The Mad Scientists' Corner. So here're some random ideas that have passed through my mind recently. (And also, is "here're" even a valid contraction? I know I definitely say it a lot. Not that that would make it a word.)

The Cold Rocket. So in propulsion class, we talked about engines and how they basically rely on something expanding (i.e. hot gas). Well, we also talked about how one of the biggest limitations on how hot you can get the fire burning is the melting point of the metal in the engine. Like, if you study chemistry, you know that stuff burns best when the fuel and air (oxidizing and reducing agents) are mixed in perfect stoichiometric ratios. But in real life, most (aircraft) engines aren't run at that fuel-air ratio, cuz (among other reasons,) if you did, the fire would burn too hot and start melting your engine. So anyways, I was thinking about how the reason you need the heat in the first place is to make gas expand really fast (to push the plane forward). And then I got to thinking about how water expands when it freezes. And I started wondering if maybe there'd be some kinda chemical mix that expands like when it gets cold. Well how about it, chemists?? Then couldn't you have a rocket powered by both hot & cold sources, and they'd like cancel each other out or something? (Hah, actually, the more I think about this one, the crazier it sounds. But it seemed like a pretty interesting notion in my head when it first occurred to me, haha.)

Hot Water. They recently upgraded the power station across from the aerospace building, and it just happens to be next to the stream that runs through part of campus. And I remember reading a long time ago about how at lots of industrial plants, they use water to cool off the hot generators, then they dump the heated up water into nearby rivers. And it said that the increase in the water temperature of the river would kill the fish inside. Well, they also happen to be laying new piping around campus, and that got me to thinking: why can't they just take the hot water from industrial plants and pipe it to places where they actually need hot water, like office buildings and houses and stuff? Then those buildings wouldn't need their own separate boilers for hot water. It doesn't seem that unreasonable. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they do it already and I just never caught that memo, haha.

Smoke Detector-Style Air Freshener. For any of y'all who've used the men's restroom in Kinsolving since they renovated, you know that it always smells horrible! It's like they hire a giraffe to go in and poop on the floor every morning or something- I'm not even kidding! But yea, the stench got me thinking about how smells are basically caused by little microscopic particles of stuff that hit the olfactory receptors in your nose. And I thought about how smoke detectors work similarly by "smelling" the smoke. Well, I figger, it wouldn't take that much of a leap in technology to develop a fart detector. And I'm sure someone must have thought of that already, but then I think you could set up a system like sprinklers to automatically dispense air freshener when a fart or fecal deposition is detected.

(*Edit: so apparently, smoke detectors don't work like I previously thought. I think carbon monoxide detectors do though; same general gist anyways.)

Washing Machine Time. I've noticed that the timers on the washing machines here on campus are ALWAYS slow. Like it'll say that it's only gonna take 33 minutes, but it takes closer to 37. It's like they're subject to some kinda washing machine relativity in which time slows down in the frame of the washer relative to the observer, haha. I've considered the possibility that the shaking involved in the washing process would throw off the timing mechanism, but I find it hard to believe that they'd miss such a blatant design flaw. I dunno, at any rate, it still bugs the hell out of me.