thenumerateninny.com
Natterings of a Woman in STEM
A Question for Rail Enthusiasts…
What am I looking at here?
During a recent visit to the California Railroad Museum, Sacramento, I wondered what the bolt-like features on this boiler were. I speculated. I consulted with the museum staff and docents. We ruminated. We postulated. We hypothesized. We came up with fabulous ideas – ideas that did more credit to our imagination than our knowledge base.
One young employee was confident that we were looking the outward presentation of rods that strengthened the wall – but could not explain how these acted or how they were attached to the boiler’s interior (firebox end). So, I was left with more questions than answers. Unfortunately, I am not a half-answer type of gal, and now I am totally frustrated.
Can anyone give a reasonable (i.e. detailed and believable) explanation of what the purpose of these attachments are and how they function? Does anyone have a diagram or sketch of how these are arranged from outer to inner wall?
During my visit, I also discovered that some very distant relatives had the good fortune to build steam engines for a living!
But this snow blower is too big for our domestic purposes!
The museum is a great place to visit; there are some monstrous engines that reflect the American heyday in steam and diesel. https://www.californiarailroad.museum/
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An Unwarranted Trust
What do we do when something we trust transforms into something beyond our experience – a raging river runs dry, a baby never cries, or a constant in physics becomes inconsistent…
I say, why not embrace it! And in the hokiest way possible! In fact, it sounds like a trip to the Golden State is in order!
There are places on this planet where gravity fiddles with its vector – adjusting both its magnitude and direction. And in doing so, it kicks our complacency right out the window. One such location – The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, California – is a very hokey place indeed. Be prepared, if you decide to visit, because gravity is about to have a good giggle at your expense.
As you approach The Mystery Spot, you feel heavy. On arrival, you feel disorientated. And throughout the visit, your brain is muddled by inconsistent sensory inputs. In short, you are a little bit tipsy – and gravity is the intoxicant.
At The Mystery Spot, mischievous gravity varies up to 17 degrees from the perpendicular. In its naughtiness, gravity allows water to flow uphill. Downward rolling balls reverse spontaneously to travel higher. Your eyes, your muscles, and your inner ears tell you different stories. And to encourage this confusion, the proprietors have constructed walls and floors at irregular angles to further confound the hapless visitor.
There are theories, but no explanations, for these gravitational phenomena. How could there be an explanation when we have no basic understanding of the nature of gravity? Oh, what a terrible niggling nervousness this causes – perhaps our faith in gravity’s constancy is false, and we are fools to construct our life around it!
Then there are the peculiar distortions in the behavior of light at The Mystery Spot to confuse us. Observe the Numerate Ninny at one end of the bench looking rather short (I mean petite) and the statuesque new-bride-in-blue at the other end of the bench (enjoying her superiority in height).
They switch positions. The bride-in-blue is not so tall as she used to be – and she looks a little perturbed by it. How can it be?
What a funny business it is!
I can speculate, in an enthusiastically tiresome manner, as to why gravity is misbehaving, but this visual conundrum is beyond my ability for conjecture. Surely, any gravitational phenomenon that causes light to bend would be strong enough to be felt in our muscles, but there was no such sensation. And if light bends, presumably it would do so in a way that distorted an image. Yet the objective observer – our camera- recorded no such distortion.
I’m stumped – but what a fabulous thing that is. This is how Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton felt about the world they observed. The normal functioning of the world was as inexplicable to them as The Mystery Spot is to us.
In being perplexed by this localized quirk of gravity, we have the privilege of experiencing something of the wonder that challenged the great minds of physics. Befuddlement was mother to their insights. Befuddlement made them the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
(Gosh, I hope we’re not too heavy for them; maybe a gravitational anomaly would help lighten their load.)
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There are other locations with gravitational anomalies around the world. I am told that Belgium, China, Northern Ireland and other locations have such quirky attractions. If you know of their exact locations, why not share them in comments below…
The Greatness of the Beast
What’s so great about our 1965 Ford F100 pickup truck (aka The Beast)? Let me count the ways:
- The truck has a manual choke. What’s so fantastic about this? Young people have no idea what it is. This vehicle will never be stolen except by a septuagenarian criminal! It is also delightful to hear the adventures of the youngsters who borrow the truck, since they invariably stall the engine first time out.
- The Beast will never crumple due to the impressive gauge of its sheet metal. Loss of integrity due to rust is never a worry. On the other hand, there are disadvantages to the heavy bodywork: There is always the fear of squishing a modern vehicle in a collision. (Driving a bug has new meaning in this context.)
