A couple weeks of fun and some awesome news

So I had some fun these last few weeks. We went bowling with some friends. Though really dorky, it's good fun, and everyone looks funny in those weird lookin' shoes.

We also went to Val's new appartment last night. Her cat started drinking in our glass and I could not resist taking a few pictures. She could not reach the water in the glass, so she would dip her paw in in and lick her paw.

I also went to Cricket Cove and London-Wul and bought some yarn (pictures next post). I had put down my name to teach classes at Cricket Cove a long time ago and the lady there said to bring something in to show her and she'll see if I can teach. I didn't know what to bring for the longest time. So yesterday I decided I'd jut bring anything, so I brought my pinstripe scarf and a striped purse that I made to show her. She liked it and told the owner, and now they want me to teach a class during the summer! Yay! And I also get 20% off there while I give classes. Another yay!

A crash course in spectroscopy and a kniting project planned

When you heat up an element enough, the electrons in that element get excited and skip to another level of evergy. When that element relaxes, it emits a light that is equivalent to the amount of energy absorbed. This is what spectroscopy is based on, which is the quantification of certain atoms by the measuring of light. Also note that specific atoms absorb lights with a specific wavelength.

Whew! Now that that's over with, my future knitting project will make more sense.

I'm going to make a scarf of an emission spectrum. That means it's going to be all the wavelengths, but you'll only see the ones that are emitted from the atom I choose. Here's an example:

The first two are the ones that really interest me. They're the emission spectras of hydrogen (H) and of mercury (Hg).

I plan to measure how long I want to make the scarf, calculate how many stitches per wavelength, and make a "to-scale" atomic emission scarf with the right colors at the right position. Of course, I'm going to show this to all the other chem students and my profs when I'm done!