mmoa_writes

So, at the moment we're doing some experiments to find the dissociation energy of Iodine based on readings of the spectrum. As ever, it took us a while to get going (picked out the computer with a software problem; broke the equipment; listened to the demonstrator, the usual...) but I think now we're pretty much on track and should have a nice set of data by the end of the day.

The only annoying thing is trying to convince the demonstrator that we do know what we're doing. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't help that we made a couple of bad mistakes and had some bad luck with equipment, so I do get why he might think we're a pair of dunderheads who need all th ehelp we can get. Still, it's annoying when he come sin every half hour or so to comment on a rather bizarre set up that took us bloody ages to get that makes just as little sense to us too but seems to work anyway. Even worse when he changes said set up meaning that nothing works when he happens to be observing and results in yet more time wastage as we have to recalibrate the euipment the way we had it to begin with.

*sighs*

And need I add that calibrating involves some very fiddly processes. Slits have to be so wide, lenses have to be rotated just so. The slightest change in any parameter seems to result in chaos. Our experiment sits on a knife's edge and we can only watch in horror when it tips oh-so-terrifyingly-slightly over the edge.

Though that probably means we've done something else wrong, to have an experiment that's apparently so sensitive. Oh bother.

Give me programming/computer modelling any day. You don't have to deal with this crap with virtual experiments.