Science Nerd

In the lab lately, I've been doing high resolution cavity ringdown spectroscopy on the ν2 band of H3+. We have a pulsed supersonic ion source, and we're trying to determine the temperature of the ions produced by that source so that we can interpret results from some dissociative recombination experiments that we recently did at the Test Storage Ring in Germany. So, in just this first paragraph, you might have already caught the sense that the work I do is very difficult to explain and not very exciting to someone who's not involved in the field of physical chemistry. So when I get excited about the results I get, it's difficult to find a forum in which I can share my excitement with others who will either understand or care.

On the way home today, I was sitting on the bus, looking out the window and reflecting on what happened today. By the end of the day, the data that I had were looking very nice, but I had one more data point to acquire. The first four data points fell on a line, and so I calculated what the last data point would need to be to also fall on the same line. When the last data point came in at exactly the right place, I knew that I had an interesting result. On the bus, I looked at my reflection in the window saw a big stupid grin on my face as I was thinking about it. I just wanted to get up and shout: "The distribution is thermal! The rotational state distribution is thermal!" That was one of those moments when I was acutely aware of just how much of a freaking nerd I am.

I'm still giddy about the result.