Claire Murray (@drclairemurray) is a beamline support scientist at the Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, and joined RealScientists in July.
Claire shared with us her wonderfully unique take on powder diffraction, where smashing something into tiny pieces actually helps you figure out what the item originally was.
One of my favourite ways of think about powdered materials is to imagine that someone has received an engagement ring from their fiancé.
— realscientists (@realscientists) July 17, 2016
There is a beautiful big diamond right in the centre of in the ring, with all the facets shining beautifully.
— realscientists (@realscientists) July 17, 2016
Now imagine that bad things happen and the couple breaks up. The owner of the ring is not very happy with their now ex-fiance.
— realscientists (@realscientists) July 17, 2016
So they visit their local DIY shop and buy the biggest mallet they can get their hands on. And they start smashing.
— realscientists (@realscientists) July 17, 2016
Periscope also featured heavily during Claire’s week, so we got to see heaps of the goings on around the Diamond Light Source.
It would also appear that the definition of “mini” is somewhat relative at a synchrotron.
These are some of the mini magnets used inside the inner ring @DiamondLightSou. pic.twitter.com/qWEcG0lRMi
— realscientists (@realscientists) July 19, 2016
and would you get a load of this detector! Such two theta wow.
So this is where we use more of the exciting #hardware. Beam hits sample and detectors detect diffracted light. pic.twitter.com/kD6RshEDTh
— realscientists (@realscientists) July 19, 2016
We asked Claire to complete our post-curation interview, to which she kindly obliged.
In general terms, how did you find your week as a curator?
Manic! It happened to be a very busy week at work for me, so I was running about and tweeting like a lunatic at the same time! It was tremendous fun though and I think people got a great insight into life at a synchrotron.
It can be a shock talking to so many. Did you find the sudden rush of interactions (good and bad) daunting?
I found it very interesting. People were very curious and very lovely. The rush of interactions was great, particularly when I told the story of Kathleen Lonsdale. That was a fantastic experience for me. There were a very small number of bad interactions but given the positive interactions it was easier to ignore those.
What were the highlights? Were there any lowlights?
I have a few! The tour of Diamond (lowlight was my phone kept crashing!) with @Ed_Rial, discussing my Palladium cages which people seemed to really like, and also talking about Kathleen Lonsdale. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have more interactions when discussing @DLSProjectM, as this is something I am incredibly excited about.
Is there anything you wanted to get out of / do on the RS account that you didn’t manage to fit in?
I didn’t get a chance to discuss the survey that I mentioned in some of my earlier tweets and also there was some more of my work that I wanted to chat about. It is hard to pack it all in though!
Did you have a plan? If so, did you stick to it?
Yes I did, and sort of. My plan was roughly based around what I was doing each day, and so it developed from there!
Do you have any tips or advice for future RS curators?
I read @reecielevin’s summary before I started and that was hugely helpful. Prioritising self-care is essential. I had prebooked a day off with my sister, so I stuck to that and didn’t tweet whilst I was with her. Little breaks like that are really helpful!
Also, remembering this is also crucial:
http://www.deathbulge.com/comics/155
Don’t let the small number of negative interactions dominate the huge number of positive interactions you will have throughout the week!
What other people or accounts should people follow if they enjoyed your tweets this week?
@Ed_Rial, @Helen_E_Mc, @xtalgrrl, @Jonny_CBB, @suziesheehy
Thanks once again Claire from all of us here at RealScientists HQ. If you missed anything from her week, the tweets are all collated at the following link.
