Hey, you are first on the list if I make a second edition in the fall! I’ve had 10 or so people ask to buy copies, so we’ll see if I can find a way to make it happen. :-)
annie, on
You are a good teacher! believe it! you can make complex stuff accessible. Thanks! the book is beautiful.
Aphyr, on
This is a quick snapshot of what I’m working on now. The really bright line is the lasing medium. It’s a glass tube filled filled with helium and neon. We run electricity through it to excite the helium atoms, which then run into the neon atoms and excite those too (they share an energy level.) That excited state of the neon atoms is metastable, which means that because of the quantum selection rules about how atoms can change states, they’ll stay at that energy level for a long time. When enough of the neon atoms are excited, you get what’s called population inversion, and stimulated emission (where one photon hits a neon atom and two identical photons are emitted) becomes a chain reaction.
If you look closely, you’ll see a thin beam in the right side of the image: that’s the laser light itself. It’s going through an iris, which we use to force the laser to operate in lower-level transverse modes. Right behind that is a 99% reflective concave mirror–the output coupler, which reflects photons back into the medium and lets the laser reach criticality. The beam is just barely visible in air.
2 exposures, composited so you can see clearly.
Aphyr, on
Hey, thanks! I changed the display filter a while back, and forgot the feed view didn’t call the same filter before rendering. Fixed now.
Dan H, on
Just to let you know: this post breaks your blog’s Atom feed. Your feed generator is using a literal less-than sign in your “Assume there are two teams” line, which is not valid XML.
rix weber, on
always wanted to shoot something like this myself. always lazy to get up so early… :)
this is a good one! looks almost unnatural.
Aphyr, on
I got lucky on the lighting for this shot: as the sun lowered, it reflected off the windows of the building facing this one. That’s what gives rise to the unusual light and shadow on normally flat elements.
Thanks for the note, Tetsu. :-)
tetsu, on
The contrast is nice!
from Tokyo
Aphyr, on
Oh, thanks! I changed the controllers a while back and forgot to update the feed!
Nice comics. I personally enjoy juggling hard drives. It’s great stress relief.
Aphyr, on
It looks like you’ve got something important to say here, but I’m not sure I follow. Can you be clearer?
The Other, on
How true it is, dare we know what we say, that many a million suffer daily, while thousands of others are at play. Sad State of World we have when we the intelligent life of creations most precious moments, decide to use ourselves against each other, to make strange one another among friends, and choices left take the truth to the absolute extreme only to be right and a little more real to anyone who dared not believe..Bless them souls that admit the wrong they have done, and may the lesson to all be learned once and for all..we are not all right, we are not all right. We are in fact, very very far off and doing nonemore good, as we are near serious annihilation of our very souls, and all we have left to save us is ourselves, May God Help Us. Exclaiming Mercy Be, To All OF WE, we the people have the right to live in peace, we the people have the right to live as we wish, and only Someone who can seriously be held responsible if they are wrong, should tell me what to do. So tell me, what to do! I need the basics as you, we all, clean air, water, on and on, and then I’m scourly reminded theres' just too many with problems and not enough land to stand on where clean green grass flurshes with clear streams of plentiful water, supporting our cultural demands as perfection would allow, and of course, healing all sickness. I only dreamed there was a place called Heaven, he said, I only dreamed. Surely I wondered, how sad it was to never have known.
So for you that live in a way such place is modeled, share it over there with others that for there own choices not, are stuck out in the rain, continously drained, and fucked over for chocalate milk lucky children drink at night.
For Real Get With It or Be Gone Befor We Get There. Make sure you drag along others, too, cause ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN WITHOUT YOU, AND I’LL BE DAMNED IF I GO ALONE, to hell I’ll be damned, and yes, i’ve been close enough to know its real bad, worse than what I’ve ever known. Pain,Trauma,Violence,? nah time I choose Peace,Clarity,Serenity. Come Along Now, Time Is Wasting.“
Psyguy 1, on
I clicked that “Execute” button up there many times but it didn’t do anything. :(
Aphyr, on
Hey Michelle!
Sorry I haven’t written anything of late, I’ve been pretty busy here, working full time, playing Ultimate with friends from high school, lifting weights, and catching up with old friends. Oh, and I’ve written a lot of new code for the site, planning to publish some of the projects I’ve worked on this year. I’ve also gone on some crazy bike adventures, but I haven’t finished writing about that yet. So yeah, I will try to post something interesting soon–maybe by Thursday or Friday, if I get time.
How has your summer been? Are you still planning for an epic adventure? I heard there might be a backpacking trip involved. :-) Whatever happens, I am looking forward to seeing you (and maybe playing a game of Ultimate?) when we get back to school!
Michelle, on
I don’t know what you’ve been up to, man! I hope you were kidnapped by pirates or mining for a precious stone or doing something that was really far away from the Internet so you have a cool reason not to update your blog. But if you don’t have a cool reason, that’s ok. How are you?
