Tag: curiosity

Trucker’s Hitch

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Knotted rope
Always Be Closing Prepared.

When we describe a typical day in the shop, we always hedge and point out that there is no such thing. Walking in to work every morning, you wonder what surprises the shop has in store. At any time, the most unusual requests will walk through the door. Yes, we set priorities. Some needs are more pressing than others. Certain departments (the ones whose budgets support us) get preferential treatment. Some jobs can simply be done in just a few minutes.

We’ll stop all but the most important, time-sensitive work to fix a problem that only takes a few minutes.

Then there are the times when a project is going someplace unexpected. Testing out new ideas. Research outside the usual comfort zone. To be clear: research is always stretching into new, unexplored territory; that’s what makes it so fascinating! But sometimes that territory includes stepping outside the lab.

Physics: not typically set up for regular fieldwork.

Recently it’s become important to brush up on knot-tying. Good, sturdy, easy-to-remember knots for an unusual situation. Testing, tying, repeating. (Making a few mistakes; correcting.) Settling in on the bowline, the alpine butterfly loop and bend, and the trucker’s hitch. Good names. Better knots.

The bowline – rabbit, hole, tree, etc. – is simple to tie, won’t come undone under load, and makes a sturdy loop to fix one end of a rope. A dedicated individual can even tie it with one hand. Let’s all hope it doesn’t come to that.

The alpine butterflies are a pair of near-identical knots for different purposes. The loop creates a sturdy loop in the middle of a length of rope, and can be used to shorten a rope, too. It won’t slip or bind, and no matter how hard you pull it, it’s still a breeze to untie with fingertips. A bend, in knot-tying parlance, connects two lengths of rope, and the alpine butterfly bend is simply a variant on the loop where two ropes of about the same thickness tie together. Repair a damaged rope. Create a longer one. Tie one length into a giant circle. You’ve got options.

Plus, they look neat during the tying process, which wraps the rope about one hand in a butterfly shape before snugging tight. Makes it super-easy to remember, and if you’re learning a series of scouting knots, you know you’re going to end up someplace you can’t check your phone for a last-minute refresher.

Practice, practice, practice.

And then… the trucker’s hitch. It can start with an alpine butterfly loop (so why not?), then loops back about itself to provide a pulley-like mechanical advantage to tighten it down. Just keep pulling the loose rope until you reach the right tension, freeing you from the need to perfectly guess your length. A pair of half-hitches finish it up, distinct from the load pressure, making it a snap to untie when the time comes.

So. Bowline to start at one end. Alpine butterfly for a solid loop, leading into a trucker’s hitch that can tighten down as hard as we can make it. Keep our loads solid and stable in the wind and weather, and they’ll still untie in moments when we’re done.

Can-knot wait to see how this plays out in the field.

Radio knobs

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Drawer full of knobs
Drawer label says “Radio Knobs,” and that’s actually what’s inside.

There’s a tendency in the shop to scrounge and save almost everything. You never know when something might come in handy, and experience has shown, over and over, that there’s value in all but the junkiest junk. And even that, if sufficiently large/heavy/whatever, can be an effective doorstop, or spray paint shield, or otherwise helpful bit of plain old physical mass. When a piece of equipment breaks and is just irreparable, you dig out the good bits and set ’em aside.

It’s important to keep track of which boxes contain the useful bits and which the junk. Sometimes the difference isn’t immediately obvious.

There’s a drawer in one of our storage rooms labeled “Radio Knobs.” Indeed, that’s what’s inside. Collected by our predecessors from an array of broken equipment, calmly waiting their turn to be useful once more.

And, yes, they have been useful.

Plans

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Architectural plans
Stamps, signatures, and everything!

Tucked away in a back corner – we have so many of those – sits a set of the architectural plans for the Tressler Observing Laboratory from 2014. What had once been an exterior deck is now, thanks to a very generous gift, a fully enclosed structure housing six telescopes. On a good night for observing, or astrophotography, or simply appreciating the wonders of the cosmos, the building’s roof slides away, revealing the night sky. It’s a neat trick.

The plans are a (recent) historical artifact, a little water-damaged, but still fully readable. Nothing much in here you can’t just walk over and see in person, of course. For those with an architectural inclination, though, skimming through detail drawings is an always-interesting pursuit.

Fulgurites

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Box of petrified Jersey lightning
“Petrified Jersey Lightning”

We have multiple storage rooms, each with shelves, cabinets, drawers, and seemingly endless places to tuck away small objects. It’s easy, so easy, to simply forget something. Then, years later, someone else gets the joy of stumbling across it.

Sometimes it’s a century or more.

Petrified Jersey Lightning

or

Fulgurites from South Jersey collected by John G. [unknown]

Presented to Physics Dept 1/14/10

Fulgurites!
Neat!

That would be January 14th, 1910.

Fulgurites are a mineraloid formed when lightning strikes the earth and fuses mineral grains. They come in as many varieties as there are different types of soil, and as we’re in Physics, not Geology, our understanding of the particulars is as reliant on Wikipedia as yours.

We can only guess as to why John gifted Physics with these 112 years ago, but we appreciate it. Everyone should have the chance to stumble across a little petrified Jersey lightning from time to time.