What's New?

I haven't posted a blog entry for a long time.

I am busy working 50 hours a week (plus carpool time), so weekdays are tiring. My weekday evenings consist of eating supper, maybe seeing Robyn for a bit, watching an hour of TV then going to bed.

But work is interesting. Just last week we connected a 138,000 volt overhead line from SaskPower to a giant gas-insulated switchgear which feeds two brand-new transformers on our project site. The transformers transform the 138,000 volts into a more manageable 13,800 volts. After that, another pair of transformers step the voltage down to about 5,000 volts. For reference, your house outlets are 120 volts (your washer/dryer/dishwasher/oven might be 240 V).

This is our GIS.

What is a gas-insulated switchgear (GIS), though? The answer is interesting. Have you ever noticed a spark when you plug in an electrical appliance into a socket? You've just seen a tiny little electrical arc that bridges or "jumps" the air gap between two metal conductors. If you've been to a science centre and have seen a Jacob's Ladder or a Tesla coil, you've seen another kind of electrical arc. When you are playing with 138,000 volts, you don't get tiny fun arcs. You get humongous monster electrical arcs that can cause serious damage, injury or death due to burns or explosions. They can last for fractions of a second or several seconds.

Anytime you want to unplug from something that's providing 138,000 volts, you have to do it safely to minimize exposure to electrical arcs. One way to do this is to encapsulate the whole on/off switch (called a "disconnect") in an airtight, cast-aluminum enclosure and fill it with sulfur-hexaflouride (SF6) gas, a gas which is much heavier than air and naturally quenches electrical arcs. Arcs still form in GIS units, but are blasted with a jet of SF6 to disrupt and terminate them within milliseconds of them forming.

Fact: If you inhale SF6 gas, it has the opposite effect as helium gas - it lowers your voice! No, I haven't tried it.

Another fact: If the GIS leaks, it could fill the GIS building with colourless, odorless SF6 gas. This is an asphyxiation hazard (because it displaces oxygen), so we installed an SF6 detector that screams if the levels get too high, and automatically starts an exhaust fan to vent the building and bring fresh air in. So far, no leaks.

NASA's tips for revisiting lunar landing sites (someone at NASA has a sense of humour)

Last week I read a document called NASA's Recommendations to Space-Faring Entities: How to Protect and Preserve The Historic and Scientific Value of U.S. Government Lunar Artifacts.

Scientists at NASA wrote the 93-page tome due to interest by new organizations in visiting the moon. Some nations like China and the U.S. are planning lunar missions, but there's also private interest. For instance, the Google Lunar X Prize has 26 teams competing to get a robot to the moon by 2015, have it drive around for 500 metres (or more), and send HD imagery and video back to earth. Winning teams can qualify for $30 million dollars in prizes!

The NASA report - if you can get through all 93 pages - is fascinating. It has all kinds of recommendations for preventing damage to existing moon artifacts. For instance, lunar spacecraft should fly tangentially (aka, beside) existing lunar landing sites instead of over top of them, to avoid kicking up corrosive moon dust or spitting down unburned propellant - either of which could damage the sites and artifacts. Landing too close to a scientific site could cover LRRRs - Laser Ranging Retro-Reflectors - in moon dust. We bounce lasers off LRRRs from the earth and measure how long it takes for the laser to bounce back. This measures the distance between the earth and the moon, and also tests Einstein's Theory of Relativity. These experiments don't work with the mirrors covered in dust!

NASA says that sites of utmost historic importance (Apollo 11 and Apollo 17, the first and last manned visits of the Apollo era) shouldn't be visited at all - they are rightfully considered important milestones for humanity:

"Project Apollo in general, and the flight of Apollo 11 in particular, should be viewed as a watershed in human history and humanity. It was the first instance in human history in which emissaries from this planet visited another body in the solar system. It represented the culmination of years of effort, the significant expenditure of life and resources, and the opening of a new age in human history. The site of that first landing requires preservation; only one misstep could forever damage this priceless human treasure."

