Thursday, June 30, 2011

Even engineers have imagination

I was watching a technician setting up a huge ass mass spec instrument for our group.  Now, among other things, the instrument has a long vacuum chamber operated at 6500 V where ions happily travel from one end to the other and back.  The particular chamber is lined with fans for cooling called Medusa fans.

Excuse me, I asked the guy while he was looking for the container for these, why are they called Medusa fans?

Well, ever imagine what form that much electricity takes in a  vacuum chamber?  The bolts look like the hair of Medusa.

Huh.

Some engineers know their Greek.


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