Do Penguins Have Knees? (8 page)
Read Do Penguins Have Knees? Online
Authors: David Feldman
Robertson believes that the audience remembers the ending, not the beginning, of programs. If a skater can pry a rousing standing ovation out of an audience, perhaps supposedly sober judges might be influenced by the reaction.
Robertson’s trademark was not only a blindingly fast spin but a noteworthy ending. He used his free foot to stop his final spin instantly at the fastest point. Presumably, when he stopped, he opened his eyes to soak in the appreciation of the audience.
Submitted by Barbara Harris Polomé of Austin, Texas. Thanks also to David McConnaughey of Cary, North Carolina
.
Why
Do Straws in Drinks Sometimes Sink and Sometimes Rise to the Surface?
The movement of the straw depends upon the liquid in the glass and the composition of the straw itself. The rapidly rising straw phenomenon is usually seen in glasses containing carbonated soft drinks. Reader Richard Williams, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, explains the phenomenon:
…the rise occurs as carbon dioxide bubbles form on both the outside and inside of the straw. This increases the buoyancy of the straw and it gradually rises out of the liquid.
The gas is under considerable pressure when the drink is first drawn or poured. When that pressure is released the gas forms small bubbles on the sides of the glass and on the straw. As the bubbles grow the straw becomes buoyant enough to “float” higher and higher in the container.
Occasionally, though, a straw will rise in a noncarbonated beverage, and we didn’t get a good explanation for this phenomenon until we heard from Roger W. Cappello, president of straw-maker Clear Shield National. We often get asked how our sources react to being confronted with strange questions. The only answer we can give is—it varies. Sure, we like authoritative sources who fawn over us and smother us in data. But we must confess we have a special place in our hearts for folks like Cappello, who make us sweat a little before divulging their secrets. Here is his letter to
Imponderables
, verbatim, skipping only the obvious pleasantries:
After pondering your question for a while, I decided to toss your letter as I was too busy for this. I later retrieved the letter and decided I would attempt to give you an answer that is slightly technical, mixed with some common sense and some B.S.
First off, I know the action you were referring to had something to do with “specific gravity.” Specific gravity, as defined by Webster, is “the rate of the density of a substance to the density of a substance (as pure water) taken as a standard when both densities are obtained by weighing in air.”
Straws today are formed from polypropylene, whereas many years ago they were made of polystyrene, before that paper, and before that, wheat shafts.
Assuming water has a specific gravity of 1, polypropylene is .9, and polystyrene is 1.04. A polypropylene straw will float upward in a glass of water, whereas a polystyrene straw will sink. However, a polystyrene straw will float upward in a carbonated drink as the carbonation bubbles attach themselves to the side of the straw, which will help offset the slight specific gravity difference between water and polystyrene. A polypropylene straw will float higher in a carbonated drink for the same reason. If you put a polypropylene straw in gasoline, and please don’t try this, it will sink because the specific gravity of gas is lighter than water.
If you lined up ten glasses of different liquids, all filled to the same level, the straws would most likely float at all different levels due to the different specific gravities of the liquids and the attachment of various numbers of bubbles to the straws.
I really wish you hadn’t brought this up as I’m going to lunch now. I think I’ll order hot coffee so I can ponder the imponderables of my business without distraction.
Good luck.
We can use all that good luck you were wishing us. I’m sure you had a productive lunch, too. Anyone willing to share information with us can eat (and sleep) with a clear conscience, knowing that he has led to the enlightenment of his fellow humans.
Submitted by Merrill Perlman of New York, New York
.
Why
Is the Tenor Oboe Called an “English Horn” When It Is Neither English Nor a Horn?
Dr. Kristin Thelander, professor of music at the University of Iowa School of Music, among many other experts we contacted, assured us that the “English horn” was, indeed, invented in France. No one knew exactly why or how the instrument got classified as a horn.
