Synchrotron and Conference

Saturday morning, we went to the Lawrence Berkeley Synchrotron Open House. We finally got to see the machine Aaron got to use to get the data he needed for his grad work! It's located at the top of Berkeley hill at the Lawrence Berkeley Labs. The synchrotron there is called "The Advanced Light Source" and more info about synchrotrons can be found here.



There are all sorts of computers, pipes and all things scientific at this place. But what amused me the most, was all the tin-foil covering bits of equipment. Intellectually, I know that this is expensive and extremely technical equipment, but the foil just makes it all seem like something in some nerd's garage :D Aaron assures me that it's used for temperature insulation or protection against light exposure. Sure, honey ;)



The top of the hill has this fantastic view. That's the clock tower at UC Berkeley in the foreground and San Francisco Bay in the background.

There was also a "Family Fun Zone" where they had a bunch of hands on science experiments for kids to do.



Adam headed for the bubble experiment area first. Here he is blowing gigantic bubbles against some plastic on the table. The guy running the booth said that Adam had definitely gotten the biggest bubbles of the day! I didn't get a good pic of them, but they were huge!



Then he moved on to blow bubbles into a tank of dry ice to try to freeze them. We got it to work a couple of times, but it was difficult and he found the next booth much more fun.



He thought it was very cool to stand in the middle of a large bubble!



Samuel thought so too! He and Aaron caught up to us at the end of the trip.



Samuel had been busy making an airplane and racing it against some other kids. He came in second and was pretty happy about that.

We had a great time and it was fun to see where Aaron did such an important part of his work.