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I wonder if I can hash together an idea of the level of science doable in the contemporary garage.
People make telescopes; reflecting ones usually, because the test equipment for interesting refracting designs is complicated (optical flats larger than the lens under test were needed in at least one book I looked at). Amateur astronomers exist in large numbers, and manage to do quite exciting things with CCDs; any result from before 1950 is replicable, I think (since the 36" telescope in Sydney with a good CCD is at least comparable to the 200" on Mount Palomar using film).
Amateur rocketry seems to exist on a continuum from the little Estes 1/2A motors, through Tripoli's 10-foot-tall rockets going up to 10km or so, through John Carmack to the X-Prize.
There was a Victorian hobby of microscopy, which doesn't seem so visible nowadays. Though I'm quite tempted by the Intel video-microscope.
You can do fairly impressive electronics - there are hobbyists who can do BGA assembly, though soldering a $400 part to a board that took two weeks to etch and assemble by using a toaster oven takes serious cojones. I believe some people have manufactured transistors, but I have a feeling nobody's built integrated circuits - there's the combination there of incredibly noxious chemistry, very small vibration tolerance and utterly pedantic cleanliness requirement. There's someone over on aceshardware.com/forum who built a 32016 machine and wrote the OS for it, which I'd have thought slightly beyond the limits of individual endeavour had it not been done.
Not all that much particle physics is possible; there are 1MV van-de-graff generators around, and small cloud chambers for looking at cosmic rays, but bulk liquid hydrogen for large cloud chambers feels impractical in garages, and I don't think antiproton-creation energies are even close to accessible (positrons might be); you start to run into trouble avoiding irradiation, I suspect.
Developing photos is I think a fading hobby because digital makes it so much easier to get good results; but I have a feeling that people have managed to process colour film despite the temperature requirements, which makes me reckon that PCR might be possible in a (well-insulated) garage. I don't know enough molecular biology to know of other fun things to do; I suspect there's a problem getting enough official proofs of virtue to be allowed to get and store the reagants in the garage.
I'm sure I've missed out whole fields of endeavour here, and misplaced my bars most dreadfully — but I'm equally sure that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jonsinger and erikvolson are reading this and know what else to suggest and where to put the bar.
I'll summarise interesting discussion and put it up on tom.womack.net somewhere.
People make telescopes; reflecting ones usually, because the test equipment for interesting refracting designs is complicated (optical flats larger than the lens under test were needed in at least one book I looked at). Amateur astronomers exist in large numbers, and manage to do quite exciting things with CCDs; any result from before 1950 is replicable, I think (since the 36" telescope in Sydney with a good CCD is at least comparable to the 200" on Mount Palomar using film).
Amateur rocketry seems to exist on a continuum from the little Estes 1/2A motors, through Tripoli's 10-foot-tall rockets going up to 10km or so, through John Carmack to the X-Prize.
There was a Victorian hobby of microscopy, which doesn't seem so visible nowadays. Though I'm quite tempted by the Intel video-microscope.
You can do fairly impressive electronics - there are hobbyists who can do BGA assembly, though soldering a $400 part to a board that took two weeks to etch and assemble by using a toaster oven takes serious cojones. I believe some people have manufactured transistors, but I have a feeling nobody's built integrated circuits - there's the combination there of incredibly noxious chemistry, very small vibration tolerance and utterly pedantic cleanliness requirement. There's someone over on aceshardware.com/forum who built a 32016 machine and wrote the OS for it, which I'd have thought slightly beyond the limits of individual endeavour had it not been done.
Not all that much particle physics is possible; there are 1MV van-de-graff generators around, and small cloud chambers for looking at cosmic rays, but bulk liquid hydrogen for large cloud chambers feels impractical in garages, and I don't think antiproton-creation energies are even close to accessible (positrons might be); you start to run into trouble avoiding irradiation, I suspect.
Developing photos is I think a fading hobby because digital makes it so much easier to get good results; but I have a feeling that people have managed to process colour film despite the temperature requirements, which makes me reckon that PCR might be possible in a (well-insulated) garage. I don't know enough molecular biology to know of other fun things to do; I suspect there's a problem getting enough official proofs of virtue to be allowed to get and store the reagants in the garage.
I'm sure I've missed out whole fields of endeavour here, and misplaced my bars most dreadfully — but I'm equally sure that
jonsinger and erikvolson are reading this and know what else to suggest and where to put the bar.I'll summarise interesting discussion and put it up on tom.womack.net somewhere.
