Show Me more of the state

Yesterday was Fall Break at WashU, so I took the opportunity to take a much needed break from campus and explore other parts of Missouri. The two major cities in Missouri are St. Louis and Kansas City, with Columbia in between them geographically. The real reason for the trip was that I gave a seminar in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the University of Missouri-Columbia and talked to some of the faculty there about my iron oxide work. It’s nice to meet people at nearby universities and see where we can collaborate with each other.

This weekend also happened to be Mizzou’s homecoming, where in football, Mizzou played Texas Tech today. The alumni center, where we had lunch, was decked out in black and gold balloons, symbolizing the Tiger colors, and football helmet go-carts drove around campus. I also saw the famous six limestone columns on Francis Quadrangle, which are the only remains of the original campus building that burned down in 1892.

While I’m on the subject of Mizzou, I’ll point out this article to any of you that have influence in the state legislature.

Columbia is only about 30 miles north of Jefferson City, the state capitol. So, I went there too yesterday. The state capitol building looks a lot like the US Capitol in Washington, DC., right down to the dome and the columns. The lawns in front were decorated with various modern art sculptures, and the building inside contained a state history museum. On a site note, the carillon of St. Peter’s church across the street was probably the most out-of-tune carillon I’ve ever heard. What was neat was that I learned why Thomas Jefferson is so revered in this state. He signed the paperwork authorizing the Louisiana Purchase, for which we Missourians owe our statehood.

Greetings from St. Louis

Two weeks ago, I left the East Coast for the gateway to the West (Coast) — St. Louis. The drive here spanned the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and featured such memorable sights as: enormous mountains, a golden-domed capitol building, horses grazing on pastures, an overturned semi, skyscrapers, numerous bridges over the Ohio River, endless cornfields, and, of course, the Arch.

It has been fun to drive around the County of St. Louis. Like DC, the City of St. Louis is not officially part of a county. I haven’t really explored the city much yet, but I’ve mostly figured out the county in my numerous drives to various shopping (clothes, food, furniture, housewares, etc.) destinations. But, I barely need to drive my car during the work week. I found a shortcut to work, and now it only takes me about 15 minutes to walk from home to the office. Plus, there is a six-block stretch called “The Loop” about a five minute walk from home, featuring all sorts of ethnic restaurants, boutique shopping, concert venues, record stores, and other funky shops that are too hard to describe in a few words. The other nearby attraction is Forest Park, the site of the 1904 World’s Fair and (free) art and science museums and a zoo, among other exciting things.

Although I haven’t officially started my new job as Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, I started going to the office last week. I’ve been helping out with two experimental projects with other professors and graduate students in the department. I didn’t expect to be involved in collaborations so soon, but it has helped me feel wanted in the department, as well as sparked new research interests. I feel that I (we?) am making progress just by asking questions, coming up with new ideas and discussing them, even though I haven’t been able to order my computers yet or do any real calculations. I’m trying to help with writing grant proposals on these collaborations, in addition to formulating other grant proposals based on my own research topics. It is very overwhelming — juggling all these research projects, developing lecture notes for the class I’m teaching in the fall (undergraduate fluid mechanics and heat and mass transfer), and figuring out the administrative paperwork — so I have to remind myself often how fortunate I am to have a job in academia.

What I miss the most about DC (and Boston, and California, for that matter) is the large and diverse group of friends with whom I can talk about music, politics, religion, science, sports, urban renewal, and everything else in between. I really miss intellectual discourse, even though theoretically I should be getting that on a college campus, and I really miss being part of a church community. I visited one church this past Sunday and have several more in the queue to try. As I did when I first moved to DC, I anticipate writing about the churches I visit in St. Louis. I hope to be a bit more regular in blogging, explore the Midwest, and demystify the ivory tower for you.

AEESP conference at Virginia Tech

Over the next couple of days I will be at Virginia Tech for a conference called “Interactions at the Interface: Making the Connections between Environments, Disciplines, and Nations“.  I think it’ll be a great opportunity to interact with a very different group of people than I have before.  It took me a while to be ingrained into the Chemical Engineering community during my PhD, only to almost leave it for the Geochemistry community during my postdoc.  Now, it will be interesting to meet Environmental Engineers while maintaining my existing professional ties.

