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Can you swim faster in water or in syrup?
Here is the answer, obtained by experimentation. This is a fundamental question of applied physics, namely when "viscous drag" becomes a dominant force.
It is amazing how heavily this investigation was regulated:
The most troublesome part of the experiment was getting permission to do it in the first place. Cussler and Gettelfinger had to obtain 22 separate kinds of approval, including persuading the local authorities that it was okay to put their syrup down the drain afterwards.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 11, 2006 at 08:57 AM in Science | Permalink
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Comments
Didn't this paper win an Ig Nobel prize a year or two ago?
Posted by: Gabe at Feb 11, 2006 9:25:03 AM
I have similar type of question: does more sugar melt in hot tea or cold
tea? Why?
Posted by: Takhir Ismailov at Feb 11, 2006 2:16:06 PM
I.e., novelty wins you points in Chemical Engineering as well as Economics.
Ed Cussler is a great teacher, although my Chem Eng year at MN only had him for a couple of guest lectures instead of a whole class.
Posted by: Paul N at Feb 11, 2006 4:47:26 PM
The drain issue is actually not a trivial one. I know of a person who filled up a bathtub with chocolate milk as part of a romantic evening. When he drained the bath his pipes all clogged up. It cost $6000 for the plumbers to clean it all out, and that was only a bathtub. I imagine they could backup the drains for an entire neighbourhood with a whole 25 metre pool's worth of the wrong type of syrup.
Posted by: still working it out at Feb 11, 2006 11:31:05 PM
Takhir:
The sugar doesn't melt, it goes into solution, or you can say that it dissolves.
You can typically dissolve more of a substance at higher temperatures, although this is not universally true - there are a few paris of chemicals that demonstrate lower soluobility at higher temperatures. But those are rare.
The reason for the temperature dependence has to do with the interaction of the molecules: for a substance to dissolve, its molecules have to be more inclined to interact with the solvent. When you reach thes saturation point, the sugar is more inclined to interact with other sugar molecules, and thus form crystals. At higher temperatures, the molecules are moving around a lot more and thus are less likely to interact with "like" molecules.
To explain more, you need to get into thermodynamics, which I don't want to do here.
BTW, this is the same reason to doesn't snow much when the temperature is very cold (like, -30) - at those temperatures, the air is too cold to carry enough water vapor to form clouds. That's why the coldest days back home in Edmonton are often the clearest.
Posted by: Barry P. at Feb 11, 2006 11:35:45 PM
Here is what I don't understand: How is a tub full of chocolate milk even remotely romantic? Sounds DISGUSTING.
Posted by: Nicholas at Feb 12, 2006 11:20:09 PM
The girlfriend agreed. It was a complete waste of money.
Posted by: still working it out at Feb 13, 2006 7:24:50 PM
"It is amazing how heavily this investigation was regulated"
It's just like with the FDA: the government has tons of incentive to add regulation, and no politician is going to touch deregulating. If you tried to undo the down-the-drain restriction, for example, the masses would say you *want* drains getting clogged. They wouldn't give you time to explain you want to make people liable, instead of maknig them go through regulatory hoops.
Regulation of human research has even reached computer science. If you want to do an "experiment" where you let people try out a program you have written, you have to take an online class that starts out talking about the Nazi experiments and the Tuskanee syphilis experiment. Some universities are so paranoid that even if you go through the class and determine your experiment is exempt (their word!) even from *review*, they want to review it anyway just to be sure.
It's a slippery slope, and I don't know any way back. The people who know the system are impacted the least, because they know how to word their applications and they know whose ears to whisper in to make things move faster.
Posted by: Lex Spoon at Feb 14, 2006 4:20:43 AM
do you have any mind stupid????????
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