Tales from the NMR lab
Why your friendly magnet facility is the social heart of the chemistry department
When I first started doing NMR research in graduate school, I spent most of my time alone in the Batcave. This was our affectionate name for a windowless, concrete bunker in the lower level of a 100-year-old building. Many spectroscopy labs suffer a similar fate – cordoned off in a basement to minimise vibrations and radiofrequency interference. Of course, all of those hours spent in the subterranean world earns you the complexion of a sightless fish that lives at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. So you can imagine my delight when, at the end of my second year, I emerged from the Batcave into the rarified air of the university’s shared NMR facility upstairs. The sunlight! The camaraderie! The lack of stinky pipes! I loved it so much I decided to make it the focus of my career.