Dirty beakers

Science is a glorious endeavor, but most of my journeys into that realm of wonder begin in the same place: washing dishes. Now, I could go off into a rant right here about the fact that I’m having to wash someone else’s dishes, and how messy the lab can be at times, especially when people spill powders and don’t clean them up, or leave mortars and pestles laying about, covered in powder, with bits of weighing paper and measuring boats casually strewn about, unlabeled solutions, puddles of mysterious goo, books, trash, spatulas, broken glass, and other random things, all cluttering the work bench, but I’m not going to do that here, one, because that type of rant has no place in this article, and two, because I fear it would lead to one really long run-on sentence, and I, for one, am a big fan of grammatically correct writing, even if I sometimes don’t actually engage in the practice. So I’m not going to talk about having to clean up after other grad students, instead, I’m just going to blame it on the occasional undergrad that passes through and get back to the point.

Most of my journeys into the scientific realm of wonder begin in the same place: washing dishes. So, when I found myself once again standing at the sink cleaning beakers to run a set of reactions, I was not at all surprised. If you’ve washed dishes before, you know that sometimes it can be quite a chore. Things get baked into a dish, the dish gets set aside for a few days, and whatever bit of food you had has mysteriously turned into some kind of super-substance that seems to be stronger than steel. You scrub and scrub at it, soak it in soapy water, break out the baking soda, the vinegar, the sander, a drill, and finally, finally! those bits of food start to come loose. The wife comes in and rolls her eyes and you’re like, “What? I’m doing the dishes?!”

It’s like that in the lab sometimes except multiplied by a factor of about 100. Crazy sticky compounds get baked into the glassware at crazy sticky temperatures. Sticky temperatures? Yeah. Because when you’re dealing with the temperatures we deal with, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ just aren’t descriptive enough. And so, after the undergrad takes his sample out of the beaker or crucible or whatever, they set that beaker or crucible by the sink, and that’s where I go the next day to start my experiment.

So there I am, scrubbing and scrubbing on a beaker but there’s one spot that won’t come off. I break out the acetone, the MEK, the high-grit sand paper, but nothing seems to have any effect. Luckily, as I’m standing there debating whether or not I should try some fuming nitric acid, I happen to notice that this particular spot is actually on the outside of the beaker. I’ve just spent the last ten minutes scrubbing the inside of this beaker (the glass is now thin in a few places), and all the while, the spot was on the outside. I look around to make sure nobody had seen this whole spectacle transpire, and resume my work like nothing had happened.

On the spiritual path we are very concerned with the inner world. We are interested in inner process like purification and transformation and meditation and contemplation, and we know that “what’s on the inside counts,” so cleaning the inside is both practical and necessary. In the lab, contamination can have disastrous results on an experiment, while what’s on the outside of your reaction vessel is unimportant. Nonetheless, when it’s there, that spot on the outside is all we can see. A dirty kitchen, a messy bedroom, a looming deadline, an unfinished task – have you ever tried to meditate when all these things are present? It’s difficult. So sometimes getting our outer world in order is the most spiritual thing we can do. It completes those nagging things in our minds so that we can be free of them and get back to what matters. Once the outer world is taken care of, and the distractions are gone, we are finally able to focus, to gaze into the soul and see clearly what’s there.

Life is messy, and there are things that just need to be done. Monks locked away in their monasteries still have their chores, and they do them because it’s necessary, it’s a part of life.

We know that the world is full of distractions, so wash the dishes, feed the dog, take a shower. Let’s take care of the outer world, free ourselves, and continue the journey within.

Ostwald ripening: no free enlightenment

I sometimes find myself on a mountaintop, awakened and transformed, but inevitably, the moment fades, and the normal world returns. Let’s go to the lab and find out why.

Ostwald ripening is the tendency of small particles to become big particles. It can get a bit more complicated than that when you start looking at the mechanics behind particle growth, but ultimately, nanoparticles get together and become bigger particles. In the world of catalysts, Ostwald ripening is bane. This is because the effectiveness of catalysts depends on particle size. The atoms on the surface of a catalyst are the high-energy, highly active atoms, whereas the interior ‘bulk’ atoms don’t get involved in the catalytic reaction. Basically, all the action takes place on the surface.

Ostwald ripening happens because Nature wants to minimize the energy of a system. There’s less energy in the system if all of those small, highly active particles stick together and become one big, bulky unreactive chunk. And so, thermodynamics and various natural laws get together, and atom by atom, bits of small particle diffuse into solution and become part of the bigger particle. This process continues until the energy of the system has reached a minimum.

In order to combat Ostwald ripening, scientists have to come up with all kinds of tricks to keep their nanoparticles the desired size. Long term, this can be accomplished by attaching ligands to each particle, basically putting long bumper-arms on the particle to keep it from getting anywhere close to another particle. Or you can isolate and suspend your particle in some sort of substrate to try and keep them from moving around so much. The final method to maintain these high-energy particles and prevent them from reverting to a bulk state is to continuously put energy into the system. In the lab, this would mean keeping your solution of nanoparticles at some high, constant temperature.

