Photo Contest - She Blinded Me With Science (8/12-8/18)

[ZapperZ]

She Blinded Me With Science

Your photo this week must have, as its main subject, a clear connection to Science. But there is an added restriction here. The photo must not have been taken using a scientific instrument. It must have been taken with a typical, consumer-level camera. This means that an image from a CCD camera attached to an electron microscope does not qualify, for example.

Good luck!

Contest Rules:

1. Any digital photo or digitally-scanned photo relevant to the theme will be accepted within the contest period. In case there's a gray area, or you're not sure if the picture is suitable, check with me first.

2. Please resize your digital photo to no more than 800 x 600 or 600 x 800 pixels. You may also crop your picture if you wish. You are also allowed to adjust the brightness and contrast of your picture but these should not dramatically alter the look of the picture. But other than those, any form of picture editing or modification is not allowed. This is a photo contest, not a picture editing/special effect contest. You may add a watermark or your name/nickname to the photo for identification purposes.

3. Upload your photos to any of the photo servers such as imageshack or photobucket. Then post it the relevant contest thread and link your picture using the img command. PM me if you do not know how. Alternatively, you may simply upload your image file to PF, and then have the full image displayed in your post.

4. Only ONE picture per member per contest. Once a picture is posted, it cannot be changed other than a total withdrawl by that member from that week's photo contest. Exceptions will be made for modification to comply with the rules, such as resizing.

5. At the end of the contest period, I will open a poll and every PF member can vote for the picture they like best.

6. Note that in case we have a large number of entries, I will do the polling in more than one thread. If that's the case, you can vote in each of the polling threads. The photos will be assigned in the polling threads in the order they were submitted.

7. The photo of the subject must be something that you took directly, not via in intermediary medium, and not taken by someone else. Unless otherwise noted, a photo of another photo, painting, print, etc. does not qualify.

8. You can use a picture only once. Once it is used in a contest, it cannot be reused in another contest.

9. Please post only pictures meant for submission in this thread. Photos not meant for submission must not be posted in the contest thread. Posting of more than one photos by a member may result in an automatic disqualification from the week's contest.

Zz.

 

[DennisN]

Spectral lines from a homemade spectrometer (light from a fluorescent lamp, or possibly a LED lamp, I don't remember )

 

[ZapperZ]

Directing high-energy electrons from a particle accelerator, passing them through a Be window and out into the air, and smashing them into an aerogel to look at the Cerenkov radiation. Yup, this one was fun.

Zz.

 

[davenn]

Directing high-energy electrons from a particle accelerator, passing them through a Be window and out into the air, and smashing them into an aerogel to look at the Cerenkov radiation. Yup, this one was fun.

my job is truly boring in comparison

 

[Janus]

Science on a budget. Playing with polarizers.

Largest polarizer is in the foreground, smallest is behind it and mid-sized one is between the other two.

 

[AlexCaledin]

Moscow University, 1985, by Nikolay Bogolyubov's room.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Bogolyubov

 

[George Jones]

Second-year undergrad lab version of J. J. Thomson's classic e over m experiment for electrons. I teach this lab every winter, and students often make positive written comments about the fun-value of this experiment on the end-of-semester evaluations.

 

[OmCheeto]

For the upcoming eclipse, I've been experimenting with the most mundane of things, which we all take for granted, but are serious business when there's insufficient infrastructure.
Here are two examples of "how to make coffee" failed experiments.

1. Tea leaf thingy on the left: Makes slightly brownish water.
2. Pouring hot water into coffee pot filter and grounds thingy on the right: By the time you've re-poured the coffee through the filter, in order for it to not be slightly brownish water, the coffee is pretty much cold.

I will be buying instant.

 

[Janus]

View attachment 209244

For the upcoming eclipse, I've been experimenting with the most mundane of things, which we all take for granted, but are serious business when there's insufficient infrastructure.
Here are two examples of "how to make coffee" failed experiments.

