Tag: Pique the Geek

With the news about the horrible failure of the nuclear reactors in Japan, it occurred to me that many people do not really understand how nuclear reactors work.  This is the first part of a short series designed to demystify how nuclear reactors work.

All methods for generation of usable amounts of electricity require some sort of energy source.  In photovoltaic units, the electromagnetic energy in solar (or other) photons is the energy source.  In geothermal plants, the interior heat energy from the earth is used, whilst in wind plants the kinetic energy of moving air is used.  Hydroelectric plants use the kinetic energy of moving water.

Fossil fuel fired plants use the potential energy contained in coal, oil, or gas by converting it to heat by combustion.  Finally, nuclear electricity uses the potential energy of a very few heavy elements’ nuclei that is released as heat in the reactor.

I love to be able to fuse two topics into one!  Since almost the beginning of TeeVee, there has been theme music for its programs.  Many of you will remember lots of them, but there were some programs without music, the very first TeeVee image being one of them, although it got a theme later.  Does that pique your interest?

TeeVee became widely available in the late 1940s, in large part because of the revolutionary improvements in electronics because of the necessity of the war effort.  However, there is a backstory to that as well:  after the war was over, there was a flood of components that were military surplus, available for cents on the dollar, to be had by manufacturers.

TeeVee had been invented long before World War II, but the components were rare and expensive.  Because of the glut of surplus components, TeeVee became widely available, but that is more of a Pique the Geek piece.

For a firearm to operate, there must be an energy source to impart kinetic energy to the projectile being fired.  This is is true in general, but our discussion shall be limited to small arms with only a couple of exceptions.  These materials are called propellants, and the name is quite apt.

The first propellant used was blackpowder, the exact origin of which is lost in antiquity.  For centuries, actually up to very late in the 19th century, blackpowder was the only propellant available.

In the late 1880s what is now called smokeless powder was developed, and has replaced blackpowder in almost all applications except for what I refer to as “boutique” ones.  A substitute for blackpowder, Pyrodex(R) was developed , along with some other substitutes for reasons that will become apparent later.

Hydraulic fracturing, also called hydrofracture or just fracking, is a commonly used method to increase the yield of fluid raw materials, usually petroleum or natural gas, from formations that are not “easy” extraction targets.  Easy targets are ones that the fluids dispersed in sands or very porous rock formation.  

Let us dispel a common myth right now:  oil and gas is almost NEVER found as big pools of those materials in large holes in the rock.  Almost without exception, and perhaps quite without exception, these materials are dispersed in some more or less porous rock or sand.    When you see pictures of underground reservoirs of gas or oil, you are really looking at the fluid as it is dispersed in the native matrix.

Sand and very “rotten” sandstone are easy matrices from which to extract the fluids.  Shale and hard sandstone are much more difficult matrices, and hydraulic fracturing is used to increase yields from such formations.

Anterior poliomyelitis, mainly called polio (the old name was infantile paralysis) was a scourge for centuries, but was not recognized as a specific disease until comparatively recently.  This piece is in honor of the huge immunization program that was begun 56 years ago last week in the United States, that fact kindly pointed out by our good friend ek hornbeck at TheStarsHollowGazette.com a couple of days ago.

Most people do not know anyone who was infected with the paralytic form of this disease these days, partly because they either died or got better, but mostly because of the most successful vaccination program against an infectious disease ever attempted.  I have first hand experience with two cases, and will turn 54 on this coming Wednesday.  Few people younger than about my age will have known anyone who had it.

Everyone is familiar with phase transitions even it they are not familiar with the term.  Amongst the most familiar is the melting of ice and the boiling of water to form steam.  Technically, these transitions are called fusion and vaporization, respectively.  There are more and we shall discuss some of them later.

All phase transitions are accompanied by changes in the free energy of the substance undergoing the transition, and this free energy has two components, the enthalpy of the transition and the entropy of the transition.  Unless very careful work is being done, the entropy change is often ignored because it, in many cases, is the lesser contributor.  However, it is never zero (except at absolute zero) and sometimes is the dominant factor.

I was astonished at the response for the first installment for this series, and so decided that instead of just a couple of survey pieces, reader interest justifies a bit longer treatment, getting more into the weeds. Thus, I have come up with a bit more structured series.

Unlike rifled firearms like pistols and rifles, shotguns are smoothbore weapons. That is, they have no rifling to impart spin to stabilize the projectile, in the case of shotguns usually multiple projectiles. Shotguns are a relatively recent development in their current form, but the concept of firing more than one projectile at a time goes back a very long time.

Modern shotguns are designed to fire a relatively large diameter cartridge as opposed to rifles and pistols. In addition, a different system is used to state the diameter of the cartridge in most cases.

For good, for ill, or for neither, firearms are an integral part of American life.  Everyone knows in a general sense what guns are, but not so many know much more than that.  The conventional wisdom is that those of us on the left are less familiar with firearms than those on the right (a premise with which I do not agree), but the fact is that it important to have a basic understanding of how firearms work.

At the most basic, a firearm is a device used to deliver a projectile, usually at a high rate of speed, towards some sort of target using chemical propellants that are NOT carried onboard the projectile.  Firearms have evolved over the centuries from quite crude affairs to the highly sophisticated devices that are available currently.

Oysters are an interesting part of the Mollusc tribe.  They are bivalves, meaning that they have two half shells, which are jointed together on one edge and can open and close as the animal desires, or more properly, is instinctively demanded to do.

Unlike their cousins, clams, oysters are from infancy pretty much fastened onto some sort of support, so they do not move.  Clams are sort of solitary, and like to dig into sandy beaches.  Another relative, the scallop, is so free to move that jet propulsion is the norm for them!

Let us examine some of the natural history of these interesting (and often delicious) animals.  We will point out that edible oysters are quite different from the pearl oysters.

I was originally going to write about the ballistics responsible for sparing the life of Representative Giffords tonight, but decided that some might feel that to be offensive.  Please indicate in comments whether or not you think that this would be an acceptable topic.  The piece is very interesting (the draft is in the can), but I leave it to my readers to determine whether it should see the light of day.

The topic tonight is the physics behind cooking, in the meaning that how heat is added to food makes a huge difference in the rate of cooking, the taste of the final product, and even its texture.

This is the companion piece to the one about gold from Friday night in Popular Culture.  Obviously, we intend to get geekier tonight than we did Friday.  Then we talked about gold being used primarily as money or other symbols of wealth.

Tonight we will discuss how gold is mined and purified, and the actual industrial uses for it as opposed to jewelry and investment purposes.  The old picture that most folks have about the forty-niner with his gold pan is far from how gold is mined, and was not really very accurate even then, being mostly a product of Hollywood.

This topic was suggested by our good friend and regular supporter of this series from The Big Orange, Ottery Scribe.  It is really a fascinating subject, and rich with lore and tradition from the old countries.  As a disclaimer, I must say that I do not really enjoy either of them except for an occasional 12 year old Old Charter, diluted with some cold water.

I actually used half a pint of bourbon just before Christmas, to plump the raisins that I use for my trademark Lizzies fruit cookie.  Look back to just before Christmas for links to the recipe for them.