I have seen photos of you folks hopping rocks, gapping rails, riding along walls, climbing cars, and jumping off stumps.
How many of you have ever ridden on top of an FN tandem van de Graaff accelerator? Eat your hearts out.
These are about 230kB each.
It looks like wearing golf shoes is a solution to pegs in the pedels.
Great shots, do you work with that monsterous tank?
Lowell
----- Original Message ----- From: harper <forum.member@unicyclist.com>
Newsgroups: rec.sport.unicycling
> I have seen photos of you folks hopping rocks, gapping rails, riding
> along walls, climbing cars, and jumping off stumps.
>
> How many of you have ever ridden on top of an FN tandem van de Graaff
> accelerator? Eat your hearts out.
>
> These are about 230kB each.
>
> http://www.harper.unicyclist.com/tantop1.jpg
> http://www.harper.unicyclist.com/tantop2.jpg
> http://www.harper.unicyclist.com/tanside1.jpg
> http://www.harper.unicyclist.com/tanside2.jpg
> –
> harper Posted via the Unicyclist Community -
> http://unicyclist.com/forums
> ___________________________________________________________________-
> ________
> rec.sport.unicycling mailing list -
> www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu
Lowell-
I work with, on, around, and in that tank but I’ve never worn golf shoes in my life. I had the grad students paint it a few years ago. Do you like the colors? John Childs might recognize the color scheme.
----- Original Message ----- From: harper <forum.member@unicyclist.com>
Newsgroups: rec.sport.unicycling To: <rsu@unicycling.org> Sent: Monday,
December 24, 2001 9:25 PM Subject: Re: On top
> Lowell-
>
> I work with, on, around, and in that tank but I’ve never worn golf shoes
> in my life. I had the grad students paint it a few years ago. Do you
> like the colors? John Childs might recognize the color scheme.
I thought it looked like some kind of spikes on the bottom of your shoes
in the side few, looking up from below. Golf shoes came to mind.
Just what does that tank do?
Lowell
Lowell-
The tank is a pressure vessel (15 bar) for an electrostatic particle accelerator. A terminal in the center of the tank is held in compression by two glass columns, one from each end, and is charged to as much as 9 million volts with a dual chain charging system (not like giraffe chains). Negative ions enter from the side behind me (camera view from top) and are accelerated to the terminal where they are stripped to a very high positive charge state by tearing all of the electrons off. The positive ions are then further accelerated and come out the end I am facing at about a tenth of the speed of light, somewhat faster than I am pedaling in these photos, but not much.
I thought Kris was the Danger Uni. Now you’re getting into the act. Be
careful. 
Purple and Gold is a patriotic color combo. If you paint everything purple
and gold you’ll get more funding from the university. (Purple and gold are
the school colors for the University of Washington where Greg works.)
john_childs
>From: harper <forum.member@unicyclist.com>
>
>How many of you have ever ridden on top of an FN tandem van de Graaff
>accelerator? Eat your hearts out.
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
----- Original Message ----- From: harper <forum.member@unicyclist.com>
Newsgroups: rec.sport.unicycling
> Lowell-
>
> The tank is a pressure vessel (15 bar) for an electrostatic particle
> accelerator. A terminal in the center of the tank is held in compression
> by two glass columns, one from each end, and is charged to as much as 9
> million volts with a dual chain charging system (not like giraffe
> chains). Negative ions enter from the side behind me (camera view from
> top) and are accelerated to the terminal where they are stripped to a
> very high positive charge state by tearing all of the electrons off. The
> positive ions are then further accelerated and come out the end I am
> facing at about a tenth of the speed of light, somewhat faster than I am
> pedaling in these photos, but not much.
Ok, I get the general drift of it, but most of it is a little beyond me.
What are you studying in this process? I take it that it is
experimentation. But I appreciate the complete answer though. One never
knows until one asks.
Lowell
And they told me it wasn’t the size of my particle accelerator that matered. Whoa be unto me. To compensate for my feelings of inadequacy, I will roam the City, looking for something large and impressive to perch on (actualy, there is a gigantic bust of Andrew Jackson downtown… humm… ya, that just might work…monumental is biger than gigantic, right?).
Thanks for the pics- I have inflicted them on all my friends. Send more.
Christopher
I too will be on the lookout for “extreme” places for me to ride and record.
I almost had a chance to ride atop a Van DeGraaf accelerator. It was
located at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah until about 4 weeks
ago. Because it was rarely used and the space was needed for more relevant
research it was decided that the accelerator would go. Unfortunately
because of the size it was dismantled and the tank was cut into pieces to
facilitate the removal. So while I cannot say I’ve ridden atop such a
piece of scientific equipment I can say I almost did. You should have
posted this 5 weeks ago and I could have joined your exclusive club.
Now I’ll have to seek out some esoteric terrain in my brother-in-law’s
new lab. 
-mg “harper” <forum.member@unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:a08em6$4jg$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu…
> I have seen photos of you folks hopping rocks, gapping rails, riding
> along walls, climbing cars, and jumping off stumps.
>
> How many of you have ever ridden on top of an FN tandem van de Graaff
> accelerator? Eat your hearts out.
>
> These are about 230kB each.
>
> http://www.harper.unicyclist.com/tantop1.jpg
> http://www.harper.unicyclist.com/tantop2.jpg
> http://www.harper.unicyclist.com/tanside1.jpg
> http://www.harper.unicyclist.com/tanside2.jpg
>
>
>
>
> –
> harper Posted via the Unicyclist Community -
> http://unicyclist.com/forums
Michael-
I know Scott Daniel at BYU so I have heard the long saga of their homemade VDG going the way of the dumpster. These photos are getting a little dicey. I had intended them for the unicycling community, not the accelerator community which has very close ties to the D.O.E and O.S.H.A, two groups I would rather not have viewing these photos or, for that matter, knowing anything about them. It is always easier to receive forgiveness than permission and I can assure you that the latter was not sought before the photo-op. Discretion would be appreciated.