The main reason I am attending this conference was to attend this workshop.  Before I arrived, I felt that I had completely botched my reasons for attending.  I hadn’t printed out my CV, possessed a grand total of zero business cards, and most importantly, had not written up any white papers describing my proposed research.  Yet, I got lucky.  While I was leaving the workshop, I happened to walk back to the hotel with the NSF program manager of Environmental Engineering (within CBET).  I ran my CAREER award idea by him, and he thought it had a lot of potential (in Chemical and Biotechnology Systems) and suggested names of program directors I should contact.  That was very helpful!  The other key idea I learned is to start volunteering to serve on review panels now.  That way I’ll learn more about the proposal process by examining successful and unsuccessful proposals.

Yesterday I passed by Norris Hall, home of some Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty (who are hosting this conference).  Although much of the building is boarded up, I saw glimpses of the construction going on inside.  They are completely gutting out the classrooms destroyed in the April 16 campus shootings.  It was important for me, who had previously only read about the shootings, to see what the building looked like and to imagine the students jumping out of the second floor windows (not a huge jump since the building is on a hill and much of the first floor is below ground).  I also saw the memorial in front of Burress Hall, the administration building.  It is a semicircle of maroon candles marking an engraved stone and the names of each of the 32 victims.  There are also other mementos, such as VT flags, dried flowers, coins, dolls, and other items on each of the stones and in the space between the candles.  Seeing it in the twilight brought closure and understanding to me as well as the others visiting the memorial.

A look back at the summer internship program

Today, I attended the final presentations for the Society of Physics Students national interns. Two of these students have been working in my research group this summer. Patricia studied aqueous arsenic complexes and the interaction of arsenic with aluminum oxide, while Kacey studied cyclodextrins and their use in transporting drugs that would normally be insoluble in water. I have enjoyed getting to know them as fellow scientists and friends, and have rediscovered my love for teaching and mentoring this summer. We’ve rejoiced over successes, cried over frustrations, and laughed over too many random things to list, and I’ve been amazed by their intellect and determination to succeed. Some of my fondest memories with them include: teaching Pat how to use DMol³ and perform slab calculations, fixing Kacey’s computer and solving Unix/X-terminal problems, working on crossword and Sudoku puzzles over lunch, going out for ice cream/coffee after work, attending a lecture at the Discovery Institute with Kacey and learning about her physics/biology perspective on evolution, talking about theology, riding the Metro, running to catch the shuttle bus, and playing Settlers of Catan. I wish them both the best in their future endeavors and hope that we’ll stay in touch.

NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Grantees Conference

For the past two days I have been in Arlington, VA at the annual National Science Foundation's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Grantees Conference. Everyone who received an award in 2004 (meaning that they are currently in Year 2 of their projects) had to make a 15 minute presentation. My boss Tom gave a nice overview of our NIRT (Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Teams) project, and I presented a poster that focused on the theoretical modeling. Well, presented might be overstating it since it was so informal. Basically, people just browsed the posters during coffee breaks and working lunches. The posters were placed into various rooms by topic, such as: Biosystems, Devices, Environmental Processes, Manufacturing, Structures/Phenomena, Industry/Opportunities, Nanoscale/Networks, and Theory/Modeling/Simulation.

I was surprised to find so few people working on Environmental Processes at this conference, which might have explained why there weren't swarms of people around my poster. I really felt that everyone else was working on some variant of nanodots, nanofibers, nanoparticles, nanorods, nanotubes, nanowires, etc. Of course, the dreaded nanobiotechnology also reared its ugly head. Alas, there should only be a maximum of four funded NIRT projects per school, but you wouldn't have guessed that from seeing the multitude of projects from Cornell, which has a dedicated Center for Nanoscale Systems, Cornell NanoScale Facility, and Nanobiotechnology Center, among others. Well, I see where the money is going.

