of unusual fashion. It doesn’t feel comfortable enough to really use very much yet. But it can load bear without any pain… a very good sign.

I should be back and walking in another day or two. Latin dance on Tuesday might be a little crazy, I might have to sit this week out.

All in all, I feel lucky that it wasn’t anything more severe. It did ruin a lot of my weekend, including missing the Gopher Spring Football Game at the Metrodome and the Drum Major Tryouts this afternoon.

I’ll post a few pictures of the injury when I get back to school tomorrow and have access to my camera again.

Barry Goldwater Scholarship

The 2005 Recipients of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship were released last week. There were 4 recipients from the University of Minnesota which is impressive because each institution can only nominate 4 students per year.

The 2005 Recipients from the U of M are:

  • Bradley M. Froehle (That’s me!)

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Major(s): Physics/Mathematics
Career Goal: Ph.D. in Physics/Condensed Matter. Conduct leading edge research in condensed matter physics and teach at the university level.

  • Loren Greenman

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Major(s): Chemistry/Chemical Engineering
Career Goal: Ph.D. in Chemistry. Conduct research in the area of computational chemistry at an academic institution or the industrial world.

  • Katie N. Lee

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Major(s): Biochemistry/Chemistry
Career Goal: M.D./Ph.D. in Cancer Research/Biochemistry/Pharmacology. Conduct research using new and established scientific concepts to investigate and translate basic science research into clinical solutions.

  • David P. Molitor

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Major(s): Mathematics/Physics
Career Goal: Ph.D. in Mathematics. Research mathematician in the field of combinatorics studying the applications of mathematics to physics and economics.

This scholarship is good for $7.5k/year for up to two years to cover Tuition, Fees, Textbooks, Room and Board.

Best humorous congratulations from a professor so far:

Brad,

Congratulations for the Scholarship. I guess you are not just sleeping in class. Yuichi

Coincidentally, David Molitor and I are going to be roommates during our class in Italy/Switzerland/France over May Session.

Durham & Boston

I just got back from the Women’s Hockey Frozen Four tournament held at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH. The Gophers won the national championship for the second consecutive year by beating Harvard 4-3.

I uploaded some pictures of Boston and Durham to Flickr. Enjoy.

Putnam

The 2004 William Lowell Putnam was held on December 4, 2004. This year 3733 undergraduates representing 515 institutions participated. The test contains 12 problems and is given in two 3 hour segments. Each problem is worth a maximum of 10 points, resulting in 120 possible points. Most years the median score is very low, usually about 1 point.

Ten students participated at the University of Minnesota. Of these, 3 were selected before the competition to compete on behalf of the University in the team portion (calculated by summing the individual students’ scores).

2004 Team Members consisted of Matthew Korson, Derek Dalle, and myself. I haven’t heard how the team fared in the competition.

Personally I scored 46/120, placing me 122nd nationally.

This is up from last year’s performance, where I scored 30.3/120 and placed 200th. I definitely knew I did better than last year when I walked out of the test, but my feelings on the test’s difficulty still hold true.

Update: The University of Minnesota – Twin Cities team finished in 63rd place overall.