Tag: references

Laser pointers and quantum mechanics

Laser pointers are handy sources…



Pubmed limbo

In my experience, PubMed works beautifully the vast majority of the time. It does an excellent job parsing search terms and they’re always adding new features (e.g., you can search using full names…



Laser safety



Fiber optic termination

Fiber optics must be terminated properly in order to permit high transmission. If you’re making your own, get a proper fiber cleaver and a set of polishing sheets. Here are a…



Two-Photon Cross Sections

It’s difficult to track down 2p absorption cross sections for dyes and proteins. Doing it right requires (ideally)…



RSS feeds for any web page

I follow quite a number of RSS feeds, but there are some news sites that don’t have them. In order to keep up to date, use Page2RSS.

For example, if Nature Neuroscience didn’t have an RSS feed for their Advanced Online…



Troubleshooting Fluorescence Microscopy

Jim Pawley upgraded the 39 Steps from a simple MacGuffin to a classic checklist for troubleshooting fluorescent microscopy images. Now 10 years old, it remains very relevant. It covers thirty-nine different parameters to…



Street fighting mathematics

Physicists have a very unsentimental way of manhandling mathematics. In addition to setting up dimensionally inconsistent equations for order-of-magnitude estimations, they like to take lots of short cuts that make computations fast and easy….



Catalogs as textbooks

Many manufacturers distribute catalogs that include extensive tutorial sections. You could really teach a pretty extensive engineering course on optics using nothing more than the front pages of the CVI Melles Griot catalog. In this post I’ll point you to some of…