Nishina School 2016

Thoughts and Comments from the Participants

Chang Sen Yu Alan

I had a fruitful and enjoyable experience in this Nishina School. The programme was well organized an d scheduled. In the first week, some introductory lectures were given to make sure every student has a solid foundation. In the second week, more challenging questions were asked and students benefited from discussions with other students and tutors.

Although much of the time was used for lectures and experiments, the programme left sufficient free time for us. We experienced the Japanese culture through different activities. I particularly enjoyed Japanese noodles. Last but not least, the Nishina school p rovided us comfortable and clean accommodation, which helped us to focus on our studies and analysis.

I am very pleased that I did not miss this opportunity and I hope future HKU students could have this opportunity to learn and enjoy in Nishina school.

Xinzhi Teng

The most valuable reward in RIKEN is that I met a group of confidants of physics, who are in my age and decide to dedicate to physics. We are friends as well as competitors. Together, we discuss physics, looking forward to the future and encourage each other. They give me the confidence that as long as we have passion on physics and work hard enough, we definitely can contribute to physics. We have the same dream which is to become a great physicist.

The workload in Nishina school is a little bit light, they could give us more work to do.

Wang Jia Shian

The RIKEN programme is a great opportunity for people who would like to gain some experience or know more about nuclear physics research and is, of course, also a nice chance to explore Japan and make friends. From the training sessions and the mini proje ct, I really feel that my experimental skills were improved and it also piqued my interest in nuclear physics . Our topic for the mini project was in beam measurements of the 2MeV 12 C(p, γ 13 N reaction. Alt hough due to division of labour my job was mainly figuring out the theoretical estimation and didn’t actually operate the instruments, I still learnt a lot through watching my teammates do ing it and asking details about the experiment from the tutors. Another remarkable thing about the programme was to b e able to know the people from PKU and SNU. Thro ugh the discussions during less ons and the time spent hanging out together, I connected with people from SNU and PKU in a way that I never could have done before This is really a unique experience unlike a ny other in the past three years since I came to college. I am very grateful to have this chance to participate in this programme

Anruth Alfred

The Nishina school at RIKEN was an amazing experience in many regards. The experiments we performed at the accelerator were very hands on. This enabled me to gain a lot of knowledge in conducting experiments, especially in nuclear physics. Apart from this, by working in groups, all of the students were able to teach something new to the others, be it the theoretical calculations or the data analysis. RIKEN itself, and its professors, were very friendly and encouraging. All in all, the school was a great experience as I was able to get to know a lot of people in the nuclear physics field.

Calvin

The Nishina School was a good opportunity to expose oneself to experimental nuclear physics. The atmosphere is very friendly. The main purpose of the summer school is to do the 12C(p, gamma)13N experiment. In the school, the first week serves as a crash course to nuclear physics and an introduction to the experiment done in the second week. The prepa ration, experiment, data analysis and the final presentation are done in the second week. As I have attended a course on nuclear physics in HKU last semester, the lectures serve as a revision for me. In my opinion, more time could be given to the introduct ion of nuclear physics if the students have not been exposed to nuclear physics. If the students had took a nuclear physics course before, then it would not be a problem. Otherwise, other lecture s are very informative and well paced.