Overall I was glad I went to the conference, since the NSF discussed the priority areas for funding in the coming year (2006):

• Biocomplexity and the Environment ($84 million, $6 million for engineering)
• Nanoscale Science and Engineering ($243 million, $127.77 million for engineering)
• Mathematical Sciences ($89 million, $2.91 million for engineering)
• Human and Social Dynamics ($29 million, $2 million for engineering)

Also, the funding is being reapportioned into six divisions:

• Chemical, Biological, Environmental, and Transport systems
• Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing innovation
• Electrical, Communications, and Cyber Systems
• Emerging Frontiers in Research and innovation
• Engineering Education and Centers
• Industrial Innovation and Partnerships

Also, about 60% of all awards are made to projects with multiple PI's, which is great for interdisciplinary work, but not so great in that one's funds are more diluted. Anyway, this information will be useful as I formulate a research proposal for my faculty applications next Fall.

Fairbanks in September

I arrived in Fairbanks, AK last night, and will be here September 10-20. The main purpose for coming here is for the annual UAF NIRT (Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team) project meeting September 15-16, where everyone associated with my research project (PI’s Tom Trainor from UAF, Peter Eng from the University of Chicago, Gordon Brown from Stanford University, and Anne Chaka from NIST, plus their postdocs and grad students), is meeting to present what we’ve done for the past year and discuss what to focus on for next year. However, I am doing a tutorial on the DMol³ code and maybe the ab initio thermodynamics method for the students on September 14, and we may end up working on September 17-19 as well. It pretty much takes a whole day to fly to and from Washington, DC to Fairbanks, AK.

Tomorrow and Tuesday (September 12-13), four of us from the project are heading down to Denali National Park, where the famous Mt. McKinley is located. We have dubbed our trip the “kid” trip, since the “adult trip” (with Tom, his wife Sarah, Peter, and Anne) consists of snow backpacking in the park. Our trip, with Sarah Pettito and Kunal Tanwar from UAF, Sanjit Ghose from Chicago, and me, will be all postdocs (and grad students), and consist of day hiking, picture taking, and sleeping in a motel. I think it’ll be a fabulous opportunity to see some bears and moose.

The Stanford EMSI (Environmental Molecular Science Institute) meeting in August was for the same purpose but for a different project. I would say that the NIRT project is more focused on deriving structural models for the clean and hydrated surfaces of hematite (Fe₂O₃) using theory and experiment, and looking at contaminant metal ion and low molecular weight organic adsorption onto the surface. The EMSI project will involve magnetite (Fe₃O₄) and similar adsorbates, but much more on the nature of the hydrated metal ions and the fancy “electrical double layer” where the adsorbates go from the liquid water to the solid metal oxide.

230th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Washington, DC

Well, after all the traveling this summer, I thought it would be a nice break to go to a conference near home. The ACS conference this summer/fall just took place last week in downtown DC in the Washington Convention Center. Well, it turned out to be quite tiring, in that all of us from NIST had to commute by Metro for about 40 minutes each way. Plus, the conference started at 8:00 am and, on Monday in particular, didn’t end until 10:00 pm. I was definitely glad to have the Labor Day weekend to relax, after giving my talk on the last day of the conference (Thursday), and in the afternoon no less.

During the conference, I took the opportunity to attend talks in several different sessions, including Colloid & Surface Chemistry (COLL), Computers in Chemistry (COMP), Environmental Chemistry (ENVR), Geochemistry (GEOC), Inorganic Chemistry (INOR), Physical Chemistry (PHYS) and Professional Relations (PROF). I have never really been that in tune with COMP and PHYS talks, since they are generally given at a very high level and I get bogged down in the details. However, I really like going to experimental talks because they help me think about practical problems that need to be addressed with computations.

There were a few relatively non-technical highlights that I’ll mention. One was the NSF Discovery Corps Fellowship, where this lady described her research on the corrosion of organ pipes. She works at Cornell University, but frequently travels to Sweden to look at really old organs. Another high point was a piano concert given by Victoria Bragin, who played works by Beethoven, Borodin (also a chemist!), and Chopin. I was also interviewed by Nature reporter Andreas von Bubnoff for his blog, though I don’t think any of my comments actually made it on there.

