Day 60 - Math and TV

Our second TEM session was scheduled for this morning. After coffee, I headed to the lab to grab my samples, then went to meet Talmon. Patro had a doctor's appointment from 9 to 10 am, so we spent this hour looking at a sample of COOH-functionalized nanotubes for Noa. She asked me to gather images and measure the average outer diameter of the tubes, because the diameter she ordered from the company didn't match the diameter which corresponds to the lot number on the bottle. We captured a dozen or so images before Patro arrived, when we picked up where we left off in the lesson.

In the next three hours, we covered almost everything about the computer built in to the TEM, including every button in every sub-menu. This time we went almost to 1 pm before calling it quits. After Patro and I got back to Perlman, I called Dan and discovered that he and Ari had just sat down to lunch at Cafe Madaa. I grabbed my wallet and joined them for a meal which was a pleasant change from San Martin. There was a good deal of math talk, but other topics managed to dilute it a bit. Ari had to leave just after eating; his professor is leaving for the rest of the summer this week, so he has to finish up most of his work and stuff. Dan and I lingered a bit longer before heading back to Perlman.

I worked relatively efficiently after lunch, processing more images and compiling a spreadsheet with an average tube diameter and histogram for Noa. I stayed rather late, until I was too hungry to continue. It was rather dark when I left the lab, and I didn't find many people around Clore, so I ate leftovers, hummus, pita and fruit for dinner. Once full, I chilled and worked/blogged in the basement.

At one point Ari discovered me in the TV room (he had come in to see Olmert's statement, which ended up being about his resignation plans but was impossible to watch due to the TV's nonfunctionality) and we talked and watched a few episodes of The Office. Ben called somewhere around this point, and we had a great conversation which included a phone introduction to Ari! I had Ari tell Ben about Terry Tao's blog, which today basically discussed Ari's work here (having to do with Tate's proof). It was good to talk with him, especially before his family trip to California for a few days.

The rest of the evening was spent chilling similarly, and I went to bed pretty early, which was a welcome change.