DAVID SCHMIDT has often been bothered by the annoying habit shower curtains
have of billowing inwards and sticking to him during a shower. The prevailing
explanation is that this is caused by hot air in the cubicle rising. But when
Schmidt saw it happening before the shower had warmed up, he decided to apply
his professional expertise as a professor of engineering at the University of
Massachusetts.
Schmidt mapped the forces involved—using a model he had developed to
predict air and droplet flow in aircraft engines—and found the shower
spray creates a vortex of air that sucks the curtain in by Bernouilli’s
principle. In essence, this states that fast-moving air exerts less pressure
than stationary air. So the faster the shower and the lighter the shower
curtain, the worse the problem would be, Schmidt calculated. His prediction was
borne out on a visit to his mother-in-law’s house, where a high-powered shower
combined with a light gossamer curtain became a billowing, wrap-around
nightmare.
The only trouble with Schmidt’s model is that, for simplicity’s sake, he has
had to leave out a key component: the person taking the shower. He doesn’t know
how this will affect the airflow at different temperatures. “The only way to
find out is to try it,” he told Feedback. “But for the cold shower, I recommend
a wetsuit.”
Advertisement
THE ADVERTISEMENT for the BBC TV series Space promises
to take us “millions of light years into the future”.
As reader Len Fisher, who brought this to Feedback’s attention, comments:
“Pity we can’t send the copywriter a few thousand kilometres into the past.”
CITY OFFICIALS in San Jose, California, have come up with a brainwave:
they’re thinking of renaming Highway 101, which runs through Silicon Valley.
We learn this thanks to a job ad for the post of director of public affairs
at the San Jose Convention & Visitors Bureau. Among the job’s
responsibilities, the ad lists: “Working collaboratively with others on the
marketing team to identify and promote product development opportunities,
especially in those situations where there is significant crossover with public
affairs advocacy (such as renaming Highway 101 ‘The Information
ܱɲ’).”
It’s such a naff idea that the online news site Salon.com, which discovered
the ad, comments: “It’s enough to give us serious road rage without even leaving
our desks.”
IN AN OUTBREAK of political correctness, Japanese scientists are suggesting
new names for animals that carry the adjectives “blind”, “stupid” and “dwarf”.
Last year the Entomological Society of Japan decided that the name mekura
kamemushi (blind bugs) for beetles belonging to the Miridae family was
insulting to the visually impaired. So it now refers to these insects as misty
bugs, or kasumi kamemushi.
Similarly, the Ichthyological Society of Japan decided to rename 30 aquatic
species, including mekura unagi (blind eels). As for kobito
(dwarf) penguins, the Kasai Rinkai Park Aquarium near Osaka thought that name
might be insulting to people of limited stature. Aquarium officials believe that
no one could possibly object to the new name: fairy penguins.
INSPIRED BY David Pearson’s search on the WoS Science Citation Index for
papers linking “pizza” and “sheep” (Feedback, 16 June), reader Tim Wright set
out to find if there were any papers bringing “pizza” and “octopus” together.
Sadly, there weren’t, but a search for “pizza” and “fish” yielded a paper
entitled “Instrumental and sensory evaluation of the texture of fish fingers” by
R. Schubring in a journal called Deutsche Lebensmittel-Rundschau (vol
96, p 210).
Wright’s two favoured words come together in the body of the paper in this
mystifying sentence: “Of the instrumental methods used the tensile measurement
using a modified Pizza Tensile Rig proves to be very suitable to detect the
existing texture differences between the various fish fingers beside the
measurement of Warner-Bratzler shear force.”
Fascinating stuff, you will agree. You may also like to know that another of
Wright’s trawls through the index threw up a paper entitled “Banana and latex
allergy” by F. Steurich and R. Feyerabend in Allergologie (vol 21, p
33). The paper about this little-known affliction begins with the following
observation: “In the years 1988 to 1994, 11 patients were found with banana
allergies, 2 of them showing additional reaction to latex.”
Clearly, the excitement to be had from searching this index is boundless.
WE ARE all in favour of the trend among manufacturers to explain what their
products are made of. So hats off to Hi-Tec. Reader Andrew Linton bought a pair
of the firm’s training shoes with a label detailing the materials used in the
different parts. It reads: “Upper: Other materials/textile. Lining and sock:
Textile. Outer sole: Other materials.”
Isn’t that helpful?
ON THE HANDLE of a mop made by Oates is a sticker which reads: “Caution: wet
mop before wringing out”
THE NEW Ford Mondeo carries a set of graphics depicting how to unlock the
bonnet and gain access to the engine.
The first step, neatly illustrated, involves swivelling the Ford badge on the
radiator grille to expose a lock into which a key is inserted. The graphics
telling you so are conveniently located underneath the swivelling badge.
FINALLY we came across a delightfully named newsgroup the other day. It’s
called alt.2eggs.sausage.beans.tomatoes.2toast.largetea.cheerslove.
Have readers come across any other newsgroup names as off-beat as this?