If you’ve heard the story of my move to Gaithersburg, you’ve undoubtedly heard that one of my boxes of books never arrived via USPS Media Mail. Well, that box contained several key Chemical Engineering and Chemistry books. Last week I took the first steps towards replenishing my scientific library. Several textbook publishers were present at the ACS Expo. On day 2 (Tuesday), I was able to get Atkins’ Molecular Quantum Mechanics and Stumm and Morgan’s Aquatic Chemistry for 20% off and 15% off, respectively. On day 3 (Wednesday), I did even better. W. H. Freeman gave me Atkins’ Physical Chemistry (7th edition) for free during the last half an hour of the expo, since they didn’t want to take the book back to the company, and the 8th edition was being produced in December, 2005. I will not soon forget their generosity. Also, Oxford University Press struck me a deal with Deen’s Analysis of Transport Phenomena, where I got it for only $40! I will not forget their generosity either. So, the take-home message is: If you need to buy new textbooks, go to a conference expo near closing time and bargain.

NIST and the Mechanisms of the Mind

In the second of the summer seminar series at work, I heard a lecture by Dr. James Albus, who is a NIST Fellow in the Intelligent Systems Division of the Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory. The lecture was entitled “Understanding the Mechanisms of Mind”.

Dr. Albus first mentioned that the mind is what distinguishes humans from the rest of creation, and that there are several ways to study the mind. Neuroscience is focused on an understanding the brain, including the chemistry, synaptic transmission, axonal connectivity, and functional MRI. Cognitive modeling is focused on the representation and use of knowledge in performing cognitive tasks, in cluding mathematics, logic, and language. Intelligent control is focused on making machines behave appropriately in an uncertain environment, such as in manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and autonomous vehicles, which is what he works on.

He then stated that the brain is a machine in which the processes of the mind occur. It is a control system that is divided into two parts — behavior generating and sensory processing. The different physical parts of the brain handle the various behaviors:

• Forebrain — long range plans
• Frontal cortex — reason, logic, abstract models
• Limbic — values, emotions
• Pre-motor cortex — complex behaviorial skills
• Primary motor cortex, basal ganglia — simple behaviorial skills
• Cerebellum, midbrain — coordination, balance, dynamics
• Spinal motor centers — position, force, velocity control

as well as the various senses:

• Forebrain — assessment of trends and social situations
• Frontal cortex — perception of abstract concepts
• Parietal cortex — perception of space, time, and motion
• Temporal cortex — perception of objects and words
• Primary sensory cortex — visual images, tactile map of the body
• Cerebellum, midbrain — coordination, balance, dynamics
• Spinal sensory centers — stretch, position, velocity

At the center of the brain are the modules that model and evaluate the world. The limbic system consists of emotional functions that compute good-bad, attractive-repulsive, important-irrelevant, hope-feat, love-hate, and confidence-uncertainty, among others. The hippocampus builds local maps and controls what is remembered. The thalamocortical loops perform recursive estimation. In general, there is a coupling of sensing and behavior.

He went on to say that each of the processes of the mind has a computational equivalent:

• Imagination — modeling, simulation, visualization based on an internal model of the world
• Thought — analysis of what might occur if certain actions were taken and conditions were to occur
• Feeling — experience of sensory input or emotional state
• Attention — focusing sensors and perception on what is important
• Knowledge — information organized so as to be useful
• Perception — transformation of sensation into knowledge
• Cognition — analysis, evaluation, and use of knowledge
• Meaning — relationships between forms of knowledge
• Belief — level of confidence assigned to knowledge
• Reason — logic applied to thinking
• Planning — thinking about possible future actions and goals
• Wisdom — ability to make decisions that achieve long term goals
• Intelligence — ability to achieve goals despite uncertainty
• Awareness — internal representation of the external world
• Understanding — correspondence between model and reality
• Consciousness — aware of self and one’s relationship to the world
• Emotion — value judgment, evaluation of good and bad
• Sense of good and bad — fundamental value judgment
• Sense of justice and duty — culturally derived value judgment
• Appreciation of beauty — perceptual value judgment

Curiously enough, he didn’t assign a computational equivalent to a sense of the religious. In general, there are internal models of the world that enable prediction and planning, and a characteristic range and resolution in time and space.

