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Re: The qq{worse is better} approach (discussion)

by scott (Chaplain)
on Jul 04, 2001 at 02:18 UTC ( [id://93710]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to The qq{worse is better} approach (discussion)

I don't think I can improve on the philosophical answers already given but I can offer somewhat of a more material example of something like the `golden hammer'.

Check out this (700kB, sorry) image.

This is a little something we've been working on here in our lab. We're in the process of a large upgrade and it's still only partially reassembled so please excuse the disorder.

In NSF-please-give-us-cash puffery speech, this is an Ultra High Vacuum Scanning Tunnelling Microscope/Scanning Force Microscope (UHV STM/SFM) with an attached Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) system, a molecular monolayer evaporation chamber, and ancillary stuff -- well, all right, `stuff' isn't a word usually used in NSF grant proposals ...

It can `see' atoms by, among other methods, holding a sharp tip one hundred billionth of a meter above a sample and measuring currents flowing between the tip and sample of a few hundred trillionths of an Amp. It does this after removing all but one trillionth of the atmosphere from the chamber.

The shiney bits are stainless steel. It cost about $250,000.00.

So much for the impressive-sounding hype. The point is that it's a very sophisticated, complex, subtle, and delicate device. Something that will be used heavily for 10-15 years to produce a high percentage of all the data that will come out of this lab during that time. About five people will probably get their PhD from it -- not me, unfortunately, I just get to do most of the construction. :(

Now look closely. You'll see that it's kept off the floor by stacks of concrete blocks.

The white squarish bit in the middle on top (a little to the right of the `smoke stack') is a block of one-inch plywood, held on by two bungee cords.

One of the bits of culture of our lab is the phrase `you have to know when to go fast and when to go slow'.

The plywood is a base on which to support a $5,000 temperature probe. There are no plans to replace the plywood with a custom machined base with levelers and a clever way to secure the probe.

There are no plans to replace the concrete blocks with a sophisticated, computer controlled, dynamic damping vibration isolation table. The bricks (each with a single issue of the local school newspaper between them) do their job just fine. As does the slab of plywood.

I could have spent weeks designing the temperature probe base but there was no reason to. I could have (easily) spent $25,000 (of my boss' money, of course! :) ) on vibration isolation but there's nothing wrong with our solution, even if it is the `DOS batch file' of shell scripts.

While it is often satisfying to `do it right' -- I removed a set of bolts last week because I didn't like the fact that they were the only ones with 12-sided heads on the system -- it's really `doing it' that's important.

Scott
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All the is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost ...
J. R. R. Tolkien

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