So much good science going on here. Original experimental setup to turn a stochastic process into a repeatable one. Proper application of computational methods to study experimental results. Albeit I think I can see some problems with the AIMD work, it doesn't diminish the overall result. Really a fantastic piece of work.
Phil Mason has a video about this research[1] on his YouTube channel. There are several others on there about intermediate results.<p>[1] <a href="http://youtu.be/LmlAYnFF_s8" rel="nofollow">http://youtu.be/LmlAYnFF_s8</a>
> <i>He wrote of how, as a boy, he and his friends bought a lump of sodium from the local chemicals supplier...</i><p>Whenever I read stuff like I this, it saddens me just how much safety and common sense have eroded the spirit of scientific experimentation. These days, the most reactive chemical in a chemistry set is sodium bicarbonate.
Nothing bad to say about the science, but the (casual? blasé?) wording of this really bothered me:<p>> Jungwirth’s colleague Philip Mason was determined to find out what was really going on — despite the hazards. In one run, he removed his face shield to blow out a small fire, only to have a piece of metal go off in his face, scratching his cheek.
Incidentally, the news from Prague 70 years ago: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Bombing_of_Prague" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Bombing_of_Prague</a>