- The hubcaps are charming, if you are very short-sighted (which I am).
- My husband has not asked for an expensive vehicle since we bought the truck. However, on occasion, I must remind him that sports cars make men look unattractively middle-aged. (They do, I assure you.)
- Frequent breakdowns justify our car club membership.
- The Beast is a replacement for the gym, since the truck has no power steering or power brakes.
- The Beast is manly. That makes the other three drivers in the family very happy. I can’t drive the truck except in a standing position: There is no other way to reach the pedals. Apparently, short women didn’t drive trucks in the 1960s. Discrimination through design was actually a thing back then. Who knew? (I wish that was a shocking concept.) But have no fear! The roads are safe. This short woman does not drive the Beast. She prefers to have her bum on a seat.
For more about the 1965 Ford 100 aka The Beast, visit:
Weight Management – a matter of some gravity
What is most important thing in our lives? Family? Career? Love? Religion?
No. Whatever you answered is wrong. (Though I’ll allow religion. An afterlife may be useful.)
The most important thing in our lives is gravity. Don’t naysay me. Give it a moment’s thought.
Nothing else – not even Oxygen – is as critical to human life as the attraction between masses. If gravity takes a day off, there will be no Oxygen – at least not anywhere nearby.
Gravity is enigmatic; its behavior is understood, but not its nature. (Perhaps it is a thing of faith.) Despite its mystery and its incredible importance, most of us are disinterested in gravity’s behavior in the universe. We are happy to ignore Big G (universe) in favor of the parochial Little g (Planet Earth).
Now, if I remember my introduction to Little g, I was told that the acceleration due to gravity on Earth was a nominal 9.80m/s² and varied inversely with the distance from the planet’s center of mass. Simultaneously, I was introduced to the concept that the Earth wasn’t spherical, it’s flattened at the poles due to the centrifugal forces associated with its rotation. So, in this simplified explanation, gravity changes with latitude.
Over this basic understanding, we layer the complexity of moving oceans, large land masses, and vacant spaces – all of which distort the value of Little g.
Let’s get to the crux of the matter and address the question poised on every woman’s tongue: Why diet when we can lose weight by moving around the globe?
Sadly, this cure for chubbiness requires complex travel planning. Scaling the Himalayas does not result in instant waist trimming. Despite the peaks’ distance from the center of the Earth, the mountains are a concentration of mass that increases gravity and, thereby, our weight.
Contrarily, although the bottom of the Mariana Trench is closer to the Earth’s center, the trench has a low concentration of mass. As a result, our weight will drop while visiting the trench’s deepest depths. Disappointingly, our bathroom scales will not survive the journey to these nether regions and – should we do some deep sea diving – our weight loss efforts will remain unvalidated.
Let’s look at some numbers associated with this diet-free weight-loss program:
The maximum variation in gravity/weight in northern Europe is a paltry 0.21%. A person moving from Ireland (g = 9.81400 m/s²) to Sweden (g = 9.81666 m/s²) would gain weight. That puts a kibosh on the Christmas trip to Malmo.
How about a trip to the Carson Valley*, Northern Nevada, near my current home? Here g is a modest 9.7961 m/s². Yup – moving from Ireland to Nevada helped be lose a massive 0.18% of my weight. Sadly, this does not justify the price of an airline ticket to Nevada.
For your further erudition, here is a graphic of Earth’s gravitational variation courtesy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The warm colors are areas of higher gravity and the cool colors are areas of lower gravity.
*The Carson Valley is appreciated for its fine views of the Sierra Nevada mountains. However – if you have a background in mechanical engineering – you will recognize the valley’s true claim to fame: It’s the birthplace of Bentley Nevada (now subsumed in GE), a pioneer in vibration monitoring.
If you prefer fiction to fact, try:
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
References:
https://dendritics.com/scales/gravity-zones.asp
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Making a Beauty of the Beast
When I was a tiny girl, televised car shows showed shapely, scantily-clad, young women dangling themselves over vehicles. This behavior utterly confused my childish mind.
Finally, I matured enough to understand that the consumer was supposed to confound lust for the luscious woman with lust for the vehicle. Being a logical child I naturally deduced – from this evidence – that only men and lesbians purchased cars.
Since I believe there is much truth in old ways, I decided to explore this historic vehicle-related paradigm. My intent was to discover an inexpensive way to make my 1965 Ford F100 pickup look more attractive (despite its oxidized paint).
