Beamlines

Chemistry labs just don’t smell like they used to.  When I were a lad, chemistry lessons involved a procedure called Qualitative Inorganic Analysis.  This involved bubbling hydrogen sulfide H2S, produced in a Kipp’s apparatus, through solutions to precipitate various metals group by group.

Our University’s former Safety-Office-in-Chief, who retired about ten years ago, had a line in horror stories while presenting training lectures.  One of his “things” was always radiation checking a new piece of equipment before releasing it for use.

One of the disappointments experienced by most mathematics students is that they never get a course in mathematics. They get courses in calculus, algebra, topology, and so on, but the division of labor in teaching seems to prevent these different topics from being combined into a whole. In fact, some of the most important and natural questions are stifled because they fall on the wrong side of topic boundary lines. Algebraists do not discuss the fundamental theorem of algebra because “that’s analysis” and analysts do not discuss Riemann surfaces because “that’s topology,” for example.

Well, who exactly is DORIS?  “She” is actually the first Doppel-Ring-Speicher (which translates neatly into English as “Double-Ring Storage”) at DESY, the Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron in Hamburg.  It’s not the only one; the more recent PETRA (Positron-Elektron-Tandem-Ring-Anlage) and HERA (Hadron-Elektron-Ring-Anlage) are both storage rings.   

Brain damage at birth is a horrible thing to happen to a baby.  Brain cells are very vulnerable to hypoxic / ischemic damage (the latter term referring to restricted blood supply), which makes birth a dangerous time.  Therefore, it was cheering to read a BBC news item First baby given xenon gas to prevent brain injurywhich led me to the Bristol University press release First newborn receives xenon gas in bid to prevent brain injury which begins

I have just returned from over a week working at DESY (das Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron) at Hamburg, and when I am not so tired I hope to write up some more synchrotron stuff for you all.  We were working over the Easter holiday, and while the DESY Bistro provided a magnificent brunch over that four-day period, on Sunday and Monday the only place within walking distance where we could find something to eat in the evening was Burger King (very appropriate for Hamburg, don’t you think?) 

I have an issue with the ladies of Hollywood. As a scientist, I find diamond a most useful material, and the way these glitterate use these stones for personal adornment does, I think, only serve to grossly inflate their price.   Diamond is famous for two properties, firstly its wonderful transparency and secondly its hardness, which are put to good use in the diamond anvil cell.  

 Now here’s an interesting chap. The Göttingen Academy of Sciences [1] was founded in 1751 with Albrecht von Haller (1708 – 1777) [2] as the main driving force in the setting it up.  He had very definite views on what an academy should be.  The historian Morris Kline writes:–

Does Spiderman get wet?

The hunt has been on for some time now for what are called superhydrophobic surfaces.  These would be ideal for see-though surfaces such as windscreens and coating for solar cells, where any dirty water that splashes on will simply roll off it like the proverbial duck’s back.

 Can one make plastic from glucose?

A few days ago, I read Oldest Biblical Inscription Deciphered, Archaeologists Say by our News Staff, and found it fascinating.  It takes one back to Solomon, who, according to the Bible, had a thousand wives (that’s includin’ concubines, I have to tell ya.)  Now people like to embellish these stories, and my mother sometimes would sing this:Oh Solomon, he had a thousand wivesAnd bein' a kind hearted fella,He wanted all o' themTo lead contented livesSo he bought each mammaA grand piana, ....

When Dmitri Mendeleev first published his table of elements in 1869 (picture), only 60 of these were known. One group in particular was absent, namely the inert gases.  Now you may have heard this song:"All these gases are inert  Helium, neon, argon.I’ll sing this song until it hurts  Krypton, xenon, radon." **