When engineers get mad

Last night Andrew and I got into a fight about fluid dynamics. Yep. See, I had been trying to recreate this weather experiment on cyclones and anti-cyclones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzqvGIAWHOk, but I couldn’t get the dynamic profile to fully develop. If you don’t have time to click on the video, just know that the experimental set up is a can of ice set inside a pan of rheologic fluid which is in turn set inside a larger pan. The entire apparatus is spinning on a turntable, and at the start of the experiment, hot water is poured into the second, larger pan. The setup is a model of the earth: The can of ice models the cold “north pole”, and the hot water warms up the equator (the outside edge of the inner pan).

In the video, you can see three cyclones and three anti-cyclones form, and in between them is a continuous line which is a model for the jet stream. But when I tried to repeat the experiment, I never got steady cyclones or anti-cyclones; I just saw small transient cyclones form at the “north pole.” The video is only a demonstration and therefore doesn’t give a step-by-step methodology, so I wasn’t sure which critical thing I was missing. One of the differences between my set up and the one in the video, however, is that I have a Lazy Susan, and not an electric turntable, so I couldn’t start the rotation until after I had poured in the hot water, but I was pretty sure that wouldn’t matter. I thought I’d ask Andrew what he thought, though. You should note that I had shown Andrew the video the night before, so I thought he was familiar with the setup.

But Andrew said the lack of rotation would make a difference, because the hot water would make hot spots. I blinked. What? Hot spots? In the outer pan? I stared at him, confused. “No it wouldn’t,” I said, lamely.

“Of course it would!” he said. “The hot water would make one part hot before it could get everywhere!”

Again, I was at a loss. Did Andrew not understand that water… flows? “But the water doesn’t just stay in one place!” I said. “How could it make a hot spot?”

I won’t repeat the whole argument word for word, although, actually, I pretty much already did. We basically just kept repeating those two statements back and forth to each other, with growing frustration. “It HAS to create a hot spot!” “But the water doesn’t just stay still!”

Eventually, he said he couldn’t talk to me about it anymore, because he was just too aggravated. I, however, insisted that we continue. “I think you are not understanding something,” I said, “Because it cannot make a hot spot! The water is being poured into an empty pan. It goes all over the pan! It flows!”

“Wait… you’re not pouring the water into the fluid?” Andrew asked.

OH THANK GOODNESS. So here’s what was happening. Andrew thought I was pouring hot water into a cold fluid and failing to understand that this would create a hot spot before the mixture had time to come to thermal equilibrium, something that I should understand very well given my degree in chemical engineering which is basically the study of heat transfer and fluid flow. But to me, it seemed like Andrew was failing to understand that when you pour water into a dish it will not stack up on top of itself but will instead flow into the pan, something that Andrew should understand very well given that he has POURED WATER BEFORE.

I tell you, we argued about this for a good ten minutes. And I think we had such trouble finding different words to explain what we were talking about, because what each of us WANTED to say was, “WHY ARE YOU BEING AN IDIOT?”

Science and television

Let’s take a break from pregnancy and kids and talk for a second about what it can be like to be an engineer watching television. The other day, I saw a commercial for Exxon which started with a shot of gasoline being poured into some sort of container while a sexy female voiceover says something about how Exxon gasoline is special because it “works at the molecular level.” Now I think she went on to claim that the Exxon gas cleans the engine or something, but I can’t be sure because I was too busy mocking the ad to hear what she was saying. It “works at the molecular level,” eh, Exxon? Well that makes YOUR gasoline just incredibly unique! So with Exxon, do the gasoline molecules undergo an extreme exothermic reaction when mixed with oxygen molecules and heat? Funny, because THAT’S HOW GASOLINE WORKS. ON THE MOLECULAR LEVEL.

In fact, I am hard pressed to think of any substance on earth that doesn’t “work” at the molecular level. Take water. Did you know that liquid water flows because the molecules slide over one another, and ice is formed when those very same water molecules stop sliding and crystallize? That’s how it “works.” Take your furniture! You know how you can set something down on the table and it doesn’t fall through? That “works” because the molecules in the wood are tightly covalently bonded.

The Exxon commercial reminded of a news clip I saw years ago, but have never forgotten. The news anchor was talking about a vehicle full of volatile liquid. I forget what the liquid was, exactly, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it was oxygen. We’ll assume she was talking about a fuel tanker full of liquid oxygen. A dangerous thing, no doubt. But that doesn’t make this statement any more true: “But remember, even though the oxygen was in liquid form, it’s still a gas.” Because no. No it’s not. It’s a liquid. That’s why they call it liquid oxygen. Saying that something in the liquid form is “still a gas” is like saying… I don’t know! That two totally different things are the same! It’s like saying you can drown in ice because even though the water is solid, it’s still a liquid!

Argh.

I have one more from year ago, but this one is more forgivable because it was one of those “But wait, there’s more!” commercials, so you expect them to lie a little. It was a commercial schilling some sort of plastic sealant which is “so air-tight, even water can’t get through it!” Riiiiiight. I think the phrase they’re looking for there is “water-tight.”

Andrew would like me to add a note to the writers of Covert Affairs that you don’t get “infected with radiation poisoning.” You can get “poisoned by radiation” or you can “have radiation poisoning,” but not so much “infected.”

The life cycle of Tupperware*

Containers with matching lids are purchased.



The lids are removed.



Lids and containers are stacked for easy storage.



Stacked items are placed in the Tupperware cabinet.



The door is shut.



