a reasonably productive weekend

[kareina]

This weekend I stayed home, which is to say, at uni, which is more or less home. I put in a total of 12 hours of uni-work this weekend, though all I have to show for it is increase understanding--there are no tangible results as of yet. Part of what I did was attempt to weld a little gold capsule on my own. I think I need to do it again with someone with experiance present, because I'm not able to find the correct voltage to do the job. I did, however, learn an important lesson. It seems that we have two different sharpeners with which to sharpen the graphite point of the welder. One of them makes a much sharper point than the other. It also turns out that sharper points need a lower voltage. I had been working with the sharpener which does a duller point (since I didn't know about the other one), and it was necessary to keep adjusting the voltage up in an attempt to find a level whcih will actually cause the gold to melt together in a pretty bead rather than leave the ugly blackened lumpy mess. Then I grabbed the other sharpener (which looks the same as the first) and used it and saw that I got a much sharper point. I did not realize the implications of this change, so I set it to the gold without changing the voltage on the welder. ZAP! the entire end of the capsule melted, and a hole melted right through it. It was stunning. Alas, I haven't yet got the camera working with the microscope and so didn't take photos. Perhaps I'll have better luck with the next practice session now that I know just how sharp one can get those graphite points.

The other uni tasks I did involved a much closer reading of a 1977 paper which describes how to create the diagrams showing the relationship between various chemical reactions that form metamorphic minerals and temperature and pressure. I've been seeing these diagrams (and to some extent using them), but these days they are computer generated. Back then humans did the calculations to get a rough idea of the slope of the lines, then used logic to figure out how the lines intersected. Since my work will, ultimately, result in my generating such diagrams (automatically) it occurs to me that I need a better understanding of how they are made. Therefore I've been tracing the various figures from their paper in CorelDraw (so that I can better see what is going on by using colours for lines and labels and so that I can superimpose the ones that are similar to see where/how they are different and also re-typing up some of their tables so that they are easier to read/understand as well. Background stuff which, I hope, will make things easier later, but could be seen as thumb-twiddling getting in the way of "real work" (like writing papers of my own). I also typed up my notes from the capsule preparation/welding lesson I was given on Thursday and have it nearly ready to post in my science blog, but it needs photos for illustration, so that can wait. It is good that I typed them--I'd forgotten a minor (but not crucial) step in my attempt on my own (even though I was working with my hand-written notes at the time).

After the two weeks away, it was nice to have a weekend off where I didn't go anywhere (other than for a walk). It is only 20:30, but I think I'll go home early tonight (I've been here till after midnight the past few nights catching up on e-mail and chatting with clovis_t, who is in Scotland now. I am looking forward to getting the keys to my new apartment on Wednesday. It may only be an oversized closet, but having it directly across the street from my office will make it much easier to run back and forth between the two. My intention is to treat my office as my living room, and the apartment as my bedroom/storage unit/kitchen/bathroom. I'm planning on keeping all of my non-fiction books and craft/sewing supplies here in the office, so in the evenings I can sit at the computer and listen to language tapes or music, or talk to people via skype while working on projects.