The Great Fry Test of 2017

Optics vendors such as Thorlabs and Newport have figured out that graduate students fed with snacks spend more time aligning lasers than hangry (hungry+angry) students, which has the added benefit of them needing more optics and/or snacks. As a consequence, these companies send out a boxes of snacks with every order. Since Spinlab is past the “Level II” boundary at the NSCL as well as the fact that we store hazardous chemicals in our lab, eating and drinking in the lab is not wise and is not allowed. After a considerable contentious debate within the group, we narrowly decided that this also meant that unopened food could not be stored in the lab as well. As a consequence, we decided to leave the snacks just outside the door to the “level II” area in a yellow cupboard.

There was then a lot of debate within the group about whether this would result in a catastrophic loss of all of our hard-won snacks. As a consequence, Fry suggested that we perform the following test:

1. label the snacks as just for Spinlab and politely ask no one else to take them
2. leave the snacks out in the open in the yellow cupboard (a very high traffic area) for 10 days.
3. document what we put in the boxes at the start of the test (green)
4. document what snacks we’ve taken during this time period on the group wiki
5. document what was left after 10 days (red)

Except for me, no one expected there to be any snacks left after 10 days. My friends and family also thought that there was no way any snacks would be left. It turns out that all of the snacks were accounted for, the Honor Code is alive and well at the NSCL, and faith in humanity is restored. -JTS