As an example of an intelligent system, he talked about the 4D/RCS Reference Model Architecture for Unmanned Vehicle Systems, which is used for automated driving. In particular he highlighed LADAR technology, which allows the imaging of geometric objects in real time. Therefore, locomotion is a fundamental capability of intelligent creatures that has almost been successfully duplicated by machines. It requires an understanding of space and time, awareness of the situation, and dynamic modeling of the world, plus the ability to plan for future actions, and react to unexpected events. In fact, the roadmap to fully autonomous driving looks roughly like:

• 2005 — robust autonomous road-following and off-road driving
• 2010 — LADAR cameras providing the range, resolution, and speed to cope with dense traffic
• 2015 — cognitive reasoning capabilities enabling competent tactical behaviors on the battlefield
• 2020 — cognitive reasoning and tactical behaviors approaching human levels of performance
• 2025 — autonomous vehicles surpassing human levels of performance in most, if not all, areas

So will driving become a skill of the past, much like weaving clothes or grinding wheat? Probably. This demonstrates that many fundamental processes can be modeled computationally. We now understand how to deal with complexity, acquire and use knowledge, and make decisions. Soon, computational power will exceed that of the human brain.

Then Dr. Albus started waxing philosophical. He predicted that intelligent weapons will revolutionize warfare, since they can outperform and cost less to train and maintain over manned systems; thus soldiers will be kept out of harm’s way. Well, maybe that’s true, but a bunch of battlebots fighting each other is not the goal. After all, if it’s just a bunch of battlebots, then there is no need to fight physically; one could just simulate the machines’ plan of attack and see who will win. In reality, there is no war without the threat of bloodshed. Humans will still need to plan and strategize and attack and defend after the battlebots have done their job. And, in the end, it is still the prerogative of a crazy human dictator to detonate a nuclear weapon.

Dr. Albus also predicted that intelligent systems have the potential to create wealth to pay for health care, education, housing, transportation, food, Social Security, and a clean environment, and in fact eliminate poverty. These machines have a much greater capacity to perform useful work. So yes, wealth, perhaps currently stored as ideas in the mind, can be infinitely created. However, how can this wealth be distributed in the world? His solution, which was borrowed from People’s Capitalism, was to build a real ownership society where everyone would receive a basic living income from ownership of intelligent machines. In essence, everyone, rich or poor, would own shares in a mutual fund that would pay dividends on the wealth generated by intelligent machines. A discussion with Clayton, who knows much more about economics than I do, confirmed that while socialism is a great idea in theory, it will never work in practice because human nature is not good and kind. Someone will inevitably use these intelligent machines for his/her own good, not for the good of the society, and what will prevent him/her from owning many more shares of stock than the others? Human nature in the form of corrupt government is what is preventing many poor countries from industrializing and creating wealth. So sure, it is a fine idea to develop intelligent machines, but to expect that all of the world’s economic problems will be eliminated is really unreasonable.

I also took issue with the idea that every one of our mind processes can be modeled computationally. In particular, the sense of right and wrong, and the fact that we don’t always choose what is right, cannot be put into a machine. It is a fundamental aspect of human nature. Perhaps with the right model a machine could make the right decisions, but it is essentially just mimicking human behavior, not making decisions on its own. Even within humans, there is a higher entity than the mind; I was trying to get Dr. Albus to admit that there is the concept of a soul, but he refused to say so, despite the fact that he received his bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College.

Can a created being or object eventually surpass its creator in intelligence? I don’t think so. Science fiction is replete with stories of machines taking over the world, but in reality there is always a way to stop the machines — to turn off the switch or cut the power. In that sense, I am not afraid of progress in artificial intelligence and understanding how the mind works. I do fear the consequences of evil human nature coupled with these machines, and to that end I hope that we humans will be able to behave responsibly in this new computer age.

NIST and the World Trade Center

Last week I attended a seminar at work on NIST’s role in investigating the collapse of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The seminar presented by Dr. S. Shyam Sundar was very similar to this presentation. This week, the summary report was released to the public, and you can read more about it on the main website.

