Robin van Spaandonk wrote:
Surely both control and sample can be etched concurrently in the
same solution?
That would remove any difference in processing.
That is the usual procedure.
I believe problems arise when they do one blank and multiple readings
in the cell.
Another issue arises because the CR-39 as received has been exposed
to different levels of natural background cosmic radiation. If you
send it by airplane from the US to Russia I have hear it picks up a
lot of holes. So you should have a blank, and a blank blank (from the
batch as received) and a lot of people soon begin to feel
blankety-blank-blank about the stuff, is my impression.
Of course all methods have their ins and outs. All instruments do. As
I said, I have sour memories of rotary flowmeters clogging up,
quitting and spewing out strange numbers. My impression is that most
experiments are a constant battle with instruments, sort of like a
never ending debugging session with Microsoft Basic circa 1984, which
is a programmer's vision of Hell. (Ancient Chinese scroll paintings
portrayed Hell as a place run by demons dressed up as Chinese
officials ensconced behind desks with piles of forms to be filled out
and stamped. Hell is what you are used to, viz. the play "No Exit.")
Anyway, that is why you don't want specially made one-of-a-kind
instruments, or used instruments, or anything less than the best
instruments. You can get $100,000 worth of top-notch stuff designed
to be used over a wide range of inputs that happens to be just what
you need, and you will still find yourself fighting with it. An
experiment in this field is by definition is something that no one
else has ever done, or at most one or two others have and you are
replicating. It is the first time in history anyone tried to do what
you are doing. So naturally there are no pre-made tools to do it, and
no recipes. If there were, it wouldn't be research and there would be
no point to doing it.
As I said, I do not know anyone who wants to waste a year or two of
his life doing yet another replication of some cold fusion effect
that we already know exists. People do a new variation, and by
definition, that doesn't work. You keep at it until it does work, and
as soon as it does you go on to something else. Hopefully someone
replicates you, but that seldom happens.
- Jed