1. Tea leaf thingy on the left: Makes slightly brownish water.
2. Pouring hot water into coffee pot filter and grounds thingy on the right: By the time you've re-poured the coffee through the filter, in order for it to not be slightly brownish water, the coffee is pretty much cold.

I will be buying instant.

There's always the old camping method: Heat water on stove or campfire in kettle. Add coffee to heated water. Boil until coffee is of desired strength. Remove from heat to allow grounds to settle. Pour coffee into cup. If you are really particular about grounds in your coffee, you can pour through a fine strainer.

 

[Dr Transport]

There's always the old camping method: Heat water on stove or campfire in kettle. Add coffee to heated water. Boil until coffee is of desired strength. Remove from heat to allow grounds to settle. Pour coffee into cup. If you are really particular about grounds in your coffee, you can pour through a fine strainer.

I read an article in an outdoorsman type magazine, to settle the grounds in a pot of coffee, pour a cup of cold water slowly into the pot. I need to try this when I get home and get ah hold of my old camp pot...

 

[Janus]

I read an article in an outdoorsman type magazine, to settle the grounds in a pot of coffee, pour a cup of cold water slowly into the pot. I need to try this when I get home and get ah hold of my old camp pot...

Another trick, if you happen to be making breakfast at the time, is to add egg shells to the coffee as you boil it. They help to settle the grounds and reduce the acidity

 

[Dr Transport]

Yes, that is another trick...

 

[fresh_42]

Another trick, if you happen to be making breakfast at the time, is to add egg shells to the coffee as you boil it. They help to settle the grounds and reduce the acidity

I've heard (and tested) to add backing soda "softens" the water and makes the coffee more tasty. I even once made a coffee with sparkling drinking water, which also had this effect.

 

[OmCheeto]

Another trick, if you happen to be making breakfast at the time, is to add egg shells to the coffee as you boil it. They help to settle the grounds and reduce the acidity

I liked your first idea better. That "tea leaf thingy" has a very fine mesh.
And I'm sure that my eggs would be raw, scrambled, and broken, long before I get to my destination.
(My truck, rides like a, um, well, a truck.)

 

[Dr Transport]

I use filtered water, can't wait to get back to the house tomorrow and use my reverse-osmosis filtered water for coffee, the stuff I use out of the tap here in Fort Worth makes terrible stuff, barely drinkable and I use Starbucks grounds. Even the Starbucks store at work doesn't use filtered water and it is in my estimation not up to their standards. Maybe I'll bring the Zero water filter back with me next week.

 

[OmCheeto]

There's always the old camping method: Heat water on stove or campfire in kettle. Add coffee to heated water. Boil until coffee is of desired strength. Remove from heat to allow grounds to settle. Pour coffee into cup. If you are really particular about grounds in your coffee, you can pour through a fine strainer.

I did a slight modification of this method this morning. Starbucks sells a pseudo-instant coffee pack, which is "powdered" coffee grounds, that you simply pour into hot water. I've tried it before, and I really liked it. So I powdered some of my grounds in my coffee grinder this morning, did just what you said, strained it through a paper coffee filter, and it came out perfectly.

Bazinga!

 

[OmCheeto]

I use filtered water, can't wait to get back to the house tomorrow and use my reverse-osmosis filtered water for coffee, the stuff I use out of the tap here in Fort Worth makes terrible stuff, barely drinkable and I use Starbucks grounds. Even the Starbucks store at work doesn't use filtered water and it is in my estimation not up to their standards. Maybe I'll bring the Zero water filter back with me next week.

Most of our metropolitan area(Portland Oregon) has bottled quality water coming out of the tap. I lived in Illinois, Florida, California, Hawaii, Washington, and Idaho, during my six years in the navy, and some of that water wasn't fit to flush a toilet with, IMHO.

Odd to think we flush our toilets with bottled water.

Anyways... my "coffee" science experiment is done.

 

[fresh_42]

The usual drinking water from the tabs here is the best controlled food in the country and often of a better quality than "mineral waters". Only the content of lime is sometimes a bit high.

Today I received a spam mail suggesting something to substitute coffee! The first time I got such a humorous spam.