But the true mystery is how the credit for this instrument migrated to England. Dr. Margaret Downie Banks, curator of The Shrine to Music Museum and Center for Study of the History of Musical Instruments at the University of South Dakota, told
Imponderables
that the existence of the instrument can be traced back at least to the seventeenth century. According to Banks, in the early eighteenth century the English horn was called the
wald-hautbois
(forest oboe),
a name which Baroque composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and others italianized to
oboe da caccia
(hunting oboe).
About 1760, the name
corni inglesi
(English horn) shows up in scores for music by Haydn and Gluck; but it remains unknown just why the tenor oboe was designated the “English horn.”
So what happened between the early eighteenth century and 1760 to change the name of the instrument to the English horn? Some of our experts, such as Alvin Johnson, of the American Musicological Society, and Peggy Sullivan, executive secretary of the Music Educators National Conference, were willing to speculate. They offered an oft-told but possibly apocryphal explanation: that our term is a corruption of
cor anglé,
French for “angled horn.” Although they were originally straight, like “regular” oboes, instrument makers started putting angles or curves on English horns in the early eighteenth century when the instrument was used in hunting.
So, the theory goes, the English were fooled by a homonym. (
Anglé
and
anglais
do sound alike in French.) And being good chauvinists, the angled horn metamorphosed into the English horn.
We documented many instances of English words and phrases that were based on mispronunciations or misunderstandings or foreign terms in
Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?
So we’ll bite on this theory.
Submitted by Robert C. Probasco of Moscow, Idaho
.
About the only angry letters we get around here are responses to answers of ours that assume the validity of evolutionary theory. But if you ask an authority, such as Dr. William P. Jollie, chairman of the Anatomy Department at the Medical College of Virginia, about this Imponderable, an evolutionary approach is what you are going to get:
…anatomically, fingers are digits (our other digits are toes) and people, like all four-legged vertebrate animals, have digits characteristic both for the large group to which they belong (called a
class
: amphibians, reptiles, mammals) and for a smaller group within the class (called an
order
: rodents, carnivores, primates). So we have five fingers of a length that is characteristic for the hands of primate mammals.
Of course, there is variation among different species and even variation among individual members of the same species. Some people have ring fingers noticeably longer than their index fingers; in others, the fingers are the same length. We once knew a woman whose second toe was an inch or more longer than her “big” toe.
But is there any rhyme or reason for the relative size of our digits? Dr. Duane Anderson, of the Dayton Museum of Natural History, was the only source we contacted who emphasized the role of the fingers (and hands) in grabbing objects:
Pick up a tennis ball and you will see the fingers are all the same length. Length is an adaptation to swinging in trees initially, and then picking things up. An “even hand” would be less versatile. A long little finger, for example, would get smashed more often.
Biologist John Hertner, of Kearney State College, says that two characteristics of the digits of higher vertebrates reflect possible reasons for the unequal lengths. First, there is evidence that we can locomote more effectively with smaller outer toes. Second, over time, many higher vertebrates have a tendency to lose some structures altogether (e.g., horses have lost all but one toe).
Might humans lose a digit or two in the next few hundred million years? Unfortunately, neither the evolutionists nor the creationists will be here to find out.
Submitted by Marisa Peacock of Worcester, Massachusetts
.
Who says we don’t tackle important questions in the
Imponderables
books?
We’d love to develop a Freudian analysis to explain this phenomenon. (Are sticks of margarine phallic symbols more threatening to westerners?) Or perhaps a sociological one. (Might the fitness-crazed westerners feel superior to their stubby little western sticks?) But the real answer is a tad more prosaic.
Until recent times, dairies were local or regional in their distribution. For reasons that nobody we contacted could explain, what the industry refers to as the “western-style stick” developed out of local custom. When the behemoth dairy companies attained national distribution, they soon found that it was easier to reconfigure their molds than it was to change consumers’ preferences.
So large companies like Breakstone and Land O’Lakes make two different packages, one for the West and the other for the rest of the country. In many cases, the western sticks are packaged four in a row, while the eastern counterparts are placed two by two. This also, of course, makes no particular sense.
Submitted by Alan B. Heppel of West Hollywood, California. Thanks also to Jeff Sconyers of Seattle, Washington, and Connie Krenz of Bloomer, Wisconsin
.
