The Devil is in the Details

The Devil truly is in the details. Sadly, the light we were getting from our experiment was faint and lasted only a second or two. Therefore, my advisor sat down and went through every little detail of what we were doing and of course WHY we were doing it. It turns out that I had ordered a slightly different version of the chemical rather than having a BF₄^- ion attached to it I had ordered the analog that had the Cl^- ion attached to it. Well in all honesty they should have been essentially the same because, I thought, we were only working with the positive very large organometallic ion. Well you see Cl^- ions like water, in fact they really really like water. In fact they like water so much that it was essentially pulling it out of the air. BF₄^- ions on the other hand really don’t like water. The thing that turns our light off in the end is once the organometallic ion becomes surrounded by water. Silly rabbit chemicals are not all the same.

Anyway I did feel good later that night when I was converting the bad chemical into the good chemical. My advisor came in and started grilling me on the metathesis reaction I was doing. Why I was doing each step no matter how small. I was starting to feel as though he just didn’t trust me to do this simple synthesis when all of a sudden he said “Well good it sounds like you know what you are doing.” I was amazed and overjoyed. I had received high praise at the graduate level.

and there was light

We we were able to reproduce to a limited extent the results of the other groups. so now it is time for us to start to progress and take our research to the next level.

Another thought and technician to scientist

I believe that I am beginning to understand both the time and the intellectual price that must be paid to move from being a technician to a scientist. I believe that within a few days I could learn to return very nice images from the AFM and data from the XRD.

However to truly understand what I want, which tradeoffs I am willing to accept, that will take time. To comprehend the why of each setting, and to start to appreciate that every turn could lead to a new scientific principle is a journey that I am just beginning.

I thought I understood the scientific method, but now see that I have barely scratched the surface (AFM pun intended) of learning to reason my way through. I am starting to feel a spark in my brain that will cause me to question the things I know and read and make me look deeper into the reason of each detail.

Technician vs. Scientist

Well I am beginning to get a handle on the difference between my old life and my new one.

Today I ran into some problems with the AFM. Nothing really big but my adviser was there and so I simply asked him for the solution. Not so fast. He is a big advocate of the Socratic method of teaching. He turned the question back on me and complicated it even more. Not only did he want me to answer my own question but also to justify all of the other settings on the instrument.

Through careful questioning and helpful pointers he managed to get me to give him the right answers.

It's a tough way to learn but the goal in grad school is to make me an independent thinker. Even as a good technician I didn't have to consider all of the settings nor justify every little step in a process.

The difficult part is learning how to do research in the correct manner that would lead to progress and new discoveries.

Tough but worth it.

love to all

My little brothers

I am including a link to one of my younger brother's blogs. Getting to know them will help you to get to know me.

Here is another one and his Wife.

Of course one more as I find them

Great Weekend

Well sorry it's been a couple of days since the last post. Friday I found out that I did well enough on my placement exams that I am in the courses that I need to be in.

My advisor is awesome! He has given me a lot to think about and set me to the task of taking a concept that he was toying with and working out a proof of concept for it. It relates what we already do in the lab to some practical applications. I should be able to do it in the 6 weeks that I have left in the rotation with him.

Much of what I have been doing for the past couple of days is to spend time reading other related work and determining what we need to run the necessary tests.

One of the materials I will be using is a Gallium Indium alloy. Its fun stuff. It is a lot like Mercury, a metal that is a liquid at room temperature. Great Stuff.

Materials chemistry is great stuff. It is going to allow me to learn many varied aspects of chemistry and still stay inside my field of concentration.

The other day we were able to see some of the "nanowires" we built. They looked like the Washington monument.

Fun Stuff!

AFM

Well today I got to use an Atomic Force Microscope.

I'm working on some really ground breaking stuff. It's really cool.

Of course for the moment it's being directed by the senior grad student and our advisor; but I'm actually doing it and discussing it like I actually know what we're talking about.

Other than the placement exams everything is going well. I have a fridge that works (the people who brought it chipped the paint on the walls) and I have hot water what a great thing it was this morning to take a hot shower for the first time in nearly a week.

I like it here, if it weren't so humid I'd think I was in heaven... love to all and good night