It's the mid 1930's, along a section of coastal Norway with straight cliffs. A 15 yr old son and 13 yr old sister are taking their mom to a Saturday afternoon social. She is in a fine dress and carries a parasol. Large swell crash on and reflect from the cliff. The teens are concerned that the confused waves will capsize their rowboat. Mom tells them to row a quarter wavelength from the cliffs. Although waves break around them everywhere, they pass through the dreaded area on relatively calm water. Nowadays, the fellow paddles a 15 ft rowboat near his home in the Nantucket - but this week he is working/vacationing in Chincoteague, VA. Sometimes Eric tells me a few tales during breaks from his wave research. Another story was about a fellow who entered an unheated Norwegian cabin in winter. He took a sip of brandy and died immediately from a frozen gullet. The quarter wavelength idea seems interesting. Any comments? bye bye bliven *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Larry Bliven wrote: > > It's the mid 1930's, along a section of coastal Norway with straight cliffs. snip > The teens are concerned that the > confused waves will capsize their rowboat. Mom tells them to row a quarter > wavelength from the cliffs. Although waves break around them everywhere, > they pass through the dreaded area on relatively calm water. Assuming a perfectly shear cliff, acting as mirror, 1/4 wavelength into the wall, plus 1/4 wavelength coming back to you, adds up to 1/2 wavelength. So right at that spot, the reflected wave will be cancelling the next incoming wave. Go out to 1/2 wavelength from the cliff, and now the 1/2 plus 1/2 add up to a whole wavelength, and the waves will be twice as big. > Another story was about a fellow who entered an unheated Norwegian cabin in > winter. He took a sip of brandy and died immediately from a frozen gullet. The brandy is at ambient temperature, below freezing point of water, but not below the freezing point of alcohol. Not sure a sip would do it, but maybe a good swallow. The body, trying to heat up the alcohol loses enought heat that the moisture in the throat freezes. Sort of like cold throat from eating ice cream too fast, only worse. Hmm, also, as the brandy is diluted (slight evaporation of alcohol as the brandy is poured, plus dilution with saliva, may allow the brandy (going from about 40 percent water to maybe 30) to freeze (less concentration of antifreeze). Ice crystals tearing up the throat? I also recently read about needing to very carefull of spilling stove fuel one yourself in cold conditions, the cold fuel is still evaporating, and thus cooling the remaining liquid fuel, good way to get spot frostbite where the fuel spills on you. > The quarter wavelength idea seems interesting. Any comments? Its an interesting idea, assuming waves are coming in at a consistent size and interval, and that the cliff is acting as a perfect reflector. I prefer to stay farther away from reflecting surfaces when possible. dave *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
I flew three months in North Central Alaska quite a few years ago. It was quite a bit colder back then. At 65 below the fuel handlers refused to refuel our helicopters and we had to do it ourselves. Believe me, Jet Fuel at those temps has no problems freezing anything that isn't already frozen. We spent a month and a half living in a tent and had to be very careful with our stove fuel. Of course we never would have considered sitting around playing cards and drinking so the issue with alcoholic beverages never came up. Fred At 08:12 AM 10/3/2000 -0700, Dave Uebele wrote: >I also recently read about needing to very carefull of spilling stove >fuel one yourself in cold conditions, the cold fuel is still evaporating, >and thus cooling the remaining liquid fuel, good way to get spot frostbite >where the fuel spills on you. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Dave Uebele wrote: > Larry Bliven wrote: [snip] > > Another story was about a fellow who entered an unheated Norwegian cabin in > > winter. He took a sip of brandy and died immediately from a frozen gullet. > The brandy is at ambient temperature, below freezing point of water, > but not below the freezing point of alcohol. Not sure a sip would do it, > but maybe a good swallow. The body, trying to heat up the alcohol > loses enought heat that the moisture in the throat freezes. Sort of > like cold throat from eating ice cream too fast, only worse. > Hmm, also, as the brandy is diluted (slight evaporation of alcohol > as the brandy is poured, plus dilution with saliva, may allow the brandy > (going from about 40 percent water to maybe 30) to freeze (less concentration > of antifreeze). Ice crystals tearing up the throat? I do not see how this could be life-threatening. Maybe a small bit of mouth / esophagus injury from freezing, but not likely to be a big deal. In addition, even if he did injure those tissues, it would take quite a while to die. Caveat: perhaps some version of the deep diving reflex might cause the fellow to *aspirate* the brandy, which might cause death from asphyxiation (I doubt it, but maybe). Re: the freezing hypothesis: The heat capacity of alcohol is substantially smaller than that of water, so that more heat is required to change water's temperature than is required to change the brandy's temperature. In addition, a big contributor to "ice cream headache" is that a goodly portion of ice cream is **ice**, which requires a lot of heat to melt. The brandy is not frozen, so that there is no latent het of fusion to supply, in contrast to the process needed to heat the ice cream to body temperature. That means the residual water in the gut (and in tissues therein) will not go *down* in temperature as much as the brandy will go *up.* Net effect is that the brandy is probably not as dangerous as a huge wad of ice cream, suddenly ingested. In the spirit (hee! hee!) of scientific inquiry, nonetheless, I would accept a case of fine brandy and gladly undertake the requisite experiments to see just how cold a shot of brandy I can intake without damage. Might take quite a number of shots to get data statistically significant, and I'd want to creep down on the temperature pretty slowly ...) I'd chalk this one up as an urban legend. Does make ya think, though ... suicide by overconsumption of **ice cream?** Maybe that's what got Elvis ... -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
> > In the spirit (hee! hee!) of scientific inquiry, nonetheless, I would accept a > case of fine brandy and gladly undertake the requisite experiments to see just > how cold a shot of brandy I can intake without damage. Might take quite a > number of shots to get data statistically significant, and I'd want to creep > down on the temperature pretty slowly ...) > > -- > Dave Kruger > Astoria, OR ================== Dave, the type of experiment you suggest would be better served if there is some control. i should think that a Canadian PhD and John Winters would be a good pair to help add some balance & fine discussion. a written report would be needed to keep auditors happy. who knows, john may already have some info. one can only hope. bye bye bliven *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
From: "Dave Uebele" <daveu_at_sptddog.com> > > Assuming a perfectly shear cliff, acting as mirror, 1/4 wavelength > into the wall, plus 1/4 wavelength coming back to you, adds up to > 1/2 wavelength. So right at that spot, the reflected wave will be cancelling > the next incoming wave. Go out to 1/2 wavelength from the cliff, > and now the 1/2 plus 1/2 add up to a whole wavelength, and the waves > will be twice as big. > I had an interesting experience this summer at Lake Superior Prov. Park, in the north part of Agawa Bay. Amie and I paddled around and went to see the rock paintings on the cliff. When paddling back to the cove from which we'd launched, I found the water was rough, with big waves, followed by relatively calm, though with big waves nearby. After thinking about it, I realized what was happening. The cliff was a long convex curve to the north of the rock paintings. The reflected waves were being dispersed by the curved cliff, in much the same way that light is dispersed by a convex mirror. These waves interfered with the incoming waves to form a pattern of rough and calm areas. We were paddling along a line that took us through alternating areas of smooth and rough water. You could find an illustration of this in any college text (physics or engineering) that deals with vibrations and waves. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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