PostdocPartum #5: Prize-Winning
{1250 words, 5 figures, 7 minutes}
On December 7th, I won the above pictured prize, a portable secondary battery for recharging mobile phones (popularly known as a "power bank" in Norway and broader Europe). Its 4000 mAh capacity, plastic construction, and 2-port USB output are relatively standard. The suction cup feet apparently are for sticking to your phone's back and serving as a stand while charging. But this wasn't the real prize.
The real prize needs some background, though. It starts with the Norwegian Centre for Neutron Research ("NcNeutron"), a very large project made in partnership with the European Spallation Source (ESS), which will be the world's most powerful spallation source when it is expected to begin operation sometime in 2021. The Norwegian government has agreed to contribute to 2.5% of the ESS's 1.8 billion euro price tag, turning up about 450 million NOK (450 MegaNOK?) in the process. That amount is ultimately shared by the various members and institutions of the neutron research communities at universities and institutes. NcNeutron holds about 31 million NOK over 5 years among its current members of the Institute For Energy Technology (IFE, the project leader), SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, University of Oslo, and University of Stavanger. Another 40 million NOK could be coming for an additional five years of operation as Phase 2 of the proposal, but like all science, it strongly depends on the review process in order to continue. Nevertheless, it is a very large undertaking.
JEEP II at IFE has the unique position of being the only neutron source in the Nordic countries and making it a sort of local expert of the ESS. Indeed, one of the primary objectives of NcNeutron is to construct the infrastructure of a "home-lab" that Norwegian scientists can use as a complement to the ESS, which is sure to be in extremely high demand once operational.
The current arsenal of instruments at JEEP-II are as follows:
- PUS - Powder Universal Spectrometer, a neutron powder diffractometer
- SANS - Small Angle Neutron Scattering
- DIFF - Diffractometer, for high flux, low resolution experiments usually for liquid crystals or other amorphous materials
- R2D2 - Reactor 2 Detector 2, a test station for the ESS
- ODIN - Optimized Diffractometer for Neutrons, for high resolution experiments
- A neutron radiography station
A partial view of the instruments hall inside the JEEP II reactor. Credit: IFE (click the image for a link).
As a result of NcNeutron, three new instruments will commissioned, built, and installed. They are, generally speaking:
- A re-purposing of PUS as a prior generation diffractometer (now superseded by a newer generation diffractometer in ODIN) to a residual stress diffractometer, used for identifying internal stresses based on neutron diffraction.
- A new neutron reflectometry instrument, suitable for thin film analysis.
- An upgrade to an existing neutron radiography setup for enhanced neutron imaging.
And since you can't have a major scientific instrument without a scientific name so unwieldy that an acronym is required, the real prize here was getting to name one of these instruments. Through an open solicitation, then voting by the Physics department, and finally, selection by the committee led by the department leader, the following names were chosen (listed in the same order as above):
- NEST - NEutrons for Residual STress
- FREYJA - Focused Reflectometry and EllipsometrY using JEEP-II Assets
- NIMRA - Neutron IMaging and RAdiography
The creators (from left to right) of the winning names NEST, FREYJA, and NIMRA, holding their IFE power bank prizes.
I can't speak for the others and their creative processes but I can explain mine. Freyja, most likely meaning "the woman", is the Norse goddess of fertility. Given that Odin, the leader of the Norse gods, was already an instrument name, I thought another prominent Norse god would be a perfect complement, especially a goddess (cue social justice warrior battle cry). I think it was well-received by the department head and, in conversations with my colleagues as news of the naming spread, they were quite surprised by my knowledge of Norse mythology.
Norse mythology in general has been a fixation of my imagination because of its strong presence in video games, especially fantasy RPGs, literature, and even some anime franchises. That also naturally led to some independent study of it when learning about Greek mythology in 7th grade literature class. Final Fantasy started me off with its Odin summon, including multi-legged steed Sleipnir and legendary spear Gungnir. FF7 Advent Children's Cloud rode on a futuristic, sleek, black motorcycle/portable-sword-armory called Fenrir and the game's starting city is Midgar. Ogre Battle, with its legendary named swords, spears, and hammers and its Valkyrie-class troops that evolved to Freya-class was a personal favorite. Starcraft had Valkyrie starships in its Brood War expansion. Heck, I even loved a game called "Ragnarok Online", my first MMO time sink, which was wholesale Norse mythology (with appropriately potent healing items: fruit and leaves from the Tree of Yggdrasil!). The entire Valkyrie Profile series, which I sadly did not play but nevertheless pined endlessly for, was also wholesale Norse mythology. I still remember chatting excitedly one day after class in high school with my nerdy friend about all the terms we knew in Norse mythology.
What's special about FREYJA, though, is that this is the correct spelling of the goddess's name (again, noted by the department head who is Norwegian), and I only know of this because of yet another Norse mythology cameo in my latest nerd love: Macross Delta. One of the main characters is named "Freyja Wion" and her optimistic and spunky personality is hopelessly adorable and memorable. This is the just the frosting of the cake, though, as the powerful singing idol group in Macross Delta is named "Walküre", which is the original, old Germanic pronunciation of the "Valkyrie", who are battle maidens that choose fallen warriors to reside in Valhalla amongst the gods and fight alongside Odin in the end times of Ragnarok, while in the Macross universe, "Valkyrie" is the name of the first transforming robot-jet model (the variable fighter VF-1), with transforming robot-jets themselves being recurring plot pieces across the entire 30+ year Macross franchise. Yeah, it's basically turtles all the way down. (Footnote 1)
Titular heroine Freyja Wion in episode 1 of Macross Delta moments before falling into a classic space opera involving political intrigue, conspiracy, war, romance, aliens, the power of musical performance, and, of course, transforming robot planes. Copyright 2016: Studio Nue.
I did come up with several instrument names that were submitted but didn't make the cut, which is fair (but gave me a high chance of success). It's far more valuable to "spread the wealth" and have the names represent more of the department as a whole. I'm very happy with the current names but I thought I might share my other name suggestions for fun (in retrospect, they are sillier than I remember). Hopefully, they may inspire some other ideas when the opportunity to name something scientific arises again, whether for you or me, but keep in mind that being in Norway and already having ODIN, these are all based on Norse mythology. Because Norse mythology is a seriously joyful rabbit hole to get lost in. They are:
- GUNGNIR - Greater Understanding through the Norwegian Group for Neutron-based Interrogative Reflectometry
- SLEIPNIR - Scandinavian Laboratory for European Innovation Projects using Neutron Imaging and Radiography
- FENRIR - Fast Experimentation for Neutron Radiography and Imaging Research
- MJOLNIR - Materials-based Joint Laboratory for Neutron-based Investigation of Residual stress
- THOR - THeory and Observations of Residual stress
- TIRS - Tool for Investigation of Residual Stress
Clearly, I spent too much time and effort in trying to come up with these acronyms. But it is a rite of modern "big science", I suppose. On the other hand, I seem to have compiled a library of technical terms that might be useful in the future.
In summary, I have been able to incorporate knowledge from video games and anime into my latest scientific exploits, and then write a blog post about it. And I couldn't be happier about that.
Footnotes:
- Let the record show, now and henceforth, that I am a Macross purist and currently do not acknowledge the canon of the Robotech franchise.
