Update from NIST

This may be a short post from today.

I am undertaking a crash course in neutron scattering methods.  Neutrons are excellent tools to use to investigate the atomic nucleus.  Neutrons are neutral and don't interact with electrons, so they go straight to the nucleus and scatter, just like light scatters through a small opening.  So I have been able to use my background knowledge of waves and scattering which has been useful, to a point.

For the past few days I have analyzed data from my mentor's recent experiment. Much of what they analyze deals with intensity and scattering distances.  The raw data looks very much like scattered light from a star, and that 2d data is then mapped and transferred to a 1d graph.  There is something very much like magic going on with a stop called "data reduction" that I have been trying to learn. Very curious stuff.

So I have generated a lot of intensity vs length graphs in a software package called IGOR. The data is also graphed according to the particular model that is being used. A different-shaped molecule will scatter that light differently (much like a pinhole and a thin slit will scatter light differently), so different models are used according to what type of molecule you are investigating. (This group investigates a lot of soft matter; polymers and so forth).

So I have been reading the software manual, journal articles and "how to" papers from NIST to learn how to deal with all of this information. I am on a bit of an overload right now and will get back to it tomorrow.