Comments on: Is This It?

Is This It?

mayfly wake — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 14:35:12 -0800

Bubble Chambers are used to observe the tracks of subatomic particles at extremely high resolution. The photographs taken of these tracks are often stunningly beautiful and elegant. This website contains a java applet which simulates a bubble chamber, to gorgeous effect.

By: LeeJay

LeeJay — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 14:51:48 -0800

These are beautiful. I love stuff like this.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 14:54:29 -0800

Oh yeah. I've always been a fan of bubble chamber plates. Its physics and the particle tracks also have an abstract beauty to them. Here's a small collection from my bookmarks that I found on the web some time back when I spent a couple hours or so just looking for bubble chamber photographs.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:03:09 -0800

I also want to add that bubble chambers themselves are kind of futuristic cool.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:17:43 -0800

This was a like a walk back down memory lane! I'd forgotten just how cool bubble chambers are. Thanks for the reminder!

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:34:50 -0800

Um, a discription of the applet says that it does not try to simulate actual quantum phenomena. Just FYI.

By: carter

carter — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:42:05 -0800

Nice stuff - thanks! The simulations are kinda Mandelbroty.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:48:03 -0800

By: apathy0o0

apathy0o0 — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 16:15:13 -0800

Do you want to observe cosmic rays? Can you get some liquid nitrogen or dry ice? This tells you how to see them easily. You can make one of these with some foam, an old coffee pot, alcohol and some LN2. It's really cool, especially the magnet thing, which is also why the bubble tracks show that characteristic spin thing. Anywhere that two spirals spin away from one another, that's some particle without charge turning into two particles with opposite charges, which then are pushed in opposite but identical paths by the magnetic field.

By: numlok

numlok — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:08:56 -0800

Also - The Strokes

By: numlok

numlok — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:23:54 -0800

/thread title. duh...

By: Relay

Relay — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 21:14:04 -0800

Nice. But I have a question: I always heard them referred to as cloud chambers. Then again, this has been quite a while ago, and I really haven't kept in touch.

By: mayfly wake

mayfly wake — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 22:10:26 -0800

Apparently a bubble chamber contains liquified gas and a cloud chamber contains a supersaturated vapor, but they do basically the same thing. Google brought up this site which says "One disadvantage of the cloud chamber is the relatively low density of the gas, which limits the number of interactions between ionizing radiation and molecules of the gas. For this reason physicists have developed other particle detectors, notably the bubble chamber and the spark chamber."