When I Say Something Stupid

Last night during class, I asked the students to imagine explaining something to their mothers. One student immediately asked, “Why mothers? Is there something special about mothers.”

Oops. So I quickly changed my statement. I said imagine explaining this to your parents. She shot back. “Isn’t that ageist.”  I was caught again. I love students with sharp minds.

Some of you readers might think this is about political correctness, but you would be wrong.

My Mother

My mother comment can probably be traced back to some advice I got when I was preparing one of my first presentations as a graduate student. I was told that I should make it understandable to a general audience and that a good rule to follow is to imagine giving it to my mother. 

Why my mother? I don’t know, but physics was mostly men when my advisors were in school, it was was mostly men when I was in school, and it is still mostly men now. That fact probably has much to do with it.

The term for this sort of thing nowadays is mansplaining, and it is hardly unique to physicists. Plus mansplaining, I think, can occur whenever one person regardless of gender assumes that another lacks knowledge of a subject because of some unrelated factor like gender or age.

I’ve said other stupid things in class, like the time I told a class that I was going to give them a softball question. A woman in class asked what that was. Now I don’t know if she truly didn’t know or was politely pointing out that I just said something stupid. 

I played some softball in grad school. There was this informal league of grad students from various departments. There were men and women of all sorts of athletic ability. The pitcher threw slowly and every effort was made to ensure that people hit the ball. Plus lots of beer was drunk. Lots and lots. Some of us would even run the bases with a cup in our hand trying very hard not to spill any.

That’s my idea of softball, so a softball question is just one that’s easy to answer.

But when she asked what a softball question was, the first image that came to mind was women’s softball, and if you’ve ever have seen a softball game, you know that there’s nothing soft about it.

I like the fact that I’m still capable of learning.

Happiness Is A Cold Beer

CREDIT: Some hockey fan going by the screen name goodkiller

It's been shown in a study published by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.  A mere 1/2 oz. brings a rush of the neurotransmitter dopamine and the resulting sense of pleasure.  The amount is so small it's inconceivable that intoxication is responsible for the effect.

And now from the land of sky blue waters,...

My Personal Periodic Table

Here are the only elements I need.

Bartender! Another round for me and my women friends.

Want to prevent osteoporosis?  Drink a beer.  An ale is better than a lager.

A nutritionist at Cambridge University, Jonathon Powell, has found that while ethanol in beer helps to prevent bone loss, the presence of silicon in the form of orthosilicic acid promotes bone growth.  Guess what?  Beer is an excellent source of this dietary silicon.

A good ale will contain about 1/3 of the daily recommended amount of silicon, and for some reason the absorption of the silicon is enhanced with the beer.

It's even more important for older women, because silicon combines with estrogen, so it may be more important for post-menopausal women to raise a pint.

So treat the important women in your life.  L'Chaim.

p.s.  An old beer advertisement.

Bartender! Beer me.

One of my favorite activities is to order a Boddingtons, a creamy British ale.  As good as it tastes, I always anticipate the visual splendor that is the head.  As it forms, tiny bubbles flow downwards.  If you're used to beers and sparkling wines where the bubbles go up, it's entrancing.

Boddingtons and Guinness are two examples of a beer that foams because there is both carbon dioxide and nitrogen dissolved in the beer.  The CO2 results from the fermentation process, but the nitrogen must be introduced artificially.  In a bar where these beers are served on tap, nitrogen is pumped into the beer at high pressure.  In a can or bottle, nitrogen has already been added, but a widget is used to introduce pressurized nitrogen to initialize the bubbling process.

Have you ever wondered why bubbles form at all?  In order for a bubble to form there must a small gas pocket.  Gas then diffuses into the pocket, and when it reaches some critical size, it detaches and  - voila!  A bubble.  I have always thought that the bubbles formed on the surface of the glass where small imperfections created the gas pockets.  I remember my father taught me an important lesson - always use the same glass.  He thought that in a freshly washed glass there would be enough soap (surfactant for you science-y folk) left behind to coat the sides of the glass and inhibit bubble formation.  

Then in 2002, French scientists studying champagne (of course) found that bubbles form on small cellulose fibers.  These fibers are thought to be added either by the cloth used to dry the glass or by falling from the air.

Two Irish mathematicians - who I'm sure enjoy a pint of Guinness now and then - have shown that cellulose is an efficient method to promote bubbling in these 'nitrogen' beers and have proposed that the widget could be replaced by a coating of cellulose on the side of a bottle or can.

Please enjoy your beer responsibly and scientifically.