Lawrence – Page 2 – Decaseconds

Quitting Time at the Lab

2017-Dec-13 adohertyh3 Comments

Snow covered northern New York this week, and the temperature rests in the single degrees Fahrenheit; now is an excellent time to look back at the warm eternal-summer glow of California. Particularly in contrast to the >60-hour-per-week graduate students down on campus, the “standard” workweek of staff at Berkeley Lab was a remarkably normal trend. At the end of the day, with that sunset light arriving, the workers who keep the physical plant running come outside into the evening breeze and head home.

Summer Camp ’17

2017-Nov-03 adohertyhLeave a comment

I never went to summer camp as a child, but I have to imagine that the experience was a bit like sabbatical in the Bay Area: Warm days spent on rewarding activities in a beautiful place.

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.

A Midsummer Night’s City

2017-Sep-06 adohertyhLeave a comment

In the Berkeley Hills, above the National Lab’s Advanced Light Source, the view over Oakland’s twinkling night sprawl entrances. Look at all of those light-emitting objects! As LED lights have replaced sodium vapor models, I’m particularly fascinated in the shift as cities glow white, instead of orange.

Golden in Memory

2017-Aug-16 adohertyh1 Comment

Back in New York, my memories of sabbatical in California have already taken on the golden nostalgia hues of the past. If not for the photographic evidence to the contrary, I might wonder if I’d dreamed the whole thing.

Golden Light on Oakland

2017-Jul-312017-Jul-26 adohertyhLeave a comment

On the trails of Berkeley’s Hall of Science, Bay Area residents watch the last light of the day on the Advanced Light Source and downtown Oakland. The area has multiple layers in physical and information space.

Industrial “Alpine Lodge”

2017-Apr-05 adohertyhLeave a comment

This physical plant building at Berkeley Lab has the broad A-frame structure and charming attic windows of an alpine lodge. It also has an evergreen-encrusted window to Berkeley and the Port of Oakland. In spite of the appearance and the surroundings, this is a highly utilitarian setting. Quite the juxtaposition.

Molecular Foundry

2017-Mar-27 adohertyh1 Comment

The Molecular Foundry’s enormous overhang looks alien up close, but the scale of the structure is really apparent with the lighting beneath the gravity-challenging bulk.

Rather Be Sailing

2017-Mar-24 adohertyhLeave a comment

Morning sun provides very stark, even lighting across the San Francisco Bay. I know rationally that gravity forces the big body of water to be (basically) flat, but the curves of the shore and the shadows of the clouds have always made the Bay itself seem to have hills and valleys. I can also confirm that the water feels pretty far from level when actually sailing it.

Landing the Molecular Foundry

2017-Jan-06 adohertyh2 Comments

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory sits in the Berkeley Hills, so close to multiple centers of scientific and technological innovation; the intellectual climate on its campus is astonishing. One of the newer facilities on campus is the science-fiction-come-to-life Molecular Foundry. The most dramatic part of the building hangs in space above the bay. I can’t resist the image of a spacecraft coming in for a landing.

Big Science Moon

2013-Feb-04 adohertyhLeave a comment

This was the scene over the Berkeley hills last week, as a massive full moon rose over Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. You could practically hear scientists howling, but I suspect that was more because their experiments weren’t working than because they were werewolves.

Given all of the processing that goes into producing an HDR image, I can’t exactly say that this image “hasn’t been Photoshopped.” When you get right down to it, every single image receives some sort of post-processing, even if it’s just to bump up the contrast. What I can say, however, is that the size of the Moon has not been artificially enhanced. Our celestial cousin really was that gorgeous and enormous on this particular evening.

The Path to Sky Island

2012-Nov-282012-Nov-28 adohertyhLeave a comment

In the summer, the Berkeley fire trails become dry and brown. For years, the best part of wandering along those trails is reaching this little evergreen grove on a hill above the dry grass and dirt. Mist from passing clouds leaves droplets of water throughout it, and for a moment, I imagine that I’m riding an island in that sea of grass.