Friday August 29th, 2003

Today I went to the machine shop (again) and cut out a devise which ill use to hold my quater wave plate.

Wednesday August 27th, 2003

Today I installed the heating mechanism. It consists of 2 insulation tubes that are used in home heating. I cut one of the tubes into part by a 45 degree angle in order to make sort of a u-turn for the circulation of the air.I also realized that the glass 2-inch pipe easily fit into the insualtion pipe. That is very helpful because it will insulate the tube and prevent any heat from leaving it. For the completion of my setup i still need to set up the optical equipement and connect the actual cesium cell to a helium tank, which i will use as my buffer gas.

Tuesday August 26th, 2003

Today i went to the machine shop and made a hexagon out of the teflon stopper for my pressure tube.

Monday August 25th, 2003

Today I realized that the polarizers that came for my experiment were made in China, where people are smart and thus use the metric system. So my polarizers are 3 cm in lenght and every rotation stage in the lab is some lenght in inches. This meant that i had to go to the Machine shop and cut out a special device that would allow me to mount the metric polarizer on one side and the english roation stage on another. This was a very difficult task because the opening for the polarizer had to be only a few microns smaller than the polarizer to ensure a perfect fit. However I was able to create a perfect device which Ill now use in my experiment.

Sunday August 24th, 2003

Today i came into the lab and attached the canteliever that would support everything for my experiment. I firts though that it would be an easy task but it lasted well into the night.

Saturday August 23rd, 2003

Today was my brothers last day here before he went to college so we gave him a party.