Katie Asks, Ben Answers

Why can't someone come up with tires that don't pop?

2012-01-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

After a recent trip to the Nissan service department to the tune of $600, I want to know why tires have to be full of air? Why can't they be dense so they don't pop? Like really tiny honeycombs filled with air, so if one pops, you don't have to shell out $150 for a new one with rotation. In my mind it would be the LED of the tire world.

Ben says: They do make them. They're great for things like wheel barrels and dollies, but they're awful for car tires. Your tires are really the first part of your car's suspension. The air in your tires acts like a cushion. It's good at this because air compresses very well. Air can compress more than liquids or solids can, so it makes the best cushions. When you make the whole tire out of solid then it makes driving on a regular road feel like driving on railroad tracks. They make run-flat tires that don't lose their shape when they get punctured, but to do that they have to use much harder reinforced rubber and most people hate them because you can crack a tooth just by driving over a seam in the roadway.

If you were to go somewhere that was really hot would your body cook on the inside like meat? Would it smell good?

2011-12-21T12:01:00.002-05:00

Maybe it is the season of eating, maybe I want to go to a beach... but this isn't the first time I've wondered about this. Ben,if you were to go somewhere that was really hot (like 150 degrees) would your body cook on the inside like meat? Would it smell good?

Well, first keep in mind that if you cooked meat at 150 degrees it would take a really long time. But it would cook eventually and the same thing would certainly happen to you if you didn't have any sweat glands. I remember listening to a pretty crazy Radio Labs episode about some guys in the 1700s who had this exact same question and they tested it by sticking a wood-burning stove in the middle of a small room and feeding the fire until it was really hot (I think they got up above 200 degrees) and then they just walked on in there to see what would happen. And nothing did. It's pretty remarkable how much sweat can cool us off. If you think of heat as energy (which you should because it is) then it's easy to see how sweating keeps us cool. There's water on our skin, and then one by one the individual water molecules take a bit of our energy (in the form of heat) and uses it to fly off away from us. Since it took energy away from us, we end up a bit cooler. It works great until you run out of sweat, and then I guess that leads to your second question.

So I guess at first it would just smell a lot like sweat, but after a while I imagine it would start to smell a bit like a barbecue pit, which is to say heavenly. I guess the take-away from all this is that if you're going to carry out this experiment to its full conclusion, please think of your neighbors and sprinkle on a little dry rub first.

I found a link to the Radio Labs segment by the way: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106880000

How does a GPS work?

2011-12-06T10:38:00.001-05:00

I try and challenge myself when I am in unfamiliar territory to figure out where I am and how to get home. I did this last Friday and miraculously made it all the way home. This being said, I do always have a GPS in the car with me, whether it be my actual four year old GPS or something that refuses to talk to me, like say, an iPhone. Why won't it say something to me? I can't read a map while driving Steve! Anyways, I guess what still bothers me is; how does it work?

I asked Ben.

There are two parts to GPS (Global Positioning System): the satellites up in space and the receiver in your hand (e.g. your GPS enabled smart phone).

There are a whole bunch of GPS satellites (Wikipedia says 31) so that at any point in time, on any point on earth, at least 4 of them are in the sky overhead. Each satellite carries a ridiculously accurate atomic clock and basically just sits in orbit constantly transmitting the time and its exact location in orbit.

So if, for example, you are in an unfamiliar city and you are in an emergency situation where you absolutely must find the location of the nearest frozen custard shop, then all you have to do is pull out your smart phone, which is a GPS receiver. The receiver also has a very accurate clock (although not as accurate as the satellites have) and it establishes a link with as many satellites as possible. Then it compares its own time to the time that each of the satellites is broadcasting. Since the signal has to travel through thousands of miles of space, the time broadcast by the satellites is going to be a little bit behind the time that the receiver is keeping. The receiver uses this difference in time along with a little bit of math to calculate how far the broadcast signal has traveled, and thus how far away each individual satellite is. At that point, the receiver knows the exact orbital location of several satellites and exactly how far away each one of them is, and it uses that information to triangulate its position. To get a location that is accurate enough to be usable the receiver has to calculate out to 7 or 8 decimal places, so it's pretty heavy stuff.

