Adam Singer's gadget is a cloud chamber

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From: Jeff Furman (jfurman@cisco.com)
Date: Thu Aug 28 2003 - 12:23:52 PDT 

Message-ID: <3F4E56C8.4040009@cisco.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 12:23:52 -0700
From: Jeff Furman <jfurman@cisco.com>
Subject: Adam Singer's gadget is a cloud chamber

This is a static (versus an expansion) type cloud chamber. It looks like
dry ice goes in the wooden box underneath the bottom metal plate, and an
alcohol or alcohol-water mixture saturates the felt pad in the top. The
side hole in the plastic cylinder is intended to support a radium alpha
source on a pinhead stuck into a small cork. Use a plain cork to cover
the hole in order to see just cosmic rays and environmental radiation if
a radium source is unavailable (or illegal these days?) You need a light
source, such as a slide projector, to illuminate the tracks from the
side. I can guess the wires on the top plate are an electric heater used
to maintain the proper temperature gradient inside the chamber and keep
the alcohol vapor releasing from the felt pad.
This seems to be a somewhat more elaborate example of the typical
demonstration device.

Jeff Furman

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