Superlative U

Coldest

Physicist John Davis's ultra-low temperature lab in the basement of CCIS looks for new physical phenomena in quantum physics by cooling down helium to temperatures as low as 0.007 Kelvin. To put that in perspective, it's about -273 C - the lowest temperature ever reached in Alberta. (And that's really saying something.)

Oldest

The oldest object on campus is, without a doubt, a piece of the Allende meteorite on display in the Mineralogy and Petrology Museum (ESB-B08), dating from nearly 4.6 billion years ago. It was probably once part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and slammed into northern Mexico in the early hours of Feb. 8, 1969.

Lowest

The lowest point on campus is the cooling plant, tucked along the south bank of the North Saskatchewan River so that most passersby don't even know it's there. It has a cooling capacity of more than 26,000 tonnes used for air-conditioning, cooling computers and medical equipment, and power generation for facilities on North Campus.

Smelliest

In the Department of Human Ecology, assistant professor Rachel McQueen is trying to build odour-free garments, which often requires her to get up close and personal with the bacteria found in actual sweaty gym clothes. McQueen has also worked with a student to study the bacteria count of a pair of blue jeans, which he wore for 15 months without washing. Remarkably, the jeans were as "clean" after 15 months of wear as they were after just two weeks.

Windiest

The combustion wind tunnel in the Mechanical Engineering Building can produce winds of up to 35 m/s, or about 126 km/h. Since it was constructed in the 1970s, the tunnel has been used for environmental testing, aerodynamic research and to help a ski jumper reduce drag during competition. To put that in perspective, the highest sustained wind recorded in Edmonton last year was 11 m/s, or about 40 km/h. If that's not enough to blow your mind, what is?

Sharpest

Robert Wolkow, a professor in the physics department, has won the Guinness World Record for the sharpest point - a "blade" with a tip only one atom thick, which he created in his lab at the National Institute for Nanotechnology on the U of A campus. Wolkow's tungsten nano-tips are created using an etching technology he patented and that will be used in electron microscopes. And unlike a lot of Guinness records, Wolkow's win certainly can't be beaten.

Quietest

To study the acoustics of the human singing voice, professor Laurier Fagnan, '87 BMus, '05 DMus, has created an oasis of silence in the basement of Campus Saint-Jean's main academic building. In order to make the Bel Canto Vocal Acoustics Laboratory as quiet as possible, the room-within-a-room is surrounded by 15 centimetres of insulation and lined with fibreglass panels. It includes a raised floor, a lowered ceiling, a super-quiet ventilation system and two 160-kilogram sound-blocking steel doors.

Highest

Once completed, the Innovation Centre for Engineering will be the highest point on campus at 65 metres, "towering" over the Tory Building (56 metres) and the Clinical Sciences Building (62 metres).

Darkest

While it might not be within the physical boundaries of the U of A campus, the research being conducted by particle-physics professor Darren Grant at the IceCube neutrino detector at the South Pole certainly qualifies as the darkest. Buried in ice some 2.5 kilometres deep, the detector is searching for information about neutrinos and dark matter, which make up about 85 per cent of the universe's total mass but about which we understand very little. Hopefully, Grant's research means that we won't be in the dark on dark matter much longer.