Why does tea get bitter after steeping for too long?

2011-12-05T11:43:00.001-05:00

I think you can tell a lot about someone by their morning beverage. For instance, I drink coffee and Ben drinks tea. Coffee drinkers (like me) are usually more exciting, energetic, interested in the finer things in life, like to feel uncomfortably anxious, and are generally sweaty. Tea drinkers, (like Ben), are mellow, think they are Asian, feel superior since they don't "need" a lot of caffeine, like to sit around and discuss different teas, and are substantially less sweaty. Today's question is about tea, and specifically why it gets nasty and bitter after steeping too long.

Ben?

The answer is tannins. Tannins are bitter-tasting compounds that are found in many plant-based products. In wine, for example, tannins are responsible for leaving the "dry" feeling in your mouth (as far as the undertones of boysenberry and lamb shank with hints of peanut butter, beechwood, and quartz, I have no idea what causes those flavors).

Most tannins are water soluble so the longer that plant material sits in water, especially hot water (tea), the more tannins will be dissolved into the water. Beer brewers also spend a lot of effort keeping tannins out of their beer by making sure that they remove all of the grains before the boil and by removing as much left over grain sediment as possible before the long fermentation process.

Are Cylons Possible?

2011-12-01T16:44:00.001-05:00

I'm going to put this out there for the world to know. I LOVE BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA. I want to watch the entire series again, very soon. So my question for the day is... Are Cylons possible?

How did you find out about my research?

Within our lifetime I have no doubt that we'll see robots that look and move like humans, but I'm not sure about artificial intelligence. Back in the 80s everyone thought it was only a matter years before we would have machines that could carry on a full conversation with a human, but here we are some 30 years later and the best we have is this: http://shitthatsirisays.tumblr.com/

Brrr... How do car heaters work?

2011-11-30T08:27:00.001-05:00

Brrr.. it's cold in here, there must be some Toros in the atmosphere! That movie rocks. Anyways, it is really cold in Atlanta right now and I have been using the heck out of my car heater these last few days. I don't know where the heat comes from, but I'm glad it's there.

So Ben, how does the car heater work?

When your car runs, the engine generates a tremendous amount of heat, due to the thousands of small gasoline explosions that occur each minute. To keep the engine block from literally melting, there is a coolant fluid that is circulated throughout the engine and then through a radiator which allows the fluid to transfer its heat to the air before going back through the engine.

When the engine warms up enough (usually to the point where the coolant fluid is at about 180 degrees F) then a thermostat opens up and allows the coolant fluid to also flow through a second, smaller radiator that is usually tucked in behind your dashboard. When you turn the heat on the air blows over this smaller radiator and that's what brings the heat into the passenger cabin. (yay!)

Some cars cant use this arrangement, like the old VW Beetle where the engine was in the back as well as "electric" cars which don't have heat-generating engines, so they rely on simple straightforward electric heaters.

How is ice cream transported?

2011-11-28T17:18:00.001-05:00

High Road Craft Ice Cream is the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my whole life. Period. (http://highroadcraft.com) During one of their tours (they do tours with tastings) they were talking about ice cream delivery and how important it is that the ice cream stays a consistent temperature. So that got me wondering…

How do companies transport ice cream?

Ben:

They (makers of delicious creamy goodness) have big climate controlled trucks, just like the Ice Truck killer in Dexter. They basically just take a walk-in freezer and stick it on the back of a truck and then add a generator so that it doesn't have to be plugged in for power.

What's that copper wire hanging down from our light?

2011-11-27T13:14:00.001-05:00

We recently replaced our dining room light.. it looks great, thanks for asking! During this process I noticed a wire that the designer in me wanted gone. So why is it there and what is it?

Ben, what is that copper looking wire hanging from our light?

That's the ground wire and it's there for your safety. Lighting fixtures (as well as any appliance with a metallic chassis or housing) have three wires: one that's black, one that's white and one that's either green or bare. The black wire is Hot, which means that it has 120VAC on it. Don't touch that one. The white wire is Neutral which is the return path for the circuit in question and it is at ground potential, which means there isn't any voltage on it. The green or bare copper wire is the ground wire which is attached to the metal enclosure and is connected to ground.

