Brain... melting...
Mar. 31st, 2004 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morslaThree days in to the course, now. I left the uni at 7pm last night, and spent a pretty solid seven hours with seminars and exercises today. Guess it's lucky that I find this stuff so fascinating - if I was anything less than completely enthralled, I probably would have curled up under a table by now. The amount of thinking that my poor brain has been subjected to lately is ridiculous - I haven't had to wake up so many braincells for at least five months :P
Fission track thermochronology today, which seems to involve a lot of counting. Many pages of photomicrograph images, all showing crystal surfaces pock-marked by radioactive decay. Calibrate a 10x10 transparent grid, and then get to work counting how many fission trails appear per unit area - and start feeding the results into all sorts of equations, to work out the neutron flux/concentration of Uranium atoms in the crystal/age of the crystal, etc.
I even got carried away talking to the research staff, and missed most of my lunchbreak. In hindsight, not such a great idea - but I learnt some fascinating things. The average time it takes to "train" someone to work in the Fission Track group is nine months (!) of calibrations, and measuring a suite of "known" standards - all while being scrutinised for any trace of systematic error on the part of the human. After 9 months or so, the various researchers are confident enough to let you work on your own samples - still subject to inter-lab testing, to make sure that any variance is due to the experiment, and not the scientist.
I managed to completely miss the opening hours of the post office and library, though. Library I need, as I have to request some books from ANU (in a hurry... this report is due pretty damn soon...). The post office apparently has two parcels waiting for me to collect them - I wonder what they are. Wonder if I'll have time to check tomorrow.
Fission track thermochronology today, which seems to involve a lot of counting. Many pages of photomicrograph images, all showing crystal surfaces pock-marked by radioactive decay. Calibrate a 10x10 transparent grid, and then get to work counting how many fission trails appear per unit area - and start feeding the results into all sorts of equations, to work out the neutron flux/concentration of Uranium atoms in the crystal/age of the crystal, etc.
I even got carried away talking to the research staff, and missed most of my lunchbreak. In hindsight, not such a great idea - but I learnt some fascinating things. The average time it takes to "train" someone to work in the Fission Track group is nine months (!) of calibrations, and measuring a suite of "known" standards - all while being scrutinised for any trace of systematic error on the part of the human. After 9 months or so, the various researchers are confident enough to let you work on your own samples - still subject to inter-lab testing, to make sure that any variance is due to the experiment, and not the scientist.
I managed to completely miss the opening hours of the post office and library, though. Library I need, as I have to request some books from ANU (in a hurry... this report is due pretty damn soon...). The post office apparently has two parcels waiting for me to collect them - I wonder what they are. Wonder if I'll have time to check tomorrow.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-31 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 08:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 08:26 am (UTC)If you are interested maybe even post some of your photos on the site, or look at some of the others.
That photo is in the category "April PROJECT 07. Use the INVERT Command to create unusual effects. Try using it also as one step in how you achieve the end result."
I've use the site a bit and have a couple fof photos in that category, and find the site useful for learning and feedback.