8 AM Lab. . .

So as you all knew, I took Physics this term. Yay. . .

I already talked about the extremely wild experience I had with all the creativity and stuff, but all that is within the classroom. In lab, it is a completely different yet not very different at all thing.

Since I was not a Physics major in High School (and will never be a Physics major, no, thank you, but if my chances of majoring in Physics in college before coming to Carleton was 0%, then it has been pushed considerably, up to 30% even, after taking this one class. Highly recommended!), I really never had a chance to step foot into a Physics lab, and boy was I not surprised when I saw the Physics lab at Carleton. Admittedly, a bit plain. But what else can you do with Physics? The equipment just does not make sense to untrained eyes. And it’s pretty unappealing too, unlike in Chemistry, where you can recognize that oh, that’s a test tube and oh those are very colourful substances, or in Biology, where you know a petri dish upon seeing it. Physics lab is just something else.

I remember my first day at lab, trying to determine the time it takes for a person to react to an event (or something along that line), and it was definitely not what I imagined. Boy, it was truly hard, coming to a definitive conclusion that everyone could agree upon, and wow, there really are many ways about which you can approach a problem. I struggled a bit too, because I didn’t know that lab required you to design your own experiment.

I mean, while in Chemistry, it was true that I designed experiments on my own in the past, but it was a more pleasant experience for I knew what I was doing at that time. But in Physics, there were just about hundreds of ways you can come up with a unique experiment of your own, but my lack of experience and contact with a real lab really hindered me. But I had a lot of fun taking measurements, arguing whether or not a measurement actually belonged, graphing stuff and presenting it to the professor and the lab assistants.

And there are times we get to experiment with the electron gun in mass spectrometry lab. I still have no idea what it was, but long story short, after hooking up all the wires and stuff, we could adjust the voltage and the strength of the electric current to modify the paths of the electron “beam” thingy (we made it go in a circle, and then in a helix, or in a straight line, so on & so forth). I was so scared to turn up the voltage, because I was all “ohmygod is it going to electrocute me?” but it was a wild and very fun experience, nonetheless.

I love lab here. It allows for creativity and fun experiments. You can actually enjoy yourself while playing around with equipment (safely!!!), while maintaining productivity at the same time. It’s simply wonderful, and I love every second of it.

The only complaint I have about this lab is probably the fact that it starts at 8 am. Boy, oh boy. It’s just . . . a bit early.