Without a ground wire, if the black wire comes loose and touches the metal enclosure, then the whole enclosure is sitting at 120 volts so if you touch it you get a new hairdo. However, if you properly connect the ground wire then if the black wire touches the (now grounded) metal enclosure, then the grounding wire creates a short circuit to ground which will trip the breaker so that there is no shock hazard. It's not as exciting, but nobody dies so it's sort of a tradeoff.

Do cats recognize a photo of themselves?

2011-11-23T11:19:00.001-05:00

Ok, I have two coffee mugs with our cat's faces on them. I was drinking out of one the other day and Ava kept staring at it. I would like to know if she recognized herself or was asleep with her eyes open.

Ben, do cats recognize photos of themselves?

Let's be honest, our cats don't even recognize their own tails. I don't think our cats recognize each other. Cats aren't self-aware so they don't recognize their own reflections or pictures of themselves. I also read an article that said that cats don't understand the concept of cause and effect. I believe this article.

(editor's note.. because this post is about cats, here is a Avocado looking confused)

Beer Bubbles

2011-11-22T11:01:00.001-05:00

If you know Ben at all, this question was bound to happen eventually. I figured I would get our first blog week started with an easy one for Ben.

How do bubbles form in beer?

Beer is made when malted barley is soaked in water and then yeast is added. The yeast are single celled fungi that eat sugar, piss ethanol (this is the stuff that makes you a better singer), and fart carbon dioxide. If you seal the container the beer is in, then the carbon dioxide that is released causes the pressure to build up until it starts to dissolve in the beer. Then when you relive the pressure by opening the bottle or can the carbon dioxide is released and forms tiny bubbles. However, in most beer the yeast is filtered out before the beer is bottled so they just add carbon dioxide to the beer to the same effect.

Ding Dong. How does the doorbell work?

2011-11-21T15:41:00.001-05:00

In my efforts to help clear things up for the kids visiting the Bruckner residence on Halloween, I took the doorbell off our house. Why you ask? Because it was dead and I didn't want kids freezing to death thinking it had worked. Anyways, it's replaced now and I wanted to know how it works. So I asked Ben, and guess what? He knows:

Traditionally, there is a small transformer located somewhere in your house that converts the 120VAC down to 24VAC, and that lower voltage is connected to a wire that runs to the front door and is attached to your doorbell button. The other side of the doorbell button is then connected to some sort of audible bell, which is then in turn connected to the other side of the doorbell transformer, completing a circuit. Normally, the doorbell button is basically an open switch so no current is flowing and nothing is happening. But when someone presses the doorbell button it closes a switch that completes the circuit and current flows into the bell sounding unit. I'm not sure what they are usually comprised of, but I would guess some sort of solenoid that strikes one bell when the circuit is activated (ding), and then when the doorbell button is released, a spring pulls the striker back and hits another bell (dong).

An alternative method is to have a small battery powered wireless transmitter inside the doorbell button that communicates to a wireless receiver in side the house that is connected to a speaker. The advantage of this approach is that you don't have to run any wires. The disadvantage is that at some point the batteries die out and then the Chinese food delivery guy just stands outside your door hitting a button that does nothing and then waiting for you to notice that he's there while you starve to death inside.

Where does the phrase "long in the tooth" come from?

2011-11-15T13:45:00.001-05:00

This conversation happened the other night as I was sniffing milk, (a typical past-time of mine). Ben said "go ahead and toss that, it's long in the tooth." My confused expression must have been enough, as he then went on, "you should know this, you used to ride horses.."

So Ben, where does the phrase "long in the tooth" come from?

Horses' teeth grow longer as they age and so the length of their teeth is a pretty reliable way of telling how old they are. This is also where the phrase "don't look a gift-horse in the mouth" comes from. So, that means that if someone says that you're a bit long on the tooth, they not only saying you're old; they're also calling you a horse. Fortunately this means that it's acceptable to kick them in the head and/or poop on their shoes.