Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

[Steve Smith]

Arlo -

Thanks!   I knew you were younger than most of us old fogeys here but I underestimated that by a couple of years I guess!  Sounds like a great program! 

I know (of) Norsam from their ROSETTA product/concept (ties right in to our thread about archiving of e-mail!).  How many angels can be inscribed on the head of a pin (has anyone bothered to transfer Escher's hyperbolic projection print of that topic onto the head of a pin yet?)

Info on the Nanoengineering workstation is a little spotty as it isn't a formal product yet.   It is a custom tightly coupled CPU/GPU system tuned to run LAMPPS and NAMD (two molecular dynamic simulation programs) efficiently, coupled with VMD (molecular dynamics visualization package) with the haptics integrated for "feeling" the molecules.  Full up "real time" (human time, not *even* literal real time) simulation at the molecular level is still an order of magnitude or two away, but for educational and demonstration purposes it is *awesome*.   I'll get you some more info offline.

As for a spare PicoSecond Laser!   Well, my holography partner (Fred Unterseher) would love access to such a laser.   This is roughly what they used to make holograms of both Ronald Reagan and Queen Elizabeth back in the 80's.  Fred (and another colleague) each have full-up holography labs in town.  As for laser safety, Fred (and Augie) both still have two good eyes, which is saying something after 40 years in the biz.

Along with the usual "arts" projects, we are working on some stronger tech as well (glasses free stereo displays, and designing HOEs for  Photovoltaic efficiency enhancement).   I don't know what it would take to strike deals with SFCC/MASTERS but I appreciate you being a link to start the conversation.   We can take that one offline! 

Thanks!
 - Steve

The MASTERS Program is a high school I attend that was started a few years ago by John Bishop, the president of nanotech company NorSam. A main focus is taking advantage of dual credit with the college (since we are on the campus) but the secondary focus is STEM education. To that end, we bought a couple of Nanosurf machines (TEM & AFM) and a Hitachi SEM. As to who can use them, I am not sure. So far only high school students and faculty have used them, and then mostly the SEM (easy to set up and use); some college professors have expressed interest in using it with their classes, those arrangements are still being worked out. I believe the school is open to suggestions for what to analyse and not averse to publishing resultant images/data, and perhaps if one is touring the school and requests it the equipment might be demonstrated...but the person to ask about that would be the STEM coordinator, Scott Voorhies. And yes, I do think the haptic interface would be of interest to him/them/us/me. I am currently Googling to read more about it, sounds interesting.
On a related topic, Norsam has donated a picosecond laser + optics table they are no longer using; it needs to be assembled but SFCC does not want to deal with it (having no place to put it and being wary of liability). Is there a place in Santa Fe that would welcome the equipment and has an area able to be blocked off / locked for reasons of eye protection?
-Arlo James Barnes

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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com