If you’re doing graduate research these days, chances are, you’re going to have to deal with ultra-high vacuums. Used in processes from sputtering to SEM imaging, the soft, steady whir of the vacuum pump is a natural part of the ambient noise of the research lab. Today’s vacuum systems can achieve vacuums more vacuous than the vaults of space. We’re talking the vacuuming power of about 10 billion Hoovers.
Now if you’re going to be around a vacuum system, here’s some free advice: wear gloves. I’m not talking thermal gloves, unless you happen to be sticking your hand into a cryopump, in which case, the thermal gloves probably won’t do you any good as liquid nitrogen doesn’t really care what kind of thin coating is covering your hands. No, I’m talking nitrile gloves. You know, “two by two, hands of blue.”
No matter how many times you wash your hands, and no matter how much of that sanitizing goo stuff you rub all over, you, me, all of us, we leave behind fingerprints. In a vacuum system, a single fingerprint, when vaporized, can fill a 10 ft3 chamber with a pressure of about 10-4 torr. And so the vacuum system has to whir away for hours and hours, trying to vaporize your greasy fingerprint, whereas if you’d been wearing gloves, our sample would be done and we’d be home by now. And all this is from just one little touch with your sanitized hand. We won’t even talk about the guy next to you who’s licking the last bits of Lay’s off his grubby fingers as he reaches for the sample holder…
When you think about how much space one little fingerprint can fill, it’s kind of amazing. It can take a system hours to recuperate from a little tap, and perhaps days from actually handling things inside the chamber. We have amazing power in our hands.
Anyone who has been around babies know that babies want to be touched and held. They want and need human contact and connection. As we grow older, we eventually get to a place where we no longer scream and cry without some human touch in our lives, but deep down, we still long for it. We want to be touched, caressed, and held. We still desperately want to connect with people, to feel their touch in our lives. Like a vacuum, there’s a space inside us that tries to pull people into our worlds in hopes of getting connection.
Just as we should be mindful in the lab of our ‘touches’, we should be mindful of this power outside the lab. A smile, a nod, a kind word… what are the weight of these things? How many worlds can they turn upside down? I’ve known days where a stranger’s smile is all that got me through it. What then is the weight of a touch? Of a hug? Of five minutes of truly connecting with someone and making them feel heard?
These are super powers that we have here. We can change the lives of the people around us, light up their worlds, and leave them transformed… all with a touch. Is there anything greater in life? How many people around us need our touch? How many people are in need of your smile right now? Your listening? Your attention? In this day of iPods and cell-phones and emails and Facebooks, human touch is becoming even rarer. The more we do without, the more numb we become.
There’s a lonely world out there. There’s people walking around with ultra-high vacuums in their chest, longing to be filled. We have that power, you and I.
Let’s take off our gloves.