“In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you.” - Frank Wilczek

Hey,
It's been a while again! Ooops!

Thought I would quickly do a blog which isn't about gaming! (I know, dull huh?)

 Haven't put anything since GenCon, so let's start with just after that. I traveled directly from Indianapolis, gaming capital of the world (okay, so not entirely not about gaming), to sunny Durham, NC to help out at Duke University's HIGS lab.




 If anyone is interested, HIGS stands for High Intensity Gamma Source. It produces these high-intensity gamma rays (after which it is named) by Compton Back-scattering of FEL photons produced by "wibbling" the electrons  as they travel around the storage ring. This produces a mono-energetic, intense and well polarized beam which can be used to excited a target of interest to observe the levels (and hopefully discover new levels by looking at gamma decays from this target). It can also tell some of the characteristics of the levels due to the set-up of the detectors around the target itself.



So I was around Duke for 2 weeks in total, firstly for "our" experiment and secondly theirs as a further helping hand. It was really good to see Duke University, which has a beautiful campus, especially in the summer since the weather was wonderful all the time. It was a pity that the lab was kept at electronics temperatures, meaning that I had to put a jumper ON whenever I went into the lab.


Plus the ants were annoying, stupid ants and their lines...



Anyway, I'll leave you with this;

To honor my new PFS character, who is a wizard with a big-ass gun! (If anyone reads that as big ass-gun, he'll kill you)

Achievement Unlocked!