Chemistry – Decaseconds

Johnson Hall on the Compass

2022-Oct-072022-Oct-06 adohertyh1 Comment

Following principles of green design, St. Lawrence University’s Johnson Hall of Science was built facing north-south, such that light throughout the day could be used to light rooms on both sides. The inner courtyard even features a light stone facade to help bounce more light into the inner offices. (I can attest that this works.) When the rest of the campus was constructed along the local street grid, rather than the compass points, the result is that JHS looks like a bit of a rebel among its neighbors.

Filters on a Shelf

2021-Apr-162021-Apr-15 adohertyhLeave a comment

A well-stocked and well-arranged chemistry lab tends to accumulate localized collections of one specific part that wind up looking like a page from a scientific supplies catalog.

Schlenk Line in Development

2021-Apr-052021-Apr-04 adohertyh1 Comment

This is my Schlenk line; there are many like it, but this one is mine. The double-manifold design allows my students and me to expose samples to either vacuum or inert gas (argon, in this case.) Every line has little tweaks and customizations made by the scientist using it, and is thus inevitably a work-in-progress. This particular line very much needs a full-time vacuum gauge as its next addition.

3D Printing Materials

2021-Mar-262021-Mar-26 adohertyhLeave a comment

In addition to photography, I’ve been exploring 3D printing in the past few years. I’ve found that it’s a great route to making small objects to support my science work. In this case, I was developing a holder to support a 12.7 mm pressed solid sample pellet inside the space normally occupied by a 10-cm pathlength liquid-handling cuvette. The result is this odd rectangular shape that unlocks to hold the “too wide” pellet diagonally—thanks, square root of two!

In these forms, I was working with a variety of materials, including glass-reinforced nylon, lost-wax-cast brass, and a bronze/steel powder combination.

Alchemist’s Quarters

2020-Nov-18 adohertyhLeave a comment

Okay, so it’s not a real alchemist’s quarters. Nonetheless, I was chuffed to find antique chemical apparatus when visiting the medieval quarters of Prague Castle.

Clement Academy of Chemistry

2020-Apr-08 adohertyhLeave a comment

Trinity College’s Chemistry Department, site of the invention of cyanoacrylate adhesives, still resides in the neo-gothic Clement Hall. During our time there in the early 2000s, the Harry-Potter-esque design combined with the “magical” reactions we ran made it easy to view the building as precisely the place real-world wizards would work.

Chemistry from the Library

2019-Sep-042019-Sep-03 adohertyhLeave a comment

One of Trinity College’s oldest buildings (Clement Hall, home to the Chemistry Department where I got my bachelor’s) is across from one of its newest (Raether Library and IT Center). From inside the modern surfaces and behind the modern windows, Clement looks even more Hogwartsian than it does typically.

Spectroscopy Lab

2018-Jun-20 adohertyhLeave a comment

Approaching the summer solstice, the start of fall-semester classes and their attendant labs seems far away, but a new class of St. Lawrence first-year students will be here before I know it.

This was one of the light sources students were interrogating: a sodium lamp, like the ones used in street lights (at least in the twentieth century—LED street lamps are becoming increasingly dominant now.)

Spectroscopy Lab

2017-Oct-27 adohertyhLeave a comment

After spending my entire adult life as a laboratory scientist, the web of gas lines and vacuum pumps and electrical cable seems normal. I do understand, rationally, that all of this looks overwhelming. There’s so much purpose and productivity behind the network, however, that it’s worth the sophistication.

Redox Steeple

2015-May-29 adohertyh4 Comments

The new steeple on Gunnison Memorial Chapel is installed (remember when it arrived?) and beginning to react with the atmosphere around it. This chemistry, in which copper metal transfers electrons to non-metal atoms from the air to become an ion, is called “reduction-oxidation” chemistry—abbreviated “redox.” Seeing this reaction happen on such a large scale, and produce such an awesome array of colors, is a treat.

Ghost in the Stock Room

2014-Sep-24 adohertyhLeave a comment

A spooky edge creeps into the mood and the lighting of laboratory spaces when the lights are off and the everyday staff have gone.

Advanced Lab

2014-Feb-17 adohertyh1 Comment

Johnson Hall of Science is an unusually green building—particularly for one filled with hoods and hazardous chemicals. It also happens to have a truly surreal geometry that messes with your head a bit, if you let it. The ceilings have been sloped to better reflect daylight, reducing the need for electric lighting. The result is this Alice-in-Wonderland-esque lab space.

Vacuum Parts

2013-Dec-02 adohertyhLeave a comment

When you’re working with an ultra-high vacuum chamber, there’s no “popping down to the hardware store for a spare part.” Over the years, spares and replacements and antiquated equivalents and almost-still-good parts tend to accumulate in the cabinets of a physics lab. Cabinets start to look like set dressing in a sci-fi movie.

College of Chemistry

2013-Mar-11 adohertyhLeave a comment

UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry is truly massive, occupying five interlinked buildings in a massive complex (with tendrils reaching out to half a dozen other buildings.) Even the courtyard at the center of the complex actually functions as the roof for two more floors of subterranean lab and office spaces (including my own.) From an aerial photography context, I suppose you could call this my self-portrait.

Effusion Cell II

2012-Dec-212012-Dec-21 adohertyh1 Comment

This is another photograph from a lab in the Charles Harris Group at UC Berkeley. I previously photographed this effusion cell apparatus from an orthogonal orientation, but I also found this shot at its long axis intriguing. The sense of complexity and purpose, but also the sense of aesthetic minimalism, always attracts me to physics apparatuses.