Applied science
I need to record that snowstorms are finicky. We were ready for the biggest of the year, yesterday. We got nothing! In fact, due to the rain component, we have lost the majority of our snow cover, which displays the ability of our dog to mark where he squats. Oh, sure, there’ll be more, but right now it looks very spring like. Cold to the point of absurd, but spring like. And the school closures? Pay no attention to that.
On my social media feed, a video came up, showing a physics professor doing something involving a steel fuel drum and boiling water. He declared his experiment to be a bust, returned to the front of the classroom when Boom!! The tank imploded. I couldn’t wait to share this fun movie with son #2. He likes science stuff. And he came back, within seconds, with a very serious tone in his text.
In his field, you NEVER seal a tank completely while working with boiling anything. Those fancy tanks, that provide his daily bread and cost a fortune, are fragile. They will collapse! I didn’t know that. I suggest this anecdote for the opening chapter of his upcoming book (the one he doesn’t know that he’s going to write, yet). Some pertinent quotes:
“That is why you always have an open port when washing a fermenter. Collapsing a tank costs a lot!”
“There are rules to follow, too. You never, never, never, NEVER have caustic under pressure!”
I am looking forward to reading the rest of the volume (eventually). Maybe I’ll offer to ghost write the thing, once I’ve watched a few more videos.