In the absence of light, the lids and containers begin to migrate away from one another. Within a few days, the original lids and containers mate, produce an offspring, and die. Upon death, Tupperware containers disintegrate into a powder which resembles ground graham cracker crumbs.

The offspring is always a different size than its parents; ie, two six-inch circular lids can mate and produce a 4-inch circular lid. Sometimes the offspring is a different shape entirely, so two square lids can produce a rectangular lid. In an interesting twist, however, the most common combination of lid- and container-offspring results in similar shapes but ever so slightly different sizes.

If enough time is allowed to elapse, the Tupperware cabinet will eventually contain hundreds of containers and lids no one can remember purchasing, and none of which fit together.







*With apologies to Douglas Adams

When nerds have children

they teach them things like this:

I am so unhip it is a wonder my bum doesn't fall off

So yesterday on NPR's "On Point" with Tom Ashbrook , (airs locally from 10-noon with an encore from 7-9pm), the guest was a woman who has written a book about how to raise kids according to your values even if they are in opposition to today's media-intensive lifestyle. She has three teenagers, and she talked about how parents need to pay attention to what is popular in order to parent effectively; in other words, if you want to keep your kids from listening to music with misogynistic lyrics, you have to pay attention to the lyrics so you know which songs to forbid. She also said that because of all her work paying attention to pop culture, her kids' friends actually think she's cool.

All this is to say that if I'm going to have to know what is cool when Jack and Nora are teenagers, I'm seriously screwed. Do you see up there where I recited the host and schedule for NPR's "On Point"? I did that from memory. I can do that with the entire rest of their on-air schedule from 6am-10pm. And did you know that the 9-10am hour of "Weekend Edition" is a repeat of the 8-9am hour?

I did.

Bonus unhip points to anyone who recognizes my title!

A question

If I continue to refuse to join Twitter, does that make me the crotchety old man of the internet? I already own an un-"smart" phone and I have no text messaging plan. I have to pay for each text message! Individually! And it takes me eleven thousand hours to type them!

Oh, right, I am a scientist

I promise to be back with part two of The Movie (just wait till I get to the love scenes, people), but in the meantime, you should all go read this:

If TV Science was more like Real Science

HA HA HA HA HA!

I would like to add that one of the reasons I got tired of CSI was because of the exposition-driven conversations the field agents and the lab techs. Because while I realize that the writers have to have a way to explain the science to the viewing audience, actual scientists do not have conversations like this:

FIELD AGENT: Can you test this for DNA?

LAB TECH: You mean you want me to examine this human hair sample and see if there are any residual skin cells which contain DNA?

FIELD AGENT: Yes, exactly. I would like to examine this genetic material called DNA, the "blueprint of life," to see if there is a match between the DNA on the hair sample and the DNA of our suspect.

LAB TECH: And if there is a match, that would mean our suspect is guilty, because aside from identical twins, no two people share the exact same DNA.

FIELD AGENT: Exactly.

Etc, etc.

Just once, I want the lab tech to say, "Why are you explaining the purpose of a fingerprint analysis to me? I do this for a living, you know."

A few things that I shouldn't care about

Jack is currently a big fan of Curious George, and I have to say I’m right there with him. Curious George is adorable. Nevertheless, I still find myself expecting logical behavior from the human characters in the show, and getting frustrated with their failures. Take a recent episode in which George bought some candy from a new candy counter at Mabel’s department store. After his purchase, the woman who ran the counter asked him to mind the shop for her while she ran out to get some supplies. George, always helpful, agreed, but when a sudden glut of customers surprised George, he ended up handing out free samples to appease them.

And so, when the owner returned to her candy counter, she discovered that George had free-sampled her right out of business. She was pretty upset with George. I, however, felt that she was really the one responsible for the loss seeing as how she had left a monkey in charge of her candy counter. I mean, he did the best he could.

I had to make dinner, so I didn’t get to see the end. I assume it all worked out and she didn't lose her business. But still, anyone who’d leave an untrained monkey in charge probably doesn’t deserve her own business anyway. A trained monkey – now that’s something else.

You know what else bugs me? The Three Bears. Not the story itself, but the flawed physics inherent to the plot. See, Papa Bear’s bowl had the most porridge, Mama Bear’s had the middle amount, and Baby Bear’s had the least. Based on the properties of heat transfer, therefore, Baby Bear’s porridge should cool the fastest, but it is Mama Bear’s porridge that Goldilocks finds too cold while Baby Bear’s is “just right.” That drives me crazy. Every time.

The internet is awesome.

Remember when I wrote about the sad death of Andrew’s beloved TI-85? To my surprise, that turned out to be one of the posts that generated a lot of comments. (Seven is a lot for me, since I normally get two on a good day.) Well that post did more than generate comments, it netted Andrew replacement calculator!



It seems Arwen’s husband Bryan has moved on to bigger and better calculators since his days in Calculus III, and was willing to part with his old TI-85. I know what you – or at least Andrew – is thinking. Bigger and better calculators? Than the TI-85? No such thing!

But moved on he has, so Arwen shipped off the old calculator and Andrew, as you can see, is happy as a clam. He has promised to love it and pet it and call it George.

Problems most of you were unaware existed

Andrew is very sad, because he is probably going to have to replace his calculator, and he’s had that calculator since 1992. It is a TI-85, and you can’t even get those anymore!

But the trusty ol’ TI-85 is on its last legs. Today the screen went blank after only 20 seconds even though he set the auto shutoff for 2 minutes. Not only that, but it cleared all the variables he had stored for that day!

What, you don’t have a list of variables you are going to need for the day?