Aphyr, on
My sincere apologies for using the wrong pronoun. It’s fixed now.
Shawn, on
A quick request, if you would… uh….I’m a boy. *smiles*
Aphyr James, on
beautiful…not like mine at all…
place my name link to www.myspace.com/photographyr
The Other Aphyr
thanx
anonymous, on
http://picasaweb.google.com/TechAphyr/Aphyr
Steve Ronshaugen, on
I wounder about fear in general. As a child I grew up seeing missles planted in the ground in North Dakota and doing duck and cover drills. Little did I know that in the 80s I would go to Moscow and then to the Soviet test site in Kazakstan and see first hand that which I dreaded and feared.
It is not the fundamental concepts behid communism that I feared but the conditions of the soviet people were subjected to. Always looking over their shoulder to see who was watching. Not will to talk to me because I was being followed and it may effect them. Family that have never been allowed to leave colsed cities within the country and never reading about life anywhere else in the world. It was a momnetr that presented me with a whole new meaning of tolitarian communism.
Isee your going to Ann Arbor. When in Moscow I dined with a young female (Natashia) architech who lived with her husband, Parents, brother and his wife and teo children all in a 3 room apartment. She was waiting (for 4 years) to be assigned to her own appartment. She couldnt believe that she was acatually talking to someone from the US and was as full of questions and fear as I.
It was almost surreal.
The thing you write about are strange to you but were very real to some at the time. THis doesnt make it right it just helps set the backdrop under which they occurred. The only redeamiong factor is we have the duty and right to challenge these situations when we recognize them and institute protections. I am affaid that young Natashia may never know this freedom even in todays Russia.
Aphyr, on
This image is a composite of three vertical exposures.
Aphyr, on
This image is a composite of three vertical exposures.
The trail climbs up the waterfall on the far right.
Aphyr, on
This image is a composite of three vertical exposures.
Aphyr, on
This image is a digital composite of two matched horizontal exposures (one above and one below), taken handheld from the upper cliff trail above Vernal Falls.
Panannto, on
Hey People!
This is very nice site!!!
Forever Rules!
Laura, on
You were awesome as well. Thank you for the door note! Tis touching to know that some will mourn my passing…
Des, on
Shakespeare’s first name?
What color is the sky?
What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Aphyr, on
This series is all from Yosemite National Park, in California.
M.A.McKenney, on
That’s a very pretty palette of colors there. Especially with the deep blues running against the burnt oranges. Same colors as a sunset. Very nice. Forgive my ignorance of geography, but where is this place?
Hey, you are first on the list if I make a second edition in the fall! I’ve had 10 or so people ask to buy copies, so we’ll see if I can find a way to make it happen. :-)
You are a good teacher! believe it! you can make complex stuff accessible. Thanks! the book is beautiful.
This is a quick snapshot of what I’m working on now. The really bright line is the lasing medium. It’s a glass tube filled filled with helium and neon. We run electricity through it to excite the helium atoms, which then run into the neon atoms and excite those too (they share an energy level.) That excited state of the neon atoms is metastable, which means that because of the quantum selection rules about how atoms can change states, they’ll stay at that energy level for a long time. When enough of the neon atoms are excited, you get what’s called population inversion, and stimulated emission (where one photon hits a neon atom and two identical photons are emitted) becomes a chain reaction.
If you look closely, you’ll see a thin beam in the right side of the image: that’s the laser light itself. It’s going through an iris, which we use to force the laser to operate in lower-level transverse modes. Right behind that is a 99% reflective concave mirror–the output coupler, which reflects photons back into the medium and lets the laser reach criticality. The beam is just barely visible in air.
2 exposures, composited so you can see clearly.
Hey, thanks! I changed the display filter a while back, and forgot the feed view didn’t call the same filter before rendering. Fixed now.
Just to let you know: this post breaks your blog’s Atom feed. Your feed generator is using a literal less-than sign in your “Assume there are two teams” line, which is not valid XML.
always wanted to shoot something like this myself. always lazy to get up so early… :) this is a good one! looks almost unnatural.
I got lucky on the lighting for this shot: as the sun lowered, it reflected off the windows of the building facing this one. That’s what gives rise to the unusual light and shadow on normally flat elements.
Thanks for the note, Tetsu. :-)
The contrast is nice!
from Tokyo
Oh, thanks! I changed the controllers a while back and forgot to update the feed!
I think you’ve got a broken link in your feed. It points at http://www.aphyr.com/journal/show/77 which 404s. I think you want http://www.aphyr.com/journals/show/77, right?
In any case, good luck with the IRC client.
Nice comics. I personally enjoy juggling hard drives. It’s great stress relief.
It looks like you’ve got something important to say here, but I’m not sure I follow. Can you be clearer?