Just as Ostwald ripening is the natural order of the physical world, it applies to the spiritual world as well. As we seek to walk spiritual paths leading to enlightenment, nirvana, or whatever high-energy state you want to call it, again, Nature’s tendency is to minimize the energy of the system, for things to wind down to a lower energy state. For us to maintain our catalytic nature, our ability to cause change in the world or in our lives, we must find tricks to prevent us from reverting back to our bulky, unreactive nature. We can isolate ourselves in a monastery to try and keep those minimizing natural forces at bay, but if we want to stay in this world and be a part of this world, the only option left is to put energy into our system. Like a beaker of nanoparticles, we must constantly apply heat and energy to ourselves to remain in a higher state. A constant application of consciousness, awareness, and self-remembering is required to keep us vividly alive. As soon as we stop, nature kicks in and we begin winding down.

Luckily, these are reversible processes. We may fall asleep and lose our catalytic capacity to ‘do’, but as soon as we wake up, as soon as we start pumping energy back into our systems, there we are again. Regeneration. Small, yet incredibly powerful catalysts capable of causing and being wonders in this world.

Windmill arms

For those of you that don’t know me, I’m a new dad. As such, one of my new favorite pastimes is baby watching. It’s better than television, much more engaging, and there are no commercial interruptions. (Granted, there are messy diaper interruptions, but we won’t go there in this post…) Anyways, I’ve been watching my daughter and noticing all the unusual things she does.

‘Unusual’ probably isn’t the best word. Her movements and cries and laughs and everything she does is really anything but unusual. It’s all perfectly natural, perfectly graceful, and perfectly free. I have the rare pleasure of getting to see a human being without any kind of programming. She isn’t concerned about looking good, looking silly, or even being practical. She just moves. Her arms go up and down and round and round like little windmills. She kicks and rolls and squirms every which way, however she wants. She does whatever feels good in the moment.

So I watch her, and then I look at myself. She moves in 360 beautiful degrees, whereas I only use about 30. With all of our joints and muscles and ligaments, we are capable of a wide range of motion, but the truth is, we don’t use it. Our bodies are mechanical marvels and we regularly use maybe 5 or 10% of our range of motion. How often do we put our arms above our heads? Maybe when we’re reaching for something or waving to someone far away? Instead, we keep our arms close beside us. We aren’t big with our movements. Those few of us that are big and expressive with their bodies are crazy people, weird people, or… kids.  Kids are much more comfortable in their bodies. They move for the sake of movement. They get their whole body involved when they do something. They skip rather than walk, they spread their arms like they’re flying when they run, and they are windmills rather than… posts? We train our kids to be posts, to be rigid and formal and serious, rather than fluid or, god forbid, whimsical and free.

Stretching, yoga, tai-chi… we love the way these things feel because they remind us how to move. They remind us that we can move. Our bodies are wonderful tools of self-expression, capable of so much more than sitting, walking, and laying down. They are works of art, waiting to be explored.

So let’s get in touch with our bodies and feel how good it is to move. Let’s be free, be weird… be windmills.

Ultra-high vacuums and the weight of a touch

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.

Zombie Shakespeare

I just saw a production of The Merchant of Venice, and before I get started, let me just say that I had no complaints with the performance. It was fun, original, well-acted, and well-directed. The setting was a sort of idyllic urban neighborhood, with a mid-20^th century costume design. Overall, it was a great production, two thumbs up.

But I didn’t get my Shakespeare fix.

Before Merchant, I saw Love’s Labours Lost, also set in modern times. Then there was Midsummer in Japan, King Lear in the future, and a Richard III with airplanes and bombers.  I’ve seen Shakespeare set on the beach, set in India, set in the recent past, or in galaxies far, far away. Any place, any time that can be imagined, Shakespeare has been there.

Two households, both alike in technology, on the planet Verona, where we lay our scene.

I get it. We need to shake things up to keep Shakespeare interesting, to make it fun and original. Everyone wants to do something new and noteworthy. Sometimes we like spectacle, so we make the Capulets vampires, we add werewolves, or maybe we set the whole thing in space or at the circus. There have been some truly amazing things done with these very old plays. And it works because these plays are timeless. We identify with the characters no matter where they are, because ultimately, these plays are about being human. They are applicable to all times, all peoples, and all places.

But sometimes, I’m just in the mood for some Vanilla Shakespeare. Shakespearean actors speaking in verse set in old England and dressed as the bard would have dressed them himself.

Maybe it’s just a craving, maybe it’s silly, but that’s what I’ve been wanting to see lately. And after I get my fix, well then, sure, bring out the gore, bring out the brains, and bring out some star-crossed zombies.

Gold nanocrystals and the ‘tunability’ of the soul

This is a picture of gold.  Each test tube contains colloidal gold nanoparticles in solution.  There are no dyes or coloring added, each test tube is simply the color of gold nanoparticles.

The difference is the size of those particles.  The sizes shown range from a few atoms to a few hundred atoms.  As can be seen, by changing the size of the nanoparticles, you get different colors of solution.

