In the summer of 2008 I was working in the basement of the Seeley W. Mudd building where Columbia University’s Plasma Physics Lab is located. Our experiment was contained in a large steel vacuum chamber that sat on top of the concrete housing of an never-used Mark III TRIGA nuclear test reactor. Attached to our experiment were cryopumps, high voltage lines, an RF generator, and hundreds of diagnostic sensors. We were studying hydrogen plasmas in a dipole magnetic fields, such as the ones that surround the Earth and are responsible for aurorae.
It was one of my first experiences doing serious research and I was still an undergraduate in Applied Physics at the time. In our group we had this one stellar guy, who really looked like he had it together. He worked more efficiently then any other scientist I’ve spent serious time with. He always seemed like he had a clear idea about what he was doing and kept scrupulous notes as he tracked his progress.