Work work work

Sorry, it's been a while

Alright let's get to it. Work has been going very well the past couple of days, and that's for a very specific reason. We've actually had things to do. At the same time, it hasn't been overwhelming and we've normally had about half a day off each day. It's nice, but still wish I could be doing some thing more. So think back on the interferometer I've described previously. What we've done was replace the target with a more manufactured version on the same target. We finally got it back and had set it up. However the motor is right next to the target in this version, and causes it to shake rather violently. This means that the fringes go haywire for a split second every time you try to move the target. So our program would not work for stabilizing it. What we did instead on Tuesday, was set up a millitron, which looks like a metal finger that you set on the target and it reads displacements of up to a micron. Then we tried to rotate the target around so that we could see how much it wobbled, and try to stabilize it using the picomotors attached to the mount. This did not produce the results we wanted, and we discovered the screw holding the target in place on the mount, actually would be shaken out of the mount because of the vibrations in the motor. We replaced it with a bigger screw to ensure it would no longer do that. Then during lunch, we talked to Antonin about our problems with the stabilization, and he described a much simpler process to use then we had thought of. See the target mount has three points, one of them is fixed, the other two are controlled by the picomotors and these adjust the angle. If we set the points to be exactly equal, then the wobble should disappear. So we measured the position of the fixed point with the millitron, then turned it to the next point, and so on and so forth until we could stabilize the thing. Unfortunately, even using this simple method we could not get it to work. We then realized that the problem was the fixed screw kept jostling out of place. So we got thread glue and stuck it back in there and it didn't move any more. Then we were able to stabilize it and watch its rotation barely move by shooting the beam of the laser to a point on the wall and seeing that it didn't precess at all. Which is what the last target had done. However after we got the fringes back from the interferometer, we realized that the vibrations of the motor made it impossible to use that program to stabilize it any more, and it's nowhere near as stable as it would need to be if we were trying to generate attosecond pulses off of it. So in short, the homegrown version was much better. We spent Wednesday morning reassembling it, and stabilizing it. It works so much better and smoother than the manufactured version it's not even funny. In my down times at work, I've been reading the Dark Tower III book: The Waste Lands. It's quite an interesting read and raises some interesting questions. I'm excited to see how it turns out.

In my down times back home, I've been wondering around Paris. On Tuesday, I read at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, which is across the river from Notre Dame and offers a lovely view when one tires of the page. I'm going to spend way too much money there. I think I might buy Finnegan's Wake there, even though I may never read it. It's a crazy book. Also people like to dance around the edges of the Seine at night, I discovered. One of the girls who works with Mir is done after this week, and she had a picnic at the banks of the Seine under Notre Dame. It was beautiful, all lit up in the night, and the angle we had to look at it was incredible. Also booked my trip to Prague on Tuesday. Visit the homeland. Then yesterday, Jay and Drew and I went to dinner at another Mexican food place near Bastille. It was good, but different from the first one. Also got some gelato after it and wondered down to Quai de la Gare. Once on a bridge across the Seine, the sun was going down and you could see Notre Dame and it looked absolutely beautiful.

"I am the Walrus."
- John Lennon

No you're not.