Lee Willcockson

Ultracold Atoms and Quantum Gases

at the University of Washington

"Anything worth taking seriously is worth making fun of."

Lee is an elusive character to photograph, as auto-focusing cameras seem to focus on everything but him, and he never seems to look in the right direction. These photographs are all we have of him, in moderately unblurred detail.

Lee is perhaps the most territorial of all of the underworld inhabitants, often sitting at his favorite computer for hours on end. Or it may be that this behavior is his method of escape - interacting with a computer-generated 3D model of the vacuum chambers used in the experiment. Indeed it is unfortunate that he has not learned how to separate reality from imagination.

Help may be on its way, as real-life experiment chambers have been sent to us from the Outside World, which appear amazingly similar to those shown in Lee's computer. His fascination for such objects may prove to be essential for his therapy, as now he spends most of his time turning bolts and putting pieces together on the real chamber, although at times he seems to revert back to his fantasy world.

Lee holding an object
Lee playing with some optics or something.