After Brett showed my
>>hilariously misguided narrative to the Head honcho, I received an invitation to poke around the Gingin observatory (Australian International Gravitational Observatory: AIGO)! A few days of bunny-hopping the scheduled departure ended in a very long car-trip. So on the very last day of my brother's scholarship-internship-thing, i finally got to visit him and see what they actually get up to out there.
Here are some things i learned that day (in some kind of order):
- Gingin is far away (but not as far as India)
- Aircon is so good.
- Ticks are hard to kill.
- Redback web is incredibly strong and light.
- Ferro-fluid is fascinating.
- 40 metres is an impressive drop.
- I cannot understand skype lectures on parametric instability after a long car-trip.
- Skype lectures are more fun to draw than listen to.
- Medical-grade-clean is not clean enough for AIGO; when AGIO says clean, they mean as-few-particles-as-physically-possible-clean.
- Dark matter/energy is a neat way of saying "we don't know what it is, but we know it's there." Also, it is heavy.
- Pysicists write terrible poetry.
- Cretaceous chalk is made of plankton.
- Trilobites could grow to the size of an umbrella.
- $10,000 seismometers make running left and then right infinitely more entertaining.
- The words "the inverse pendulum is causing problems" lead to a terrible, awkward silence.
- Physicists named the first really massive telescope that was bigger than any other telescope at the time The VLT (Very Large Telescope).
- The Leaning Tower of Gingin would make a wicked set for a STOMP performance, especially if someone dropped a drumstick.
- There is very little private research into pure physics because there is no direct link to industry and therefore very limited opportunity for funding outside govt research grants.
- Exception: new vibration-isolation technologies that can be sold to mining companies for aerial gravitational surveys.
- AIGO's vacuum has less in it than Space.
- Niobium would make the purest xylophone you would ever hear.
And now, please enjoy this non-automated slide-show:
^ The Absentees
^ "you can come in, just don't touch or breathe on anything."
^ Looking for suspension? Check this action out!
^ not for baking potatoes
^ "Pre-cleaned springs: clean enough to eat off, clean enough to sew inside someone, not clean enough for AIGO"
^ "It's not clean unless it's AIGO-clean!"
^ ultrasonic and acid baths.. i think.. and lots of latex.
^ for the discerning physicist
^ full of nothing
^
actually shut away from the world
^ the seismometer!
^ what comes out of the seismometer
^ skype presentation
^ very clean drinking water
^ good job, guys.
^ a place for everything
^ nicely air-conditioned at ground-level only.
^ not joking
^ "Try some eccentric orbits!"
^ giant pendulum
^ I am the Stair Master.
^ not-so-clean water
^ balloon goes here
^ and you have a very long time to wave goodbye
^ everybody is tired from making moon-craters.
^ THE END
*All likenesses published with permission from the people they resemble.
Are you still here? Perhaps you would like to see an official presentation,
>>Einsteins Messengers, from the american observatory, LIGO.