NASA says it is permissible to visit the other Apollo sites (12, 14-16). In fact, NASA helpfully supplies a 20-page appendix of items they'd like new moon visitors to study, to determine how they've changed over 40 years on the surface of the moon: thermal paint, gears and dials, bags filled with food and human waste, even the nylon on the iconic lunar American flags. NASA also suggests some experiements, if visitors are so inclined. Here's where they hide their joke (page 52):

"Item J: Push biggest possible rock over edge of crater or rille
Tracks of boulders rolling down slopes have been used to infer geotechnical properties of the surface layer. The large boulder at [lunar site] A17 was sampled because a track implied that it had been part of an outcrop much higher up on the massif. A17 is also the site of an avalanche that is thought to be the result of an (hypothetical) impact on the far side of the massif. Soils that develop on slopes may well be metastable such that avalanches could be easily triggered. Also, it would be fun to push a big rock over a cliff. It is a question whether a rover could push a rock and also observe the descent, but it is worth thinking about." (emphasis added)

Lol, awesome. It's so cool all of this lunar stuff is happening in my lifetime.

NASA Report

Butterflies

I met up with some family in Montreal today and visited the greenhouses at Montreal's Botanical Gardens! I took a bunch of pictures, here are some of my favourite ones. Click on them to see bigger versions.

Close-up of the above plant:

75 year old bonsai tree! 

The one on the right had silver leaves! 

Monster pinecone? 

Mind-Blowing Connection Between Language and Colour

Here's a very interesting 8-minute clip from the BBC on the connections between language and colour.

In short, there's a strong connection between the words that we learn as children to describe colour, and the colours that we are able to perceive (did you know that infants are born mostly colourblind?).

A key group in this research is the Himba tribe in Africa. While "Westerners" (Brits, North Americans, etc) have about 11 major colour descriptors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, black, white, etc) the Himba tribe has five. When shown 12 squares of green - where one square is a SLIGHTLY different shade - the Himba can immediately detect the unique square, whereas Westerners would struggle and often guess (incorrectly).

However, when the Himba are shown 11 squares of green and one square of blue, they struggle and often guess (incorrectly). A Westerner would be able to immediately distinguish blue from green.

The scientists posit an extremely strong connection between language and colour perception. In the Himba vocabulary, "Western" blue and green are represented by the same word, and they cannot distinguish between "Western" blue and green.

Isn't this mind-blowing? We perceive the world the way we do - in part - because of the vocabulary that we've learned and evolved through language. Awesome!

Frozen Seared Steak

Robyn sent me a link to a new way of cooking steaks, promoted by molecular gastronomists - crazy chefs who come up with ingenious new ways of preparing food based on empirical observation and study, chemical reactions, and SCIENCE! It is these molecular gastronomists who have written the six-volume, 2,400 page set Modernist Cuisine,

This blog describes the frozen steak recipe and where it came from - a request for a few molecular gastronomy recipes that can be done at home with no special equipment.

Basically you sear one side of a frozen steak on a mega-hot frying pan, then immediately put the steak in the oven at 200*F for 30-60 minutes, until it's done to your preference.

Here's my attempt:

It turned out GREAT. So, so so delicious. The outside has an incredible seared taste/texture, but the inside is extremely tender and "buttery soft" as the Kitchen Konfidence blog describes. It was dead simple - no more complex than any other way of preparing steak.

Next time I will use a thicker cut of meat, then keep it in the oven for a bit longer. Everyone should try this method at least once, you'll be convinced!

Ice Cube Spike

I found this in my freezer today:

An ice spike!!! How does this happen? According to the Nonlinear Physics Group at the University of Toronto:

[A]s the ice freezes fast under supercooled conditions, the surface can get covered except for a small hole. Water expands when it freezes. As freezing continues, the expanding ice under the surface forces the remaining water up through the hole and it freezes around the edge forming a hollow spike. Eventually, the whole thing freezes and the spike is left.

Neat! Hooray for science!