23 March 2022

That was a flashback from mid 1970s

We had not cleared 10,000 feet yet as we climbed up from Orlando airport runway. I could see from my vantage point of a window seat some large sprayers spraying something on the fields way below. It was not the long water distributors. I figured it must be fertilizers. But the mist of spray from the nozzle on top stirred some really old memory cells deep in my neocortex.

I was in third grade then. Dad had brought home a weird looking contraption. And then he proceeded to set it to work. My sister and I sat around him to see what magic was going to take place. My brother was too young.

Exasperated by the onslaught of all the bugs, pests and mosquitoes that monsoon season, dad had taken it upon himself to institute some proactive measures. There is only so much of slapping and missing mosquitoes that he could take.

He carefully opened the small, circular tin can and poured a fluid from another bigger tin can. The smell of the fluid oddly was very attractive to me and my sister. We were not too sure why the mosquitoes would flee from such a nice aroma.

Then dad went on to the screw the top of the cylindrical can with the long handle and then proceeded to show us how the contraption worked. He would pull the piston and push it. The whole thing would make a sucking noise during the pull and spit out a whole mist of the insecticide during the push.

He then took us around the house spraying all the corners of the house and everywhere he suspected bugs might be lurking. (Incidentally, in our house, that would mean pretty much the whole house).

That suction and spraying function caught the curiosity and imagination of two young kids that day. Whenever dad was not around, we would go around massacring the bugs with what that time we would have considered a weapon of mass destruction!

I am not sure whatever happened to that bug sprayer.

But after a lot of search on the internet, I found some vintage pictures of the exact Flit Bug Sprayer we had back in early 1970s.

Did any one of you grow up with this too?

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27 January 2022

Here is another problem to be solved

Now that we have solved the temperature problem in Chicago, here is another one from San Francisco.

[Errata: Looks like I have completely forgotten my physics – Sound is longitudinal and light is transversal – it is about which way the wave is moving and the particles in the wave are moving.

However, my original question remains – although I cannot remember the terms now – a ray of light goes straight but sound disperses in all directions – like the pool analogy. So, how does this work?]

Last week, I was in San Francisco and as his is wont, Matt Moore invited me to go for a walk with him by the waterfront and discuss business issues. While walking around Pier 15 enjoying some nice coffee, he showed me something. It is basically a set of two parabolic metals facing each other about 50 yards away. Each has a small stool to sit on. Matt asked me to go sit on one and he sat on another. As you can see in the picture.

Some of you might have guessed this, I could distinctly and loudly hear what he was saying. It felt like he was just six inches behind my head and he was talking to me from there with a slightly louder than usual voice of his.

For the next few minutes, I showed off my Physics to Matt by eloquently explaining how we were sitting in the focal points of the parabolas and how his voice was hitting his parabola, going then in a straight line to my parabola (geometric property of parabola if you remember) and then my parabola was putting all that on to its focal point which is where I was sitting. You would have seen the same in microwave towers, large telescopes etc. I do not know what Matt thought but I thought I did a good job.

Two days later, I realized what an idiot I was. I was telling Sharmila about it and then half way thru, I stopped cold. I realized that everything I said to Matt was correct but only for longitudinal waves – you know like microwaves, light etc. But sound is a transversal wave. It spreads out in concentric circles (like if you throw a stone in still pool). Those sound waves from Matt would have emanated as concentric circles and then after some of them hit the metal parabola, they would start out as more concentric circles from the point of incidence (where it hit the metal). Then where is the question of focus and all that in an ellipse?

But I experienced it myself.

How do you explain that?

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28 November 2021

Give me confusion or give me something else!!

My problem was that I was trying to follow the instructions. How much ever, I tried, the “other” door would not open. That was because it was not meant to. Those two door panels are the same door (sliding door panels). Somebody messed up with the arrow. It was the door on the other side that was working – you can even see it to be open in the picture.

This was in Atlanta airport…

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