(Fwd) FWD: Technology (fwd)

With Klondike season upon us in the northern states, I though I would
pass on some creative fire starting methods reported on my college
frat net. Note that Clarkson College has been mostly known as an
engineering and or techie (tekie?) college.

enjoy . . . . scouter don

Forwarded message:
> To: ZNFO.Distribution@adams.patriot.net
> Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 11:39:38 +0000
> Subject: (Fwd) FWD: Technology
> Reply-to: znfo@usa.net
> CC: KShaw@technautics.com
> Priority: normal
> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.42a)
>
> _____ _ _ _____ ___
> (___ | \ | | ___)_ |
> / /| \ | | ___) | |
> / / | \| | | | | | |
> / /__|_|\___| | | |_| |
> /____________)_| |_____|
> *Zeta Nu iNFo-tainment*
> I dont as a rule pass along pass-along's, but as a majority of we ZN
> guys are engineers or geeks I think this might be appreciated.
>
> >>By hooking into the World Wide Web, you can look at a variety of
> >>electronic "pages," consisting of documents, pictures, and videos
> >>created by people all over the world. One of these is a guy named
> >>(really) George Goble, a computer person in the Purdue University
> >>engineering department. Each year, Goble and a bunch of other
> >>engineers hold a picnic in West Lafayette, Indiana, at which they cook
> >>hamburgers on a big grill. Being engineers, they began looking for
> >>practical ways to speed up the charcoal-lighting process. "We started
> >>by blowing the charcoal with a hair dryer," Goble told me in a telephone
> >>interview. "Then we figured out that it would light faster if we used a
> >>vacuum cleaner." If you know anything about (1) engineers and (2) guys
> >>in general, you know what happened: The purpose of the
> >>charcoal-lighting shifted from cooking hamburgers to seeing how fast
> >>they could light the charcoal. From the vacuum cleaner, they escalated
> >>to using a propane torch, then an acetylene torch. Then Goble started
> >>using compressed pure oxygen, which caused the charcoal to burn much
> >>faster, because as you recall from chemistry class, fire is essentially
> >>the rapid combination of oxygen with the cosine to form the Tigris and
> >>Euphrates rivers (or something along those lines). By this point, Goble
> >>was getting pretty good times. But in the world of competitive
> >>charcoal-lighting, "pretty good" does not cut the mustard. Thus, Goble
> >>hit upon the idea of using - get ready - liquid oxygen. This is the
> >>form of oxygen used in rocket engines; it's 295 degrees below zero and
> >>600 times as dense as regular oxygen. In terms of releasing energy,
> >>pouring liquid oxygen on charcoal is the equivalent of throwing a live
> >>squirrel into a room containing 50 million Labrador retrievers. On
> >>Gobel's World Wide Web page (the address is http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/),
> >> you can see actual photographs and a video of Goble using a bucket
> >>attached to a 10-foot-long wooden handle to dump 3 gallons of liquid
> >>oxygen (not sold in stores) onto a grill containing 60 pounds of
> >>charcoal and a lit cigarette for ignition. What follows is the most
> >>impressive charcoal-lighting I have ever seen, featuring a large
> >>fireball that, according to Goble, reached 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
> >>The charcoal was ready for cooking in - this has to be a world record -
> >>3 seconds. There's also a photo of what happened when Goble used the
> >>same technique on a flimsy $2.88 discount-store grill. All that's left
> >>is a circle of charcoal with a few shreds of metal in it. "Basically,
> >>the grill vaporized," said Goble. "We were thinking of returning it to
> >>the store for a refund." Looking at Goble's video and photos, I became,
> >>as an American, all choked up with gratitude at the fact that I do not
> >>live anywhere near the engineers' picnic site. But also, I was proud of
> >>my country for producing guys who can be ready to barbecue in less time
> >>than it takes for guys in less-advanced nations, such as France, to
> >>spit. Will the 3-second barrier ever be broken? Will engineers come up
> >>with a new, more powerful charcoal-lighting technology? It's something
> >>for all of us to ponder this summer as we sit outside, chewing our
> >>hamburgers, every now and then glancing in the direction of West
> >>Lafayette, Indiana, looking for a mushroom cloud.
> *****************************************************
> ZetaNu iNFo-tainment
> znfo@usa.net
> three hundred sixty five degrees
> *****************************************************
>

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