The 1970s approach was clearly the most economical way to improve the truck’s appeal. Therefore, I decided to drape a female over the hood. However, supermodels are expensive – it is a profession in which women are well paid – so I surveyed the available females in my home. Unfortunately, the cockatiel is untrustworthy outdoors, and the long-necked African turtle is exceptionally timid. That left me as the only female candidate for the job.
Now it is my turn to acknowledge that the comely young women of past car shows were possessed of unappreciated skills and determination. Consider the challenges they had to overcome:
- Climbing up to great height.
- Placing themselves on cold metal in skimpy apparel. (I could not emulate this state of undress because I am susceptible to chills. It has nothing to do with having a 50+ year old body.)
- Smiling inanely at their employers and customers, whom they surely did not respect.
- Biting their tongue.
- Looking pretty. (If I hadn’t been squinting into the sun, I would’ve totally aced this.)
So you see, there were always women worthy of respect and admiration in the automotive industry.
However, if you are employed in the automotive industry today, I strongly advise against wearing a bikini to work.
To view more posts about the 1965 Ford F100 pickup, visit The Numerate Ninny at: https://thenumerateninny.comT
The Eleventh Hour
At the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, hostilities ceased in one of history’s most brutal conflicts.
One hundred years has passed since the Armistice – the moment that ended a war jingoistically known as The Great War, optimistically known as The War to End All Wars, and which was ultimately, and sadly, re-titled The First World War.
One hundred years, 1,200 months, 5,218 weeks, or 36,524 days separate us from a war that stole an estimated 19,000,000 individuals from the human population. I defy you to understand what 19,000,000 million means in this context. I am a numerate person, and I can’t comprehend it, no matter how I try.
I try to imagine the equivalent of four nations the size of Ireland being eviscerated. I am incapable of doing so.
I try to imagine the estimated 750,000 German civilians who died of slow malnutrition during those years. I fail.
I try to imagine the 49,000 Irish men who perished in the Great War. Although a smaller number, I still cannot grasp its meaning.
I try to imagine one life ending, and the empty crater it leaves in the lives of those left behind – people who hope that the edges of that great gaping hole gradually wear away until the battered landscape of their life is passable again. And then I try to imagine that loss multiplied nineteen million times. I cannot calculate the incalculable.
In 2014, one hundred years after the war’s commencement, I stood under the arch of Menin Gate, Ypres, and witnessed the solemn sounding of the Last Post, a poignant ceremony conducted by the local fire brigade each night for most of the last century. In honor of the centennial, letters from the fallen were being read aloud. I listened to the last letter written by an English officer who complained bitterly of his sergeant’s noisy death. He wrote of nightmares, nightmares of his own demise – not that his death concerned him; his horror was that he might be buried with the horses. He was seventeen years old when he succumbed to the Great Falling.
I searched the 54,395 names inscribed on the monumental gate for one familiar to me, and it was no surprise that I found the name of my own seventeen year-old son carved into the cold stone arch above my head. His first initial and his surname were etched there, chillingly memorializing another woman’s son. And finally, here was something I could understand; that a mother whose tears had long since dissipated in the wind, and whose heart had crumbled to dust before I was born, had mourned the loss of a son, who bore the name of my own precious child.
To learn more, I recommend:
The Great Courses – World War I
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The Beast
As a newly-wed, my husband lusted after an SUV. I reacted as any bride would to a rival and quashed his excessively expensive vehicular ardor. However, it is easier to supplant a want than to eliminate it; so, I encouraged him to buy a 1965 Ford F100 pickup truck for a grand total of $695. Read More
Oohs and Aahs
I suffer from an ugly prejudice.
Only scientific disciplines derived from physics or chemistry are important to me. Anything related to biology is rigorously ignored. I admit it’s rather shameful to neglect a subject I dropped as soon as I could. It must have been the squishy eyeball, dissected at age 14, that put me off.
Fortunately, not all women are as squeamish as I. There are those that are thrilled to investigate the nature of life. It is a remarkably challenging intellectual pursuit; some of us have trouble understanding our own species, never mind understanding how all those other species fit into the big scheme of things.
As you can imagine, it’s rare for me to envy a maven of the biological sciences. She can keep her squishy eyeballs. However, for a fleeting moment, I coveted the life of a marine biologist.
Early this month, my family boarded a whale-watching cruise in Monterey Bay, CA, along with a variety of humans with a variety of nationalities. Those of us who were tourists were delighted when a pair of humpback whales gently nudged and meticulously inspected our boat. (They found it seaworthy.) The whales were charming, inquisitive, and persistent – proving that curiosity is not solely a human trait. Read More
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