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July 28, 2005 11:43 AM   Subscribe

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass. Frustrated undergrad's lab report. Conclusion: pretty funny.
posted by Idiot Mittens (38 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Results: Check this shit out (Fig. 1).

Heh. Good stuff...
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:46 AM on July 28, 2005


Double, though the predecessor was 3.5 years ago.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 11:48 AM on July 28, 2005


3.5 years ago = ye olde school
posted by gramschmidt at 11:56 AM on July 28, 2005


Wonder what grade he got..
posted by rubin at 12:00 PM on July 28, 2005


Been there. Done that.

(Just with DNA.)
posted by docgonzo at 12:02 PM on July 28, 2005


Love the "check this shit out"
posted by stevejensen at 12:22 PM on July 28, 2005


This guy's going far, no doubt about it.
posted by OmieWise at 12:27 PM on July 28, 2005


Reminds me exactly of my Superlab days at Cornell U. EE school.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:28 PM on July 28, 2005


reminds me of that paper about whether hell is endothermic or exothermic.

Also reminds me of the college experience - undergrads are considered lower than dirt. Lab TA only speaks korean? Grad teaching the course comes unprepared to compressed course? Three separate cases of E-coli in three different campus food services? "Bah", quoth the uni.

What were you expecting, your money's worth? That's reserved for the jocks.
posted by modernerd at 12:39 PM on July 28, 2005



A typical image of me preparing to search out and combat the forces of evil.

Um... yeah.
posted by psychotic_venom at 12:44 PM on July 28, 2005


I can't believe I remember reading this paper when it was first posted on MeFi. It's been 3.5 years?! Dang. Of course, back then, MeFi was the gated community of the internet, so I couldn't comment.

I am curious: did this guy have the balls to turn this paper in? Or is it just a joke he wrote about his frustrations?
posted by teece at 1:00 PM on July 28, 2005


modernerd: where did you go to school? A lot of universities suffer from the academic rot that comes from full-speed-ahead focus on research and sports, but there are a few universities that genuinely care about their undergrads (as much as a large institution can "care," I mean).

This paper is awesome. Lab experiments on stuff like this have to be one of the most painful aspects of science classes.
posted by invitapriore at 1:04 PM on July 28, 2005


What I'm wondering is how WAS he supposed to solder the connectors on if the melting point of germanium is 1720 deg F?
posted by rolypolyman at 1:09 PM on July 28, 2005


Going into physics was the biggest mistake of my life. I should've declared CS. I still wouldn't have any women, but at least I'd be rolling in cash.

Too true...
posted by SweetJesus at 1:10 PM on July 28, 2005


See, this is why I took English. No outdated or busted equipment. Just deaf old profs and sessionals so intoxicated on theory that they became outdated even as their lectures were passing through their lips.
posted by palinode at 1:12 PM on July 28, 2005


This reminds of the time in high school when I tried to measure radiation pressure in my basement (also for physics class).
posted by smackfu at 1:17 PM on July 28, 2005


What I'm wondering is how WAS he supposed to solder the connectors on if the melting point of germanium is 1720 deg F?

solder has a considerably lower melting point than that, around 300-400 F. soldering is like sticking two pieces of metal together with a conductive, metallic glue. the two pieces themselves don't melt when you solder. welding, on the other hand, (typically) involves a melting and re-bonding of the constituent pieces.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 1:20 PM on July 28, 2005


What I'm wondering is how WAS he supposed to solder the connectors on if the melting point of germanium is 1720 deg F?

Soldering has nothing to do with the melting points of the metals being joined, and everything to do with the compatibility of the solder with the joined metals, in terms of their ability to "wet" and form thin inter-linking alloys. That and removal of contaminants and surface oxides prior to soldering. The solder itself must be melted, of course.

(Man, I really have to get a life some day...)
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:21 PM on July 28, 2005


Oops, didn't see sarge on preview!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:23 PM on July 28, 2005


Reminds me of the circuits class I took last semester, although I never got frustrated enough to write a report like that. I don't know if he turned in an amazingly short report out of discontent or if 1 page was all that was expected, but if the latter, he has nothing to complain about; I routinely spent 12 to 14 hours a week doing nothing but preparing 20 page lab reports with dozens of figures and circuit diagrams, and that isn't counting hours of lab time. Everyone hated that class until we got to choose our own semester projects, and then it became wacky and fun. I built a portable, battery-powered geiger counter, which turns out to be a great party trick. A few of us wanted to build a rail gun, and proposed to meet the project requirements by including a firing circuit that used transistors and some ridiculously simple digital gates, but that got shot down. Lab classes can be a lot of fun if you have some freedom to experiment and are interested in the subject.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 1:24 PM on July 28, 2005


Hah. I studied physics at the UW for two years (before switching to mol bio), and I can attest to the crappy state of the undergrad lab equipment.

