DavidPace.com - My Economic Stimulus Plan

My Economic Stimulus Plan

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

The What's New postings have recently inspired me to write. The What's New from February 8 suggested that the economic stimulus plan of the United States might work a little better if it gave a $1 million dollar research grant to each member of the American Physical Society. Well, I am a member of the APS and here is my proposed budget for the grant.

As always, however, we better do some clarification and housecleaning before getting to the fun part. Here are some notes, notices, and other statements to prevent anyone from misinterpreting the “budget.”

I am not involved in any financial aspect of the labs in which I work. This is just a fun little listing of some things on which I would spend a $1 million dollar grant and they are in no way a comment on budget issues in any lab.
Most items feature links to suppliers. The cost listed is not necessarily based on a quote from any of these companies. The listed cost is what I would be willing to spend and the likely vendors are provided because I want to demonstrate who would benefit from this financial stimulus.
The point of this exercise, and of the actual stimulus package, is to improve the economy by spending money. Some of the items I present below could be built or an equivalent piece obtained for a cheaper price than the one provided. Experimental plasma physicists generally pride themselves on being cost-effective and solving problems in-house, but that is not the goal here.

My Million Dollar Research Budget

Sixty-percent goes to maintaining the lab, while the remaining forty-percent is spread across a range of needs.

Basic Hardware

Components that are required to perform the work.

Electron Beam:
Work with company to develop large, single crystal of LaB6 or CeB6 to explore new regime of gradient scales.
http://www.a-p-tech.com/aguide.htm

$10,000

Probe Tips:
Laser cut probe tips feature identical collection areas, thus improving axial comparisons and Janus-type (Mach) measurements.
http://www.vacco-etch.com/laser.htm

$1,000

Epoxy:
Ultra low outgassing epoxy is necessary for probes that are plasma facing.
http://www.masterbond.com/prodtype.html

$600

Tantalum:
Material for probe tips with known secondary electron emission characteristics and ability to withstand plasma energy flux.
http://www.espimetals.com/metals/cattantalum.htm

$1000

Alumina Tubes:
Serves as insulator and plasma facing component for probes.
http://www.techceramics.com/tubesandrods.html

$200

Developmental Hardware

Components that would be useful, but are generally not the first items purchased.

Avalanche Photodiodes:
Sensitive light-detecting diodes to be used for measuring plasma temperature of heated filament.
http://sales.hamamatsu.com/en/products/solid-state-division/si-photodiode-series/si-apd.php

$1,000

Residual Gas Analyzer:
Normally a basic component, this one would be web-enabled (fairly new to the market) to allow for integration with control systems already existing in the lab.
No link available, but these can be found at some places that sell RGAs in general.

$4,000

Advanced Camera:
Try to image filament behavior in time. As with the diodes, this requires a special unit because of the low-light levels and geometric concerns of the vacuum vessel.
http://www.piacton.com/imaging/

$50,000

Personnel

Bringing in collaborators who are not already part of the effort.

Retired Researcher:
Six months of time to work with emeritus member of research group.

$55,000

Follow-up Graduate Student:
Four years of coverage for a graduate student to perform thesis work after I have finished.

$200,000

Computers and Software

Equipment for data processing and similar needs.

Server:
Apple Xserve built strong to serve entire group (no reason to keep it for myself). Eight-cores, 32 GB RAM, 15 TB total storage, fibre connection, full software package, and maintenance contract.
http://www.apple.com/xserve/

$33,446.95

Adobe Illustrator:
Provides vector graphic editing beyond that of other options. While other options might work, this is one program that always works and makes life a lot easier.
http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/

$599

Argon:
CAD program to generate models and animations of experiment for sharing information and making presentations.
http://www.ashlar.com/sections/products/argon/argon.html

$1,295

Open Source Donations:
The programs are free, but would benefit from donations. I use all these presently.
GIMP, LaTeXiT, TeXShop, Aquamacs, MacTeX, NeoOffice

$6,000

Communications and Publishing

Sharing results with the community.

Conferences:
Two conferences in one year.
TTF, APS

$2,800

Publishing Fees:
An upper limit for two papers, though it is possible to publish more than this for the same amount depending on the number of pages, whether the figures are print-color, and so forth.
POP, PRL, PPCF

$4,800

Miscellaneous Good Things

It would be nice to spend money on these things.

Outreach:
Provide additional support for plasma physics work with high school students and lab tours for all ages.
http://coke.physics.ucla.edu/laptag/

$20,000

Plasma Books:
Add to the plasma library in the lab when new books are published (these are typically expensive because they do not have large customer bases).

$600

Lab Notebooks:
Hardback notebooks from Boorum & Pease are excellent for keeping notes and staying organized, but they are expensive.
http://www.officeworld.com/Worlds-Biggest-Selection/ESSL21300R/08Q1/

$374.95

Finally

Support for the lab itself.

Machine Time:
Since the lab needs staff and electricity, I would spend all the remaining money on funding the lab. If this turned out to be more than needed for my group's experiments, then the rest could help support other collaborators and research groups that also use the machine.

$607,284.10

Grand Total:

$1,000,000.00

Forgot Something

I forgot to include to fund myself in this treatment. Let's say that I would find support elsewhere. With a nearly endless supply of computing power and nice lab notebooks, I would work for free if necessary (unfortunately, my landlord would not be impressed by this setup).

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splashy_scampi - 1 million dollars goes a long

| 2008-03-18 19:13:49

With these types of budgeting skills you should be able to easily write proposals and get funding for your research at a four year university.