Science Fun

Making clouds from particles

Here we spray particles from an electrospray into a cloud chamber and see how we can make clouds (here, from isopropanol, not water!) from particles.

The Importance of Vacuum and Cryogenics

Kathy takes the lead on developing a demonstration of vacuum for Stony Brook Family Weekend, then makes liquid nitrogen ice cream.

Eclipse Viewing at Stony Brook Chemistry!

We got a nice view of the (partial on Long Island) solar eclipse with our homemade pinhole cameras.  Clouds made things a little blurry but still very fun!

The "Up Goer 5" challenge

Thanks to XKCD and this helpful text editor, we can now explain our research using the "ten hundred words people use the most often."  Hope this clears some things up!

We use colored light to see how small stuff is held together and how they can change other stuff. Different parts of the stuff sees different colors. We can control the color, and can tell when the stuff sees the light. We can tell how heavy the stuff is at the same time, which helps us know what it is made of. When we know what the stuff is made of and what colors the stuff notices, we can tell which parts of the stuff are near other parts. We can also tell if the stuff changes when it gets hot or touches other things. We are interested in stuff growing in the sky and stuff that makes it easier to change things into other things.

Translation:

We use laser spectroscopy to see how atoms, molecules, and small particles interact and react.  The atoms, molecules, or small particles absorb light at specific wavelengths.  We can tune the wavelength of the light and detect when it is absorbed.  We can simultaneously measure the mass of the atoms, molecules, or small particles as well, which helps us determine their composition.  With this information, we can figure out the intermolecular forces holding them together.  We can also examine reactivity as a function of temperature and reactants.  We are interested in atmospheric nanoparticles and catalysis.