It is always great to be welcomed back to an environment one is familiar with and the same can be said of research. While there is always a little trepidation with starting something new it helps to know how to approach where you are headed. The following entries are a follow up to the first research experience as a second year of research ensues. There is a new lab and with it new challenges and experiences.
This year the goal is to find out new things about Terahertz spectroscopy with respect to several samples. As of now, much of what we know about the world around us comes from investigating via the electromagnetic spectrum. Up to this point scientists have studied many things through the spectrum building up fairly complete pictures in certain wavelengths such as the Infrared and Ultraviolet. However, there are still areas to investigate and one of these areas is the Terahertz regime. The goal of the project is to simply learn more about how objects behave spectroscopically in this area of the electromagnetic spectrum.
One of the greatest things that science has to offer is the unknown. Science is constantly pushing boundaries to invent new technology, discover affects never seen before, and create theories about how the world around us functions. The exciting thing about the experiment being worked on is that we do not know what will happen. It may be that our samples give us spectra and we can investigate these. It also may be that we are given nothing with the spectroscopy and this is still good because it gives us new information. This means when gathering information and researching topics one has to look at the information in pieces from different sources to try and create an expected picture where from there the experiment can be set up and followed through. Either way, we are moving to the unknown to see what nature has to offer us.
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