Books to Read

 

3 Great Books to Read

Books To Read

The Amateur Scientist, Procedures in Experimental Physics and Pictorial Handbook of Technical Devices

I love to read and I love to read scientific and tech books. Here are 3 that I had or received as gifts.

The Amateur Scientist - is one I had when I was much younger. As you can see it is quite worn. I have read this book cover to cover countless times. I have done many of the experiments in this book. This book is more of a how to do of experiments written in 1960 and is named for the column that the experiments are derived from - Scientific American's The Amateur Scientist monthly column, which ran for many years or decades really.

There are experiments in astronomy, physics, nuclear physics, rocketry, geology, math, biology, optics, etc. It is so full of different experiments it is amazing. Many of the experiments are dangerous and maybe hard to do as many items have become very hard to find. It is a great read even if you can't do the experiments. It does show what individuals can do and accomplish on their own. You maybe able to find this book as a pdf file on line.

The next 2 books were given to me as gifts over the last few years. Both as well are older than most.

Procedures in Experimental Physics - was written in 1938 and it covers many procedures needed in a laboratory, such as, glass blowing, optical work, vacuums, surface coating, electronics, old time photography, etc. Another great read in how build and use science equipment. A bit out-dated but a great read.

Pictorial Handbook of Technical Devices - written in 1971, this book shows you pictures of many many devices so you can have an understanding of how they are put together and how they work. There are joints, springs, levers, belt drives, prisms and lenses, etc. It is full of devices.

These books are out of print but you may be able to find them online. Even though they are older books they allow me to see how things can work and helps me come up with new ideas for my own experiments. I will be discussing more books in the near future. I may even start a book of the month column. In the mean time, old or new keep reading anything that interests you.

Spectrometer

fig. 1 Public Lab Spectrometer 3.0

fig. 2 Inside of Public Lab Spectrometer

fig. 3 Spectrometer I am Putting Together

Spectrometer

I am trying to build a spectrometer. The first figure you see of the spectrometer that was purchased from Public Lab by friend that he has let me use. It works well uses a DVD for a diffraction grading. The biggest concern with this product is the camera inside is always coming loose (fig 2) and there is no place to put the sample that you are testing. Need to make a sample holder.

https://publiclab.org/wiki/desktop-spectrometry-kit-3-0

In the third figure (fig 3) you see I am using many of the holders from my optical bench except I picked up a magnetic white board to hold these holders. It is larger and being white I can see measurements on the red ruler much easier.

I 3D printed a slit and a sample(cuvette) holder and used my own diffraction grading that I purchased from Amazon. For the camera I am trying a PS3 camera that I found for $3. For the software I am using Theremino spectrometer. There website has plenty of information about spectrometers.

https://www.theremino.com/wp-content/uploads/files/Theremino_Spectrometer_Construction_ENG.pdf
 
I will be continuing the spectrometer build using different web cams and enclosures. I will keep posting as I build it.