Scotch Broth and other Titbits
I had Scotch Broth for lunch yesterday, under the watchful eye of wifey. First I cut three slices of bread and buttered them. Then I poured the can into the saucepan and put it on the gas hob. I turned the gas on and made sure it ignited.
Only then could I heat up the soup, being careful not to bring it to the boil, but just under boiling point. I like my food piping hot. I had placed my soup bowl on another large plate so I could carry it to the table easily, where salt and black pepper awaited.
I carefully ate the soup, making sure it was not so hot as to scald my throat. I ate as rapidly as was decent, because in a cold bowl the soup was cooling rapidly. Who likes tepid soup? C’est dégoutant, as the French say.
If I drive north to Ramsay from Douglas or south to Port Erin and the Sound the engine of my car gets hot, too hot to touch. Why is that? Answer: Because of combustion, compression and friction. Once I switch off the ignition the engine cools rapidly – it never gets hotter. This is law conformable and a perfect illustration of the 1st and 2nd laws of Thermodynamics. Work has to be done to produce heat – 1st law – and all heat, by itself, will flow from hot to cold – 2nd law. By itself, mind – this never varies. Every normal person can verify.
The Sun does not send heat through the vacuum of space, but radiation. How do we know that that is true? If the Sun sent heat then the summits of Mt Everest and Mt Blanc would be the hottest places on earth, but they are not. Even in high summer they are covered in snow. Mt Blanc is a glorious sight, but the summits of mountains everywhere are cold.
When the infrared radiation from the Sun hits the salt water of the sea, a miracle occurs. Liquid water is turned into a gas, Water Vapour, by a process of evaporation. Evaporation is cooling. This gas rises in the atmosphere by Convection and eventually condenses into cloud with tiny ice particles. When rain falls from these clouds the water is fresh, no longer salty – that’s the miracle. Clouds are cooling and so is rain.
When Joseph Priestley first discovered Carbon Dioxide in 1769, the smoke from his candle mixed with the gas as it fell over the sides of the Vat, showing that it was half as heavy as the other component gases of air again. So when rain falls, Carbon Dioxide falls back into the sea. This is another miracle, since Carbon Dioxide is a food for all green plants, but most particularly for the phytoplankton in the sea. By photosynthesis Oxygen is produced for fish and fowl and for human kind to breathe. Priestley also discovered Oxygen and soda water.
All human beings inhale Oxygen and exhale Carbon Dioxide. I reckon that one inhales and exhales some 20 times in a minute. So in 1 hour that is 60 x 20. In twenty-four hours, that would be 60 x 20 x 24. In one year one has to multiply that by 365. Since I am nearly 90 I have to multiply that by 90. That’s a hell of lot of Oxygen and a hell of a lot of Carbon Dioxide. Approximately 946,080,000 breaths.
Carbon Dioxide is a major refrigerant. It is used worldwide in Container Ships. From Carbon Dioxide dry ice, that is colder than water ice, is made. Carbon Dioxide is important in the human body for regulating the ph value of the blood. Carbon Dioxide is used as a fire retardant for electrical fires, and is kept on all aircraft for this purpose.
Carbon Dioxide is currently 400 parts per million or 0.04% of the atmosphere. During the Cambrian period 500 million years ago atmospheric Carbon Dioxide was 4,000 parts per million. Today Carbon dioxide is pumped into industrial glasshouses at 1,000 to 1,200 parts per million to stimulate the growth of tomatoes and cucumbers, inter alia.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Anthony,
The molecules of gas in the atmosphere is equivalent to a layer of fresh water 10 meters deep at sea level. The energy from the sun does not penetrate the water in a 10 meter deep lake and heat the bottom of the lake.
The sun radiates energy in the form of electromagnetic waves. When this energy strikes a molecule it is converted into kinetic energy or heat. Objects do not radiate heat but energy. They can transfer energy through collisions but this is different than radiation. The reason mountain tops are “colder” is because they are absorbing kinetic energy from fewer molecules (by collisions) and have less total energy, even though the molecules striking the top of the mountain have greater kinetic energy than the more numerous molecules transferring energy to the bottom of the mountain. You can cook food faster in a boiling pot of water than in a 100 C oven because the total energy being transferred to the food in the water is greater than the total energy transferred in the oven (even though the oven molecules have greater kinetic energy).
Herb
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