How true it is, dare we know what we say, that many a million suffer daily, while thousands of others are at play. Sad State of World we have when we the intelligent life of creations most precious moments, decide to use ourselves against each other, to make strange one another among friends, and choices left take the truth to the absolute extreme only to be right and a little more real to anyone who dared not believe..Bless them souls that admit the wrong they have done, and may the lesson to all be learned once and for all..we are not all right, we are not all right. We are in fact, very very far off and doing nonemore good, as we are near serious annihilation of our very souls, and all we have left to save us is ourselves, May God Help Us. Exclaiming Mercy Be, To All OF WE, we the people have the right to live in peace, we the people have the right to live as we wish, and only Someone who can seriously be held responsible if they are wrong, should tell me what to do. So tell me, what to do! I need the basics as you, we all, clean air, water, on and on, and then I’m scourly reminded theres' just too many with problems and not enough land to stand on where clean green grass flurshes with clear streams of plentiful water, supporting our cultural demands as perfection would allow, and of course, healing all sickness. I only dreamed there was a place called Heaven, he said, I only dreamed. Surely I wondered, how sad it was to never have known. So for you that live in a way such place is modeled, share it over there with others that for there own choices not, are stuck out in the rain, continously drained, and fucked over for chocalate milk lucky children drink at night. For Real Get With It or Be Gone Befor We Get There. Make sure you drag along others, too, cause ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN WITHOUT YOU, AND I’LL BE DAMNED IF I GO ALONE, to hell I’ll be damned, and yes, i’ve been close enough to know its real bad, worse than what I’ve ever known. Pain,Trauma,Violence,? nah time I choose Peace,Clarity,Serenity. Come Along Now, Time Is Wasting.“
I clicked that “Execute” button up there many times but it didn’t do anything. :(
Hey Michelle!
Sorry I haven’t written anything of late, I’ve been pretty busy here, working full time, playing Ultimate with friends from high school, lifting weights, and catching up with old friends. Oh, and I’ve written a lot of new code for the site, planning to publish some of the projects I’ve worked on this year. I’ve also gone on some crazy bike adventures, but I haven’t finished writing about that yet. So yeah, I will try to post something interesting soon–maybe by Thursday or Friday, if I get time.
How has your summer been? Are you still planning for an epic adventure? I heard there might be a backpacking trip involved. :-) Whatever happens, I am looking forward to seeing you (and maybe playing a game of Ultimate?) when we get back to school!
I don’t know what you’ve been up to, man! I hope you were kidnapped by pirates or mining for a precious stone or doing something that was really far away from the Internet so you have a cool reason not to update your blog. But if you don’t have a cool reason, that’s ok. How are you?
My sincere apologies for using the wrong pronoun. It’s fixed now.
A quick request, if you would… uh….I’m a boy. *smiles*
beautiful…not like mine at all…
place my name link to www.myspace.com/photographyr
The Other Aphyr
thanx
http://picasaweb.google.com/TechAphyr/Aphyr
I wounder about fear in general. As a child I grew up seeing missles planted in the ground in North Dakota and doing duck and cover drills. Little did I know that in the 80s I would go to Moscow and then to the Soviet test site in Kazakstan and see first hand that which I dreaded and feared.
It is not the fundamental concepts behid communism that I feared but the conditions of the soviet people were subjected to. Always looking over their shoulder to see who was watching. Not will to talk to me because I was being followed and it may effect them. Family that have never been allowed to leave colsed cities within the country and never reading about life anywhere else in the world. It was a momnetr that presented me with a whole new meaning of tolitarian communism.
Isee your going to Ann Arbor. When in Moscow I dined with a young female (Natashia) architech who lived with her husband, Parents, brother and his wife and teo children all in a 3 room apartment. She was waiting (for 4 years) to be assigned to her own appartment. She couldnt believe that she was acatually talking to someone from the US and was as full of questions and fear as I.
It was almost surreal.
The thing you write about are strange to you but were very real to some at the time. THis doesnt make it right it just helps set the backdrop under which they occurred. The only redeamiong factor is we have the duty and right to challenge these situations when we recognize them and institute protections. I am affaid that young Natashia may never know this freedom even in todays Russia.
This image is a composite of three vertical exposures.
This image is a composite of three vertical exposures.
The trail climbs up the waterfall on the far right.
This image is a composite of three vertical exposures.
This image is a digital composite of two matched horizontal exposures (one above and one below), taken handheld from the upper cliff trail above Vernal Falls.
Hey People!
This is very nice site!!!
Forever Rules!
You were awesome as well. Thank you for the door note! Tis touching to know that some will mourn my passing…
Shakespeare’s first name?
What color is the sky?
What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
This series is all from Yosemite National Park, in California.
That’s a very pretty palette of colors there. Especially with the deep blues running against the burnt oranges. Same colors as a sunset. Very nice. Forgive my ignorance of geography, but where is this place?
…that inverse angle really screws with your mind.
It’s a series of tubes, dude.