Brian Zhang Larsen’s Blog

As the year comes to an end, the net explodes with top ten lists. But I think a very important list is missing, which is why I bring you “The 10 hottest particles of 2008″.

10. Higgs Boson
It was everybody’s hope that the LHC at CERN could prove the existence of the Higgs Boson. The LHC however, disappointed drastically and this specific Boson have yet to reveal itself.

9. Baryon
Everybody’s favourite hadron subset, way cooler than the meson. We have high hopes for this one in 2009. In 2008 the particle continued to shout “FU mesons”.

8. Chroniton
This particle is only featured in Star Trek, which as we all know is a clear projection of the future, hence true. The particle is the essence of time itself, and may be related to the more conventional Chronon. While time is not everybody’s best friend, it sure comes in handy when vacationing.

7. Bacon
Technically bacon is not a particle, at least not yet proven, but it sure tastes great.

6. Gauge boson
Its alias as the “Force carriers” says it all. I bet they will listen to you if you have a high enough level of midi-clorians in your blood cells.

5. Neutrino
It is likely that you have a neutrino in your mouth right now, but can you taste it? No, you can’t. This is the cool thing about the neutrino, it is probably the most sneaky of all our known non-hypothetical particles. You never know where you have it, as it can penetrate close to everything. Not even Maxwells demon can cage this wild beast.

4. Graviton
This hypothetical particle, hypothetically helped us keep our balance all year, providing gravity to keep our feet on the ground. The particle also showed its teeth, while it was a mediating factor in the Sichuan tragedy this year.

3. Anti-proton
Actually an anti particle, but nonetheless the anti-proton kept the hopes alive through 2008 in every antimatter-energy nerd, hoping to see anti-hydrogen powered engines blasting through space in the near future.

2. Tachyon
This hypothetical particle is going to change to world when it reveals itself. Tachyons has the ability, instantly to travel any distance, time being no factor at all. Just imagine a tachyon drive on your bicycle.

1. Photon
Yet again, the lovely photon didn’t disappoint. This particle gave us the ability use our visual sense, all trough 2008. Only at night time this particle kept it on the low down, but everybody needs to rest once in a while, even subatomic particles.

Thanks to this great tool, I am now one step closer to be able to read sites like qq.com (step one). It doesn’t even matter that I probably forgot a significant part of the about 150-200 characters I had learned, since I “took a break” from my Chinese studies last may.

Perapera-kun is a Firefox addon, which can show you the pinyin and translation of one or more characters on mouse over. It works with both simplified and traditional characters, and is a great aid when studying Chinese. It is truly brilliant, and works for both beginners and advanced hanzi readers.

We have now arrived in Yanji, where Lei’s mother live. It is considerately colder here than any other place we’ve visited this year. But its fine, and it is kind of similar to Denmark, so in a way, we are preparing ourselves for our return.

Last week we spent in Beijing, and a lot have happened since last year. We were lucky with the weather, and had clear blue sky everyday. Since my parents were with us we visited the major tourist sites like the great wall and the forbidden city again.

We took a tour bus to Badaling, which is one of the heaviest visited tourist attractions on earth. The trip itself couldn’t be more profit optimized. Just when we got in the bus, the (chinese speaking) guide, recommended we went to the toilet before departure, for which they charged 0,50 RMB. Then on the way they dropped us off at a jade shop, where the prices were supposed to be especially favourable. The shop itself had a layout like a maze, where it was hard to find the exit. And the nearer to the exit, the cheaper was the prices on the same items, to squeeze as much out of the travellers as possible, no matter if it would mock or anger the customers who allready had made a purchase (poor suckers).

At Badaling there is now so many people, so they have extended the parking lots down the mountain, which means that there is now even longer to walk to the wall itself. But it is pretty impressive though, and it certainly is a challenge to walk on the wall.

Later we went to the newly reconstructed Qianmen street. The street have been completely rebuild to look like it did in the 1920′es. After the reconstruction, the prices are so high so very few companies can afford to rent in, which have resultet in an almost completely empty street, with the exception on the obligatory Quan Jude Roast duck restaurant, and a post office.

A visit to Beijing in 2008 have to include a visit to the olympic city I guess. And so we did. It has become a pretty nice area, with crazy theme hotels and off course the well known stadiums.

We have now been in China for about a week, and are now staying in Guilin. We started out in Shanghai where we did some shopping and went for a one-day trip to Suzhou. The weather is nice here, with around 27C, but unfortunately it is quite misty so it is difficult to experince all of the fantastic scenery here. Yesterday we went to the top of the Longji rice terrace hill, where we ate some local rice, prepared in bamboo over fire, and drank some homemade strong rice wine. We also went there last year, but we didnt go all the way to the top then. This year we did, and our legs was shaking a bit upon descent. This time of year, they have just finished harvesting, so the terraces are all empty and dried out. As you can see on the picture, it is a little foggy here at the moment.

Tommorrow we will head to Beijing, and then to Yanji where we will spend the last week in China. I look forward to treat myself with delicious spicy Korean food, when we get up there.

… See you in three weeks, when we get back from our China trip.

Last year my blog and mail server was blocked by the great firewall, so i don’t know whether i will be in touch or not…. even though there are ways.