Funny timing, since we were just discussing/lamenting the sad state of science education in this thread.

The hours spent in crappy labs were almost worth it to hear Dr. Whitlock tell the story about getting drunk and throwing a kilogram brick of potassium into Lake Mendota.
posted by Gamblor at 1:28 PM on July 28, 2005


doh -- thanks for the info about soldering... you all are right...
picturing resistors and capacitors melting uselessly into liquid as I attempt to solder them together
posted by rolypolyman at 1:31 PM on July 28, 2005


Gamblor: UW as in University of Waterloo, or UW as in University of Washington?

I went to the former in Physics. Terrible. *turns on 10,000 volt X-ray generator and runs away*
posted by growli at 1:33 PM on July 28, 2005


University of Wisconsin-Madison; I only mentioned it since that's where the guy who wrote this presumably did this lab.
posted by Gamblor at 1:39 PM on July 28, 2005


The pain is funny. During my unglorious stint in chemistry i could have probably generated a similar chart for the drop in water temperature from refrigerated to room.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 1:46 PM on July 28, 2005


Gamblor: This was actually written about Stanford, not UW-Madison. I worked in the graphics lab with him at UW.
posted by hupp at 1:49 PM on July 28, 2005


Yeah, I realized that after I wrote my comment. But then I saw that he did his graduate and post-doc work at the UW. That was from an undergrad lab course, right?
posted by Gamblor at 2:01 PM on July 28, 2005


I believe the apparent legitimacy is enhanced by the fact that I used a complicated computer program to make the fit. I understand this is the same process by which the top quark was discovered.

Comedic gold!
posted by rkent at 2:25 PM on July 28, 2005


invitapriore: State U of NY at Albany

when the student body showed up for a scheduled meeting with the administration to discuss the many problems, security told them that they had to leave, and one girl ended up getting clocked in the face.

there was a website called Albanysucks.com, I think it was shut down after threats of lawsuit but i forget. There's an albanysux.com that's a forum, and apparently it's still no paradise. I think it was supposed to be getting better around when I graduated.. One of my teachers who sucked was worthy of a personal webpage, which was taken down after threats of lawsuit.

One year they were routinely stuffing 9+ freshmen in the lounge rooms, maybe 12'x18' ish, all kinds of crap. I could go on and on.

I still have fond memories of some of the faculty but it was in some ways ridiculous.
posted by modernerd at 4:10 PM on July 28, 2005


I don't care if this is old. I've read it three times in a row and I'm still giggling.
posted by Uccellina at 4:23 PM on July 28, 2005


Two questions:

Is it just me, or does the guy in the photo have a 3'5" penis?

and...

Shouldn't that be marked NSFW?
posted by FYKshun at 5:22 PM on July 28, 2005


3.5ft = Not Sexy For Women
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 6:28 PM on July 28, 2005


You can not do science experiments by feel. They are for anal m*fl*ers, the ones who notice that the probe is located 0.05 mm off center. Those of us who go through life by feel never have the proper patience to get these experiments right. The worst part - after you have f*d up the data gathering, you have to spend another six hours preparing a detailed lab report with what you know is bonafide, 100%-real (garbage) data. Oh, I feel for this guy. The good news for later on in life - making dinner is a lot more fun, creative, and tasty by feel than by rote (but not cookies or cakes).
posted by caddis at 7:45 PM on July 28, 2005


kinda reminds me of my fav technical paper (PDF below) submitted by NYU computer science professor, David Mazières:

  • David Mazières and Eddie Kohler. Get me off your f-----g mailing list. Submitted to the 9th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics, and Informatics, Orlando, FL, July 2005. paper.

  • posted by jba at 7:57 PM on July 28, 2005


    jba, that's hysterical.
    posted by blindcarboncopy at 11:00 PM on July 28, 2005


    Mmm, technical papers. Chicken.
    posted by event at 9:25 AM on July 29, 2005


    "Banking on my hopes that whoever grades this will just look at the pictures, I drew an exponential through my noise. I believe the apparent legitimacy is enhanced by the fact that I used a complicated computer program to make the fit. I understand this is the same process by which the top quark was discovered."

    Heh.
    posted by snarfodox at 10:37 AM on July 29, 2005


    Wow, small world.

    Hate to break it to everybody, but, as his lab partner on that particular debacle, I must admit that it wasn't, in fact, the final report. IIRC, and my memory is a bit foggy on the subject, smoother temperature control got considerably better results out of it. And, of course, that adventure paled by comparison to the low-temperature physics lab.

    Good times...
    posted by MadDog Bob at 11:01 AM on July 29, 2005


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