Preliminary: Rocks and Minerals

[purplepeopleeater]

1-- did you google
2-- does it HAVE to be a college textbook?
3-- not like i could help anyway
but there are some awesome sites here and on google with endless info, and books that aren't necessarily college text books that are great as well. just a thought.
do i know any good textbooks. NOPE have i looked... NOPE ;D

[gneissisnice]

Does anyone know some good college textbooks to study for this event in Division C?

I wouldn't recommend a college textbook, college mineralogy goes way beyond anything you need to learn for Mineralogy. Even an intro book would only have a chapter or two on minerals and the rest would be irrelevant to minerals (useful if you;'re doing every other earth science event , but otherwise a waste of money).

Just make a binder, the internet is extremely useful. There are a lot of sites that will give tons of information.

[tuftedtitmouse12]

hm
what resources are we most likely to get to take in?
a binder?
guide book?

[anatomy]

i think thats it
a binder and a field guide
or maybe two field guides and cheat sheets like orni

[purplepeopleeater]

This has been discussed MANY MANY times.. we won't know for sure till the rules come out.

[Paradox21]

I was reading that they have used calcite as an invisibility cloak. Scientists can make objects the size of an ant invisible. No fancy nano-materials or anything, just calcite.

[Infinity Flat]

I was reading that they have used calcite as an invisibility cloak. Scientists can make objects the size of an ant invisible. No fancy nano-materials or anything, just calcite.

That's very interesting! Could you give the source please? I'd assume that has something to do with the double-refraction calcite does.

EDIT: Found the original paper http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/101 ... 2238v3.pdf
I was somewhat right in it being related to the calcite's birefringence (double refraction). The birefringence is a result of the Calcite being optically anisotropic (light is refracted differently depending on the direction it enters the calcite.) This anisotropy is what allowed the researchers at MIT to use the calcite to cloak the object.

I'll explain how the cloak works if anyone is interested, or you can try and read the paper yourself.

EDIT2: Ninja'd by Paradox while I was reading the paper. The article he posted below explains the effect pretty well.

[Paradox21]

I was reading that they have used calcite as an invisibility cloak. Scientists can make objects the size of an ant invisible. No fancy nano-materials or anything, just calcite.

That's very interesting! Could you give the source please? I'd assume that has something to do with the double-refraction calcite does.

Here it is online: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... e_big_time

I read it in the magazine because I am old school.

[Cheesy Pie]

Do you know of a material that can make larger objects invisible?

[kjhsscioly]

just curious, why is they R and M list so short? at 93 types, it is fewer than most ID events.