Half-Life Easter Egg - Valve Logo in Air Duct

To find this egg, you must reach the section of Uplink in which you have just entered the Lambda reactor complex through the large doors.
Go to the end of the room with the exploding computers, to where the two dog-like aliens are hiding. After you have killed them and you have entered the air duct at ground level, turn on your flashlight and look closely at the textures inside the air duct. You will see the word 'Valve' several times faintly on the side(Valve are the developers of Half-Life).

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Contributed By: Sam Jackson on 03-30-2000
Reviewed By: Webmaster
Special Requirements: Half-Life Uplink
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Valve brand insulation
Valve brand insulation

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Comments

Beech writes:
This also occurs in the chapter "Office Complex." After you fall through the cieling into the hallway you climb onto those boxes in the hall. Shotgun or crowbar through the cieling and while climbing through the ducts "Valve" is clearly visible.
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Alex Denham writes:
I'm pretty certain that the valve logo appears in all of the air vents as the use a standard texture for all of them.
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pat writes:
This also happens somewhere in "On A Rail", though I'm not sure where.
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Founder Xian writes:
Well duh. The reason the Valve logo is used so widely is because the Valve logo symbol is the (Greek?) letter "Lambda".
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ildon writes:
lambda is not the valve logo, its the half-life logo. also the texture with the word valve on it is their insulation texture. so anywhere there would be insulation (like in the roof crawlspace) has that texture.
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Shok writes:
The Valve-logo (not the lambda-logo) is also in "Office Complex", written on some strange devices that would appear to be coffee-machines or something..
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Gul Dukat writes:
If you people did your science home-work, you'd know that the symbol for half-life (the time it takes for half the element's atoms to be destroyed) is the lambda. It's not just some random symbol that Valve made up.
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JRA_Mario writes:
Its also the Greek letter L, hence the symbol for the lambda complex.
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Jimmeny Cook writes:
Actually, if you had done your science homework, you would know that the sign used for Half Life is the symbol for 'wavelength'. The Half Life of an element is completely different, and can only be applied to radioactive materials, as the Half Life of a radioactive material is the time it takes for its radioactivity to reduce by half. So, the sign for Half Life is _not_ the symbol for half an elements atoms to be destroyed. It is the symbol for wavelength. The Half Life is the time it takes for the radioactivity of a substance to reduce by half. The symbol and the name are two different things, that were used to look cool. There's nothing about half the atoms being destroyed anyway!
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Kaiser-Sose writes:
Fortunately, you are both correct. Half-Life metabolic breakdown is based upon a "Biology" version of the definition. Radioactive decay is based on the "Physics" version. Looks like you both did your homework, you just had different classes. I took both. Now kiss and make up. -Kaiser Sose
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Jimmeny Cook writes:
You're right, I DID learn it in Physics. If you say so, I concede. I suppose I cornered myself in trying to appear knowledgeable in something I only knew half the side of. Fair enough.
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Jimmeny Cook writes:
However, it doesn't change the fact that the symbol used for the game is not the symbol for any 'type' of Half-life. It's still the symbol for wavelength.
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Kaiser-Sose writes:
Sorry man, your wrong again. This time in Physics. It took place back in the 40's and 50's or so. It had to do with *decay* of new unknown particles amongst older known particles. This was also known as "strangeness". We now call these particles "kaons" or "lambda hyperons". Hence the Lambda symbol in Half-Life. The explosion in Half-life the game produced particles not yet known to man amongst the rest of the *known* particles (Unforeseen Consequences). At least thats what I would attribute to their games symbol meaning. All in all, the Lambda symbol (and other Greek letters)can stand for many different unknown or known theories in science. That was just *one* of them that I gave you now... -Kaiser
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DINO-- writes:
The lambda symbol can also be found on G mans suitcase. Valve's logo is the man with the thing in his eye. period!
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f writes:
The lambda symbol is used in physics to denote both wavelength and the decay constant of a radioactive material.
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suizid writes:
"the Half Life of a radioactive material is the time it takes for its radioactivity to reduce by half" Sorry, you're both quoting semi formed science terminology as if it is fact - the Half-life of an element is the time taken for the AMOUNT of a substance to halve due to radioactive decay. *sigh* and please don't question what I know about it - i'm a medicinal chemist for a living...
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skodadod writes:
Actually, I think the reason for using Lamba is probably way easier (more in the sense of visual artistic) than any of you thought. The game's name is "Half-Life" right? The greek letter "Lamba" is somewhat historically "equivalent" to the letter "l", and the lowercase Lambda looks like a "h". _H_alf-_L_ife.
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TriggaHappy writes:
f is right. The lambda is the symbol for decay constant (and for wavelength, which is why a popular HL editing site has taken that name) which is closely related to the half-life (I believe log 2 / decay constant = half-life). The symbol for half-life is a tau (Greek t) with a subscripted '½'. My guess is that Valve used the lambda because it looks cooler, or maybe because of what skodadod said.
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This "Valve" texture is also clearly visible in the secret vents that lead to the locked armoury room in Office Complex. I can't remember exactly where this is, although I know the entrance is through a grate behind the door, and I think there is a large spiral staircase going up and a ramp going down to a storeroom with a few grenades, etc. This is the clearest view I've found of it at any rate.
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well.... lambda means wavelength in physics. i learn it in secondary school. thus, the theory of wavelength should have something to do with time travel, hyperspace or anything like that. that's why there are teleport center and all the monster teleporting when you least expected in the game half life.... am i right?
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strider writes:
Half-Life is the exponential rate of decay of one element as it's releasing alpha, beta and/or gamma rays from the atoms nuclei to "turn into" another element. A half life is when half of the atoms have downgraded. Lambda is the symbol for it. I don't see what wavelength has to do with half-life, the word or the game. The residential cascade stuff was just made up (of course) :). Note that Half-life has nothing to do with the lessening or increase of radiation emitted from the element - the element below it might emit more or less radiation, depending on how stable it is. A general rule is the higher the half-life the lower the radiation.
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ataricom2 writes:
All of you are right. Lambda is the symbol to denote wavelength, and Half Life is the time it takes for a radioactive substance to loose half of its power. But have any of you seen the movie "Revenge of the Nerds"? The frat. name is "Lambda Lambda Lambda", which means they are all a bunch of science nerds - just like everyone who works at the Black Mesa Research Facility.
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Stranger writes:
The Greek letter Lambda is most commonly used in Physics to signify wavelength and (in this case) time constant for radioactive decay. This constant simply signifies the rate of decay of a given radioactive element. The "Half-life" of an element is directly related to this time constant.
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Matt Hayden writes:
lamda is the symbol for the time constant too as well as wavelength! its relation to half life is lambda over ln2!
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PsychoBob writes:
Apparently nobody has done their homework at all. The Lambda is not the logo for Valve, it's the logo for Half-Life. http://www.valvesoftware.com/images/valvelogo.gif Have a nice day.
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