杏吧原创

SUBMITTED for your consideration, a place in time and space where reason and
logic have been forgotten and being wired means being weird. Next stop: an
offbeat and online world of mad scientists and the crazy experiments they
perform. To enter, you need a personal computer with access to the Internet and
the World Wide Web. But be warned. What you are about to experience could change
your view of science forever. And New 杏吧原创 will not be responsible
for the consequences.

Now you鈥檙e ready for George Goble.

There are places on the Net where the name Goble is uttered in thanksgiving,
as in 鈥淭his man is God.鈥� What, pray tell, has Goble, a 43-year-old electronics
technician at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, done to earn such
distinction? He vaporises barbecue grills.

鈥淭he whole thing started with my job at the annual picnic of the Engineers
Honorary Society,鈥� explains Goble. 鈥淚 cook the burgers and, being an engineer,
I鈥檓 always looking for ways to speed up the heating process of the charcoal. I
started with hair dryers. Then it was vacuum cleaners set to blow. Then propane
迟辞谤肠丑别蝉.鈥�

The pinnacle of Goble鈥檚 back-yard barbeque adventures came when he decided he
could light his grill by leaving a smouldring cigarette on the unlit charcoal,
then drenching them both in in liquid oxygen (LOX). 鈥淚t works really well. I
rigged up a system to deliver the LOX. There was a fireball and the grill was
going in 30 seconds,鈥� he explains.

Today, Goble has largely given up using liquid oxygen on grills, partly
because he can鈥檛 spare any more grills and partly because it鈥檚 extremely
dangerous. The barbeque must contain a source of ignition, such as a glowing
coal or a cigarette end, before the liquid oxygen is added. If the barbeque is
presoaked in liquid oxygen and then lit, an explosion will occur. 鈥淥ne charcoal
briquette presoaked in LOX has an explosive power approximately equal to one
stick of dynamite,鈥� he explains.

Cult chemist

Goble鈥檚 pioneering work has attracted enormous attention. Two years ago, he
put images and descriptions of his original LOX-fuelled barbecue on the World
Wide Web (http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/). Earlier this year, he won the
1996 Ig Nobel prize for chemistry, awarded by the Annals of Improbable
Research, a prestigious if not entirely academic journal published at
Harvard University. 鈥淏ut the fame hasn鈥檛 changed me,鈥� he insists.

Goble鈥檚 page is just one of a number of Web pages demonstrating crazy
scientific experiments that are also gaining cult status. Take for example the
AGD Antics and Mayhem Page (http://www.be.com/~dbg/atics/index.html),
where you can discover what happens to compact discs in a microwave oven (their
surface cracks while your microwave fills with lightning), learn how to burn
holes through aluminium sheets using a Fresnel lens, and even how to build a
carbon dioxide bomb by mixing dry ice and warm water in a plastic container.

鈥淒oing stuff like blowing up plastic bottles was how we let off steam and
stayed creative,鈥� says Dominic Giampaolo, the page鈥檚 27-year-old creator and a
former electrical engineer at Silicon Graphics in northern California where the
experiments took place. 鈥淥ne of us at work would get a crazy idea, usually
involving lots of duct tape, and off we would go.鈥�

Of course, CO₂ bombs can be dangerous. Giampaolo says he鈥檚 heard of
people being injured when the rapidly expanding gas ruptures its container
prematurely. He no longer makes them.

Mark Leather, who used to work with Giampaolo, has also toyed with expanding
gases. His home page (http://reality.sgi.com/employees/mark/alrocket/)
chronicles three ill-fated attempts to launch a 5-gallon drinking water bottle
into low (very low) Earth orbit using liquid nitrogen as fuel.

鈥淚 think we got it as high as 10 feet before the bottle would turn over and
slam into the ground,鈥� he says.