When people talk about nanoparticles (or crystals), they are usually referring to particles ranging in size from 1 to 100 nanometers.  As a point of reference, a human hair is about 100,000 nanometers wide.  The average germ, 1000 nanometers across.  When we talk about nanoparticles, we are usually talking about particles made up of tens or hundreds of atoms.

Photos like the one above are frequently found in today’s journal articles.  Gold nanoparticles, cadmium selenide quantum dots, or whatever the latest rage is, the multi-colored photograph showing a full spectrum of nanoparticles captures one of the chief features of nanotechnology: tunability.

Some of my earliest research was in selective size control and synthesis of gold nanocrystals.  By changing the dimensions of a nanoparticle, one can vary electrical, optical,  morphological, and many other properties of the compound being used.  It is precisely because of this “tunability” of nanoparticles that there is so much potential found on the nanoscale, even from a single, well-known element.

These tunable properties can be radically different, too.  A given property will sometimes vary in orders of magnitude across a particular crystal size range, resulting in the compound exhibiting behavior quite different from that of the bulk parent phase.

So what is the color of gold?

Purple.

Or blue.  Or red.  Or whatever you want.

Gold behaves one way when you have a large chunk of it, but when you start looking at the pieces that make up that chunk and begin dealing with gold on the nano-scale, it is no longer the gold you thought you knew.  Suddenly it is mysterious and surprising. A well-known element with one “way of being” now has infinite possibilities to choose from.  If one property of gold does not suit you, change the size, change the shape, and suddenly you are dealing with an entirely new thing.  It is still gold, but now it transmutes sunlight into electricity.  Or maybe, now it has medicinal properties. Or improves memory. Or emits light. Rearrange the atoms, get something new.  Get something miraculous.  All from an ordinary piece of gold.  This is the work that scientists all over the world are doing right now.  How can we rearrange the atoms?  How can we get something new?

Like gold, we all have our “bulk” way of being.  We have our familiar, well-known properties.  We behave a certain way, and that is just how we are.  When you look at us from the macro-scale, from a distance, you just see one thing.  You see how we always are, you see what is so.

But it ain’t necessarily so.  Look closer.  Dig deeper.  Like gold, we too are composed of nanoparticles.  We too are “tunable.”  Swirling around inside us, there are all kinds of possibilities, an entire spectrum of ways of being.  We are not just purple or blue or red or gold, we are infinitely tunable. We can be whatever we want, whatever property we choose to call forth.  It may take experimentation to bring those properties out, to find them, but they are in there.  They have always been there.  We may have forgotten about them, or we may have gotten used to our bulk way of being, but the possibilities are still there.  The nano-realm is still there.  It is what we are made of.

Creativity, passion, wisdom, joy… are you looking for these outside of yourself?  If so, you’re looking in the wrong place.  Go in.  Go deep.  Divide yourself  into 100,000 pieces and get to the nano-realm of the soul. Find that most precious piece of gold. You may have to search for that tiny seed inside you, but it is there.  That long-desired property, it is already a part of you.  All things are there.  They are sparks waiting to be ignited. Choose one.  Transmute. This is alchemy. This is the Great Work.

Learn a lesson from gold.

In search of the natural world

I had a strange awakening today. My lab is underground and I needed to do stuff up among the surface-dwellers. So, after climbing two flights of stairs and emerging from my home under the earth, I found myself squinting into some sweet summer sun. The sky was clear, there was a cool breeze, and the air smelled of evergreens and raw earth. Basically, it was a perfect day. I took in a deep breath of summery perfection, warmed my face, and suddenly felt like I was breathing for the first time in a long while. Something had been missing, something had been desperately missing, and it felt good to have it back. The part of me that thirsts for the natural world was finally getting to drink.

But what happened?! How is this even possible?! I spend my days handling and distilling the essences of the natural world, working with those very elements that make up Nature herself, but somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost connection with that very realm I am trying to understand. My investigations in the lab have become isolated and intellectual and sterile. Where is the soul in my work? Where is the soul in science?

I think it’s missing.

Once upon a time, science was a spiritual discipline. Laboratory experiments were holy investigations done in order to catch a glimpse of the divine somewhere along the way. Our labs were temples where we worshiped with heart, mind, and soul. Our work brought us closer to each other, and perhaps even closer to God. But our connection through science to the natural world has largely disappeared. Those things that gave it meaning, that enlightened our understanding, have been oxidized, stripped, and cast away. The sacred is gone. We play with energies and atoms, with the mysteries of the universe, but often all we see are ordinary particles of matter.

Does it have to be this way? Can we bring heart, soul, and meaning back into the lab? Can our experiments and investigations bring us closer to Nature… closer to God? Instead of seeking facts, can we stumble upon Truth?

This was the work of those original scientists, the alchemists of old. But does alchemy have a place in today’s lab? In the modern scientific laboratory? I don’t know the answer to that question…

But I intend to find out.

It’s time to start cooking with sulfur.