Copasetic Flow

Lab Book 2014_07_23     Hamilton Carter Summary: The NaI detector still isn't giving good results despite additional efforts to understand its operation and any possible problems.  Tomorrow, the base that provides voltage to the tube will be rebuilt.  The can crusher simulation code has produced its first correct looking current output results.  A pulsed mgnetic field from a can crusher will be used to quiench the superconducting Pb sample in the experiment  The cna crusheer simulation code is being used to model the magnetic fields that will be avilable. If you're new to the experiment, scroll to the bottom for background. The can crusher simulation code is alive!  I’m porting the original IDL code used in the AJP article [1] about the can crusher over to Sage.  The project is open source and is hosted on github [2].  The pulsed magnetic field from a can crusher apparatus like the one described in the article is goin...

Picture 1 is taken from Villard's report[5] on long delay echoes (LDEs) There's lots of science out there still to be done, even in age old hobby of ham radio.  In one of my recent posts, I talked about Operation Smoke Puff, and experiment that bounced radio signals off a man-made cloud of ions to a distant receiver.  The project was sponsored by the military with hopes of being able to provide longer distance radio communications by creating a made-to-order skip path. As it turns out, radio signals and the ionosphere are quite capable of providing long distance communications paths all by themselves, for folks who don't happen to own a missile launcher.  In some cases, a signal can be made to transmit around the entire planet.   Many amateur radio operators have experienced the phenomenon of round-the-world radio skips where the transmitted signal continues to bounce, completing a path that spans the globe and arrives back at the station.  The radio opera...

Summary:  I'm still checking and re-checking the NaI detector.  I've yet to get a reliable spectrum out of it, but last night's run at least has distinguishable peaks.  The company that made our detector 50 years ago believes that we probably do have an RCA 45xx series photomultiplier tube which would mean that the 2400 V bias I have to drive the tube at to get  a signal is actually OK.  The 45xx series has a maximum bias voltage of 2500 V. If you're new to the experiment, scroll to the bottom for background. The Cs137 spectra that was started at 3:13 PM yesterday was ended today at about 9:50 AM.  The photo of the spectrum follows There are a number of oddly shaped peaks that may ben been created by channel overflow now that I think about it.  The data was printed and the linear chart is shown below: If I ‘fix’ the supposed channel overflow by adding the value of the full register back in to the count, on the first step I get...

There's an ongoing effort to save HAARP from the demolition block [4], and as it inevitably does in all matters HAARP, the topic of chemtrails came up.  Chemtrails are by and large considered to be an urban legend, but like all good legends, it turns out there's more than a trace of truth embedded in the story  Perhaps the chemtrail legend has propagated so well because the ham radio community at large was involved in the first experiment that might have blossomed into the chemtrail mythos.  During a magical period, in the mid '50s  the United States Air Force experimented with augmenting the performance of the ionosphere, (think HAARP), by creating airborne clouds of particulate reflectors, (think chemtrails). In his landmark 1958 article describing the experiment[1], author Michael Gladych, (expect to see  more about Gladych in these pages soon), first explained what the ionosphere was, first in words: "In this electronic age, everybody knows that the ion...

Summary: The photomultiplier tube on the NaI detector doesn't seem to be doing quite what it should.  There's a generally held belief, (when I say generally held belief, read, "a professor told me"), that the count rates aren't high enough.  Last week, the case of the tube was arcing to my hand making nice little static shock looking flashes of light.  Consequently, I spent today doing research on the three most likely PMT tubes that are housed within the detector.  Since the tube is surrounded by a mu metal magnetic shield, it can't be inspected to find it's exact type.  I have a call in to the company that purchased the original manufacturer, and hopefully they can figure out which kind of tube we have.  In the mean time, I've turned down the tube bias which seems to have stopped the arcing.  I've also inspected the voltage divider that provides the accelerating potential for the dynodes in the PMT.  This inspection could just as easily have s...

You might remember one of my G+ posts[2] from a few months ago, about a video wherein a Soviet astronaut spun a small wingnut, OK, so not the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character, an actual wingnut[3]: +Bruce Elliott  pointed out in a comment to the original post, (see below), that rotating an object, like a book, about its intermediate axis, (an axis parallel to the bottom edge of the cover), will cause unstable rotation. Now, Brian Weinstein of T he Fouriest Series [1] has posted a mathematica demo complete with gifs of the rotating book.  On top of that, he includes a link to a gist that contains the Mathematica code [4] for creating the rotation demo. Here's the rotating book image from Brian's page, which I'd advise following if you enjoy mathy gifs! G+ post mentioned above References: 1.  Awesome intermediate rotation page http://fouriestseries.tumblr.com/post/91685028535/rotational-stability 2.  G+ post https://plus...

Summary: Much more plunking around with the NaI detector and sources today.  A Pb shield was built to eliminate cosmic ray muons as well as potassium 40 radiation from the concreted building.  The spectra are much cleaner, but still don't have the count rates or distinctive peaks that are expected. New to the experiment?  Scroll to the bottom to see background and get caught up. Lab Book Threshold for the QVT is currently set at -1.49 volts.  Remember to divide this by 100 to get the actual threshold voltage. A new spectrum recording the lines of all three sources, Cs 137, Co 60, and Sr 90, was started at approximately 10:55. Took data for about an hour. Started the Cs 137 only spectrum at about 11:55 AM Here’s the no-source background from yesterday In comparison, here’s the 3 source spectrum from this morning. The three source spectrum shows peak structure not exhibited by the background alone. I forgot to take scope pictur...