Leather, who is also an electrical engineer, suspects that the rocket鈥檚
design was the biggest problem (see
Diagram). 鈥淚 think if we had put the fins
farther back, we might have reached 100 feet.鈥� Future launches, however, are
unlikely. Giampaolo now works for a competing computer company and Leather鈥檚
bosses at Silicon Graphics seem intent on keeping him busy. 鈥淚鈥檓 back in the
real world,鈥� he says.

For sheer scientific methodology, however misplaced, few sites rival The
TWINKIES Project (http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~gouge/twinkies.html).
TWINKIES stands for Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations.
The 鈥渘oxious kakes鈥� in this case actually are Twinkies, golden sponge cakes with
a creamy filling that are widely available in the US.

The tests are the bright ideas of Chris Gouge and Todd Stadler, a pair of
undergraduate students at Rice University in Houston, Texas. The purpose of the
project, according to the young scientists, is to explore the outer
physiological limits of the sponge cake.

Wet Twinkies

The experiments of Gouge and Stadler range from a 鈥渟olubility test鈥�, in which
a Twinkie is placed in a cup of water and its reaction noted, to the
鈥済ravitational response test鈥�, in which a Twinkie is released from the sixth
floor of the Lovett College building on the Rice campus.

In the latter experiment, Gouge and Stadler record that upon release the
Twinkie began to fall and did so until hitting the ground with 鈥渁 loud splut
sound鈥�. Further examination revealed that the subject had developed a small
crack on one side. Meanwhile, a control cake, which remained on the sixth floor
during the test, showed no damage.

After additional study, in which the fallen Twinkie failed to move or exhibit
any further change, Gouge and Stadler conclude that Twinkies are indeed affected
by gravity. 鈥淗owever, their reaction upon impact is much less than expected, and
they maintain a good deal of structural integrity,鈥� the pair report.

Such findings are more than merely academic. Gouge and Stadler (note how
similar the verbal cadence is to 鈥淐rick and Watson鈥�) point out that if a human
being should need to jump from the sixth floor, a ground pad or bodysuit
composed of Twinkies could be useful. There is one caveat: 鈥淲e have not
experimentally verified this application, and do not suggest you do so either.
In the event you do not heed our warning, however, could you tell us how it
飞别苍迟?鈥�

Twinkies are not the only foods that provide fuel for scientific inquiry. A
group of engineers at the Digital Equipment Corporation in Maynard, Maryland
have published a seminal work on the best way to build an electrified pickle
(http://www.research.digital.com/wrl/techreports/html/TN-13/).

Compiling a wealth of historical and experimental data, the DEC engineers
offer, among other things, a detailed schematic picture of a pickle hooked up to
various electrodes as well as both qualitative and quantitative comparisons of
light emissions between dill and kosher pickles, cornichon pickles (made from
tiny gherkin cucumbers) and mandarin oranges. They conclude that salty pickles
like the dill and kosher ones appear to make the best 鈥渙rganic illumination
systems鈥�. But not without a price: electrified pickles apparently smell bad,
although they still taste OK.

And finally, there is Pete Hickey, a communications technician at Ottawa
University in Canada who has investigated the popular folklore that beards keep
people warm. 鈥淚n the interest of science,鈥� he writes on his home page (
http://mudhead.uottawa.ca/~pete/eard.html), 鈥淚 thought of cutting off my
beard for a winter to determine if it would be colder without it. Thinking about
it for awhile, I realised that this was no good. Maybe it would be a warmer or
colder winter this year. Maybe I would forget how cold or warm it was last
测别补谤.鈥�

Accepted scientific procedure required that Hickey provide a control for his
test. So after shaving off half of his beard, Hickey began months of scrupulous
observation. His conclusion? The side without the beard felt colder.

鈥淣eedless to say, I鈥檝e only scratched the surface,鈥� he says. It is possible
that he only thought the bearded side was warmer. 鈥淎 better test would
be to shave half a person鈥檚 beard off, but not tell them which half.鈥� He does
not say whether he is looking for volunteers.