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# Have been putting
liquid nitrogen in the birdbath again?
(I helped save b3ta! Kamikaze Stoat £4.09, Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:09, archived)
# My Uni won't let us play with the liquid nitrogen
or the lasers. It's like they don't trust us or something...
(I helped save b3ta! King Ralph is drunk, Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:10, archived)
# What uni is this?
They sound like fools!
Ours was conveniently placed by a door for ease of theft. (You just needed a polystyrene flask or suchlike)
Are you a 1st year? They have trouble getting ahold of stuff, but bide your time, and it will be yours...
(I helped save b3ta! Lethe is carrying a spade. SPANG., Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:15, archived)
# 2nd year
and I think stealing it may be possible, as long as we avoid the lad technician of DOOM! (The one with the chemical burns!)
(I helped save b3ta! King Ralph is drunk, Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:16, archived)
# I'm 2nd year and we
get to play with Lasers and Li. Ni2. Great fun. Until you're looking at a diffraction pattern for the 80th fucking time.

Calm. Think calm.
(jacko_here just here has some ducks, Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:20, archived)
# What sort of diffraction patterns?
I did a project on nanosphere array diffraction patterns last year. That was quite good fun, until the lab tech fobbed my off with non spherical non-self-assembling lypodium spores.
(I helped save b3ta! Lethe is carrying a spade. SPANG., Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:22, archived)
# Really, really boring ones
Looking at the fraunhofer and fresnel case for single, broad and double slits. Relating them to the Fresnel Integrals and the Cornu Spiral (with this magic unitless thingy, v). Finding the wavelength of our laser from them, all that kinda shit.
(jacko_here just here has some ducks, Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:27, archived)
# Bummer.
I ended up sleeping a terms worth of labs away in the optics laboratory. ^_^
(I helped save b3ta! Lethe is carrying a spade. SPANG., Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:31, archived)
# Yeah
Last Thursday, from a piece of A5 paper, we made a loop big enough for both of us to walk through. It fitted over the door.

We tried diffracting through it but it didn't do anything.

Then I had some coffee. Then I fell asleep. Then I broke some optics stuff.

Next week we're doing something random to do with working out the speed of sound by making a box go ping.
(jacko_here just here has some ducks, Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:37, archived)
# Don't use a thermos!
Really bad idea. Tescos and sainsburies occasionally get their grapes in polystyrene boxes. I suggest one of those, but be carefully of sloshing. alternatively, just by a (DENSE) block of the stuff and carve a container. Don't forget to wax it to prevent leakage.
(I helped save b3ta! Lethe is carrying a spade. SPANG., Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:20, archived)
# Li. Ni2 is superfluid,
isn't it? That means in could leak into the inner glass bit of the thermos, even though other liquids couldn't, and then expand, and then explode with glass going everywhere.

Hmm. Nice if you're carrying it at the time...
(jacko_here just here has some ducks, Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:24, archived)
# Nah
liquid helium's superfluid, I don't recall nitrogen being so as well.
The temp difference would probably shatter it going in, and the increased pressure as it evaporated would definitely
(I helped save b3ta! Lethe is carrying a spade. SPANG., Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:30, archived)
# That's the one
I was thinking of. Nitrogen, Helium, pah. It's all Chemistry that. Not my department :-)
(jacko_here just here has some ducks, Mon 24 Nov 2003, 19:32, archived)