So, in physics graduate school, you have your quantum mechanics, and your EM, and your statistical mechanics, and classical mechanics, and so on, and all of this is very well and good. And then, if you're very, very lucky, there's machine shop class and it's awesome!!! Obstensibly, the class is to teach you to be a better communicator with machine shops, but you still get to learn how to use the tools! You actually get to learn how to build scientific instruments. It's not for everyone though. Heisenberg for example almost didn't get his PhD because of issues with his experimental lab grades. Machine shop started for me today after missing the first two meetings for an engineering conference last week. Today we started in with the tools. If you'd told me last week that an hour long lecture on saws would be interesting, I might have rolled my eyes, but not anymore! We learned about a few different kinds of saws. Then, we learned t...