
This is my weapon
You want a nerdfit? I’ll show you a nerdfit.
It’s 1:00 pm and you’re sitting in the instruments lab, just you, your sample, and this monster of a machine. You place your vial on the rack, and hit the start button. The auto-sampler mechanical arm moves in to grasp your sample, making you feel like you’re an important scientist. The syringe extracts a small volume of the sample from the vial, about 5-10 nL or so. Then the liquid begins to move through the column, and the uv-vis starts spitting out data. 1 minute, nothing before the dead time, good. Then noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. 10 Minutes in, still noise. Fuck. You switch to a gradient. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. Noise. 30 Minutes in, nothing. Your sample wasn’t concentrated enough. Fuck, back to the lab to prepare another sample. 3 Hours later you finally get useful data. For a science so exact on paper there can be a ton of variables in the lab.
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