It's useless science Friday in my head - Welcome to the show.

[Strychnine]

The world's oceans rise approx 3mm per year and have been (steadily) since the measurements were started in 1993.

For an 18 month period starting in late 2010 this increase was not only halted, but it reversed. Sea levels dropped 7mm.


The cause, you ask?

Flooding in Australia.

In most parts of the world water will eventually run back to the sea - it may take months, but it will get there. In the eastern interior of Australia it's the opposite. Water tends to flow inland toward Lake Eyre (more of a salt flat / playa), which is the lowest spot in Australia.

From 2010 to 2011, enough rain fell on Australia to fill the lower part of the lake almost completely, and the upper portion at least 75 percent, and the continent stored that water long enough to affect global sea levels for a year and a half.


September 26, 2009




March 26, 2011

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=80023

[naynay]

Is poop solid?

[Ruffdaddy]

Glass isn't just any old solid...it's an amorphous solid.

[lowthreeohz]

I just can't wait to be king

One day son, this will all be yours.

[Probie]

It's good to be the king.

I just can't wait to be king

[Sean88gt]

Fascinating stuff as always. I had to have one cylinder resleeved on my 95 PSD due to cavitation.

[Strychnine]

On blenders and cavitation

The fluid dynamics of a commercial-quality blender amount to a lot more than just stirring. Here high-speed video shows how the blender’s moving blades create a suction effect that pulls contents down through the middle of the blender, then flings them outward. This motion creates large shear stresses, which help break up the food, as well as turbulence that can mix it.

But if you watch carefully, you’ll also see tiny bubbles spinning off the blades. These bubbles, formed by the pressure drop of fluid accelerated over the arms of the blades, are cavitation bubbles. When they collapse, or implode, they create localized shock waves that further break up the blender’s contents.

This same effect is responsible for damage to boat propellers and lets you destroy glass bottles.

http://fuckyeahfluiddynamics.tumblr.com/post/45345509325/the-fluid-dynamics-of-a-commercial-quality-blender

It's also the cause of liner pitting in your diesel engines.

[Strychnine]

On the subject of fluids though I do recommend this:

http://fuckyeahfluiddynamics.tumblr.com/

I don't think I ever posted the "how a blender really works" stuff... BRB




(I've had too much coffee and not enough sleep this week)

[The King]

Don't argue with the king.

Allow me to qualify your peanut gallery statement thus:

"Don't argue with the king if you're stupid"

[mstng86]

if just for a while

[idrivea4banger]

It's good to be the king.

[mstng86]

Don't argue with the king.

[Strychnine]

Glass flows as well, albeit at a much slower pace than pitch.

The idea that glass flows is rooted in old buildings (cathedrals, specifically). If you look at most windows you'll see that the lower portion of a glass pane is thicker than the top. Naturally this means the glass has flowed downward over the centuries, right?

(I actually remember being told this as a kid on a tour of revolutionary era buildings in Colonial Williamsburg)

Not quite.

It has more to do with the methods used to make the glass than anything else.

At room temperature, the viscosity of water, which flows readily, is about 0.01 poise. Molasses has a viscosity of about 500 poises.

Estimates of the viscosity of glasses at room temperature run as high as 10 to the 20th power (10^20), that is to say, something like 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 poises. Scientists and engineers may argue about the exact value of that number, but it is doubtful that there is any real physical significance to a viscosity as great as that anyway

So you might say that it's still fluid, it will just move much much much slower, but even that's a stretch.

at room temperature the viscosity of metallic lead has been estimated to be about 10 to the 11th power, (10^11) poises - a billion times more fluid than glass

The calculation showed that if a plate of glass a meter tall and a centimeter thick was placed in an upright position at room temperature, the time required for the glass to flow down so as to thicken 10 angstrom units at the bottom (a change the size of only a few atoms) would theoretically be about the same as the age of the universe: close to ten billion years.

Glass is a solid.

[The King]

Glass flows as well, albeit at a much slower pace than pitch.

[roliath]

lmao