Just to summarize some key facts that I (re-)learned:

• 2749 people, including 421 emergency personnel died in the collapse of the towers.
• The first tower (WTC 1) was hit at 8:46:30 am, between the 93rd and 99th floors. It was hit close to the center of the wall, and the plane was nearly normal to the building. It collapsed in 102 minutes.
• The second tower (WTC 2) was hit at 9:02:59 am, between the 77th and 85th floors. It was hit close to a corner, and the plane struck at an angle. It collapsed in 56 minutes.
• The towers were compliant with the 1968 New York City building code, and since they were designed to provide the maximum amount of rentable space, there were no supporting columns in the interior of the building. In fact, there were only three elevator shafts, with local elevators serving the top, middle, and lower thirds of the building.
• The buildings were constructed of steel that would melt at 1600 C, but was malleable at 700-800 C. Thus, spray-on fire protection was used. The fireproofing and the water sprinkler systems were both dislodged during impact.
• The impact of the planes themselves was about equivalent to 1/3 of the force of the strongest hurricanes. And, in general, an empty wing segment hitting a building will cause significant damage, but not complete failure of the perimeter columns. A fuel-filled segment will cause extensive damage to the exterior wall panel and result in a complete failure of the perimeter columns.
• What really caused the damage was the subsequent fires. However, the jet fuel in the planes burned up within 4-5 minutes. The rest of the burning material was office furniture and building contents. In WTC 1, the fires hopped around to new locations every 20 minutes. In WTC 2, the fires were concentrated in the northeast corner of the building because that was where all of the combustible material was located.
• In general it took people an average of 48 seconds per floor to go down the staircases, which is about 50% of even the slowest speed measured in fire drills. Part of the problem was the immense congestion, and many people were simply not physically fit enough to run down hundreds of flights of stairs. Also, many were unfamiliar with the layout of the transfer hallways, within floors, to shuttle people from one flight of stairs to another.
• Mobility-impaired occupants posed a difficult ethical dilemma. Many of them walked slowly down the stairs one at a time, with one hand on the handrail, accompanied by another person. This made it difficult for other occupants to descend quickly down the stairs. Many of these mobility-impaired occupants were temporarily placed on the 12th floor of WTC 1 to make way for the others running down the stairs, and they were likely still alive when it collapsed.
• The firemen also had a tremendously difficult time of rescuing the building occupants since it took them an average of 1.4-2 minutes per floor to go up the stairs. That means that it would take about 2 hours to even reach the 60th floor. Therefore, fire-protected elevators for the exclusive use of firemen and mobility-impaired occupants might have been useful.
• A full capacity evacuation (25,000 people per tower) would have required 4 hours. That day, there were only about 17,000 occupants, of which 87%, including 99% of those below the floors of impact, escaped. Also, the survivors evacuated at a rate of 73 people per minute for WTC 1 and 108 people per minute for WTC 2, but 40% of those in WTC 2 self-evacuated after seeing the planes hit WTC 1.

Overall, it was a remarkably successful evacuation given the circumstances.

838 division meeting, conferences, and more

Today at work I gave my first talk in front of the Physical and Chemical Properties Division (838). Well, only two groups in the division are in Gaithersburg (the others are in Boulder), so I suppose it was just a subdivision talk. It wasn’t perfect, or maybe not even very good, but it’s good to get the first talk out of the way and clarify some of the big picture in my mind before I have to give a real talk (not a poster) at a conference.

Speaking of which, I have been pretty fortunate to go to several conferences this year. In May I went to the Goldschmidt Conference in Moscow, ID. In July, I’ll go to the American Conference on Theoretical Chemistry in Los Angeles, CA. In August, I’ll stay local as I attend the American Chemical Society Meeting and Symposium in Washington, DC. I have also traveled to several project meetings, with the UAF/NIST meeting in Fairbanks, AK in February and a bigger NIRT meeting with the folks from Chicago and Stanford in September, also in Fairbanks, AK. There is also the possibility that I will be at Stanford for the EMSI project meeting in August, but that has not yet been confirmed.

As for research, in order to go to meetings, I need to have results. Yes, the iron oxide surface free energies are working out well this time, and my magnetic spins are of the right magnitude. Today my boss and I had this great revelation about the hydroxylated state of the Fe₂O₃ (1-102) surface. I probably shouldn’t give away too many details, but at least I can say (because it’s been presented in public) that the hydroxylated surface seems to be missing the top layer of Fe atoms. Normally, you would think that it comes off as Fe³⁺, so that 3 H’s are needed to balance the charge for every Fe atom that is pulled out of the surface. But, what if there is some redox chemistry? That’s the key, and it seems that this new surface matches the experimentally measured relaxations even better. Now, we must write this up in a journal article.