pictures from LIGO

[nibot]

LIGO-Hanford Control Room

Beamline electronics cabinets (VME crates)

Testing circuit boards

My rental car on some Hanford road

Arrival back in Rochester (the plane didn't make it all the way to the gate, due to the snow -- or something)

Comments

[codetoad.livejournal.com]

Can I have permission to use the first image on davis wiki with the label ("Wiki Control Center" ?:))

[nibot.livejournal.com]

sure! (-:

if anyone wants more info on what it really is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO

[codetoad.livejournal.com]

Is it okay if I put it on that wikipedia page as well?

[nibot.livejournal.com]

haha.. sure. I have a people page there too btw.

Sorry

[vyncentvega.livejournal.com]

Dear Tobin,

I am sorry for being flaky and not returning your call on Friday night. I hope I can make it up to you, preferably in the exchange of beer (mine) for friendship (yours).

Yours,
Kris

Re: Sorry

[nibot.livejournal.com]

n/p -- although i must say, i was urgently calling you to offer you massive quantities of alcohol. that's what you missed out on!

wait, according to four's recent comic, you missed out on THE LAST SUPPER!

Re: Sorry

[vyncentvega.livejournal.com]

Curses! That'll teach me. I've always wanted to participate in a biblical event/famous painting.

[vyncentvega.livejournal.com]

P.S., that last pictures is hilarious. They had to bring the stairway up to the plane, on the back of an ancient Ford pickup? Awesome.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

haha.. it's even funnier if you watched tonight's Arrested Development (http://www.fox.com/arresteddev/).

[i feel dirty for saying that.. i mean "if you watched tonight's [any tv programme]" -- yuck!]

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

Beautiful =)

[spoonless.livejournal.com]

Way cool... for some reason that control center reminds me of the movie War Games.

And what are those red LED clocks counting down to? Kinda scary looking! Or is one of them just GMT?

[nibot.livejournal.com]

On the left is UTC, on the right is PST.. counting up, to the heat death of the universe.

[probablevacancy.livejournal.com]

LIGO control looks super cool. /You is lucky.

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

It took me a while to recognise you with the dark glasses. I can only imagine they are to protect you from some exotic gamma rays or something.

laser goggles

[nibot.livejournal.com]

protect from lasers.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

actually, "exotic gamma rays" is somewhat correct. "gamma rays (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_rays)" are just photons — really high energy (= high frequency = short wavelength) photons. The danger with laser light is that the intensity of light (the number of photons) is very high, whereas with gamma rays the danger is because each photon (there will probably be fewer of them) has high energy.

[shamster.livejournal.com]

Very cool pictures. You should pic your workplace at Roch. as well.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

oh, good plan. i just moved into a new office, too!

[nibot.livejournal.com]

btw, do you know about Clebsch-Gordon coefficients?

[shamster.livejournal.com]

I've heard of them referred to as Hahn polynomials (methinks). And yes, I used them somewhat in studying angular momentum, but my practice in calculating them is... rusty at best. Uhhh... there are some online calculators if you require that kind of thing, supposing you know (or need to find out?) your quantum numbers to define the system.

Are we talking about the same thing?