Books & Plasma

Visiting both the plasma lab and the library of rare books today was an extremely unique experience. In the library, we were exposed to books that were worth up to the thousands of dollars just because of the history they went through. The book may be common, and printed in mass amounts worldwide, but it’s the experience or signatures the book goes through which makes it unique. For example, the one book was worth thousands because it had been in space. I found it amusing that the librarian made us sign a book before we left, which I suspect he’ll sell if one of us hopefully becomes rich or famous (I hope we do). After the short visit to the library, we visited the plasma lab, which was truly not as interesting. Plasma is basically the fourth state of matter that makes up most, if not all, of outer space. In this lab, plasma was created and suspended by whirling magnets. These magnets would repel the plasma so it wouldn’t touch anything, because the plasma would immediately disintegrate anything in its path. The concept of creating, and maintaining plasma seemed interesting, but the entirety of the lab visit was dull. We could see plasma, but it wasn’t as unique as I thought. We had to peer carefully into chambers, where we would only be flashed with beams of light from the plasma every few seconds. It wasn’t very interesting, and it certainly didn’t attract much of my attention as I am more of a hands-on learner.

http://www.plasmas.org/what-are-plasmas.htm

http://education.jlab.org/qa/plasma_01.html

http://www.cslplasma.com/s1/cs/enps/1165268013126/content/1165268012845/content.htm

http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/16/most-expensive-books-tech-media-cx_ee_books06_0116expensivebooks.html

http://www.abebooks.com/docs/RareBooks/10-expensive-2006.shtml