Wednesday, October 24, 2007

a couple excuses

I should be getting back into things here soon. Not to make excuses, but my math prof has insisted on an exam a week, just about. I am ok with that because a bunch of small tests are better than a few large ones if you play the odds. Also I have been spending some time (hard time) learning the ins and outs of some very large DNA structures. After a shaky start, I venture to say it's in the bag from here on out, but for a while I felt sort of like a boxer that, literally, kept jabbing with a left when he should be swinging with a right. Here is where things stand:

1. It has been suggested that maybe a boron nitride slab may be stiffer than a diamond one. I have not harassed anyone in the know about these things (initials are DA) for a while, so I may drop him a line, or just test it out. Double thanks for the suggestion though, "Guy".

2. I will spare you my quixotic quest to nail movement 114. However if I exclude quixotic quests, this blog would be thinned out considerably.

MTF

1 comment:

Guy said...

I just took a gander at some docs on boron-nitride and in the bulk it's diamond form is not as hard as carbon's. To what degree this relates to nanoscale behavior is unclear. I was imagining that BN's binary form might help to squelch oscillation but might just be the opposite.

Keep up the good work. Can't wait to see your next DNA rendering.