My Lab:
Here's a picture of the gas-handling line leading to the discharge region seen in the plasma post: How many valves can you count in that picture? If you said "seven," give yourself a pat on the back. Here's the same...
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Posted on March 25, 2008 10:48 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A couple more pretty pictures of the apparatus, to pass the time: This is the plasma discharge source that we use to make metastable atoms. We excite the gas using a RF coil (under the tinfoil) with a couple of...
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Posted on March 24, 2008 10:58 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Behold, the end of the world is at hand! They said I was mad-- mad!-- but now they'll pay... Well, ok, it's not actually a doomsday weapon. It's a shot of the main experiment chamber in my lab, taken in...
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Posted on March 24, 2008 9:44 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
the second and final part of our survey of the wonderful world of vacuum pumps.
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Posted on March 11, 2008 9:14 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I've come to the conclusion that vacuum pumps can best be classified by considering their position on two orthogonal axes: Clean/Dirty and Quiet/Noisy.
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Posted on March 10, 2008 8:59 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Why I abhor vacuum system work.
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Posted on February 29, 2008 10:04 AM • 32 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
They're renovating a lab down the hall from mine (this is what led to the power shutdown that temporarily disabled my wavemeter). Today's agenda apparently involves a lot of drilling. Or, possibly, a bank robbery. Whatever's going on, the intermittent...
Posted on January 17, 2008 11:40 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Last week, I made an oblique mention of an equipment failure, and commented about the positive experience I had in dealing with their engineers on the phone. I carefully avoided naming the broken product or the company I was dealing...
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Posted on January 16, 2008 10:58 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Having made a snide comment or two about engineers earlier, I feel like I should relate a positive experience today: Over the Christmas break, there was a power outage in my lab. Not an accidental outage, but a planned outage...
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Posted on January 8, 2008 2:16 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A demonstration in two pictures.
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Posted on December 3, 2007 11:38 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
How messy is your work space?
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Posted on November 30, 2007 10:40 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Today's lesson: Lead bricks are really heavy. That is all. Carry on....
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Posted on November 28, 2007 3:14 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Something that people don't really appreciate is that there are surprisingly low-tech items that are also absolutely essential to the smooth functioning of a physics lab. Post-It notes, for example.
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Posted on November 8, 2007 11:20 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
My least favorite part of academic research has to be waiting for vendors who aren't actually going to call me back. Even when it's a company I've done a lot of business with, "a lot of business" by my standards...
Posted on October 17, 2007 1:43 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
How to get dirt off a research-grade mirror.
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Posted on September 20, 2007 9:53 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
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Posted on July 6, 2007 7:58 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
"Prof. Orzel gives the impression of an everyday guy who just happens to have a vast but hidden knowledge of physics." (anonymous student evaluation comment)
