The Misuse of Science - Three Examples
Created | Updated May 24, 2005
Archimedes, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Alva Edison. All great contributors to the world of science; all with one trait in common. They all used scientific theories and reasoning to help them achieve a rational and useful objective. They were geniuses, and following in their footsteps would consequently be asinine.
Scientific laws, we are led to believe, are rigid and unyielding. If this is the case, can the following theories possible be true?
Why Belly Button Fluff is Blue
First thing in the morning: you yawn, roll over and examine the accumulation of detritus in your navel. Closer inspection between finger and thumb reveals that the fluff is invariably blue in colour. This despite the fact that you never wear blue clothing or have blue bedsheets. This mystery has eluded some of the finest scientific minds in history, but the explanation is rather simple:
Consider the colour of the average Caucasian's1 skin. Notoriously difficult to reproduce in artwork, the general colour is a combination of yellow and red. This implies that the human body reflects green and red light, meaning it must absorb blue light. Naturally, as with food and water, the body cannot absorb blue light beyond a saturation point, so it must excrete. Where better to unobtrusively rid the body of blueness than through the bellybutton? Hence the blue colour of bellybutton fluff. QED.
The Contagiousness of Yawning
Yawning is a bodily reflex function in order to equalise the pressure difference between the inner ear and the surrounding atmosphere. Therefore: if you are yawning the pressures must be different.
In the process of yawning you equalising these two pressures, therfore you must alter the pressure in the surrounding atmosphere.
Consequently, anyone in the vicinity will now have an aural pressure indifference, which their body attempts to remove by yawning. Each yawn alters the presure of the surrounding atmosphere and causes an inbalance in someone else ad infinitum.
Why Does It Rain Every Time You Wash Your Car?
The theory of using 'seeding solutions' to stimulate cloud formation and promote rainfall has been long known. The consituents of an ideal seeding solution are ionically bonded, relatively weakly.
The optimum balance between low electronegativity and unprohibitive cost is usually silver iodide, the two constituent elements of which form relatively2 unstable singly charged ions.
When you clean your car, you will generally use a detergent. Many detergents are designed to break down proteins (think egg yolk stains or guano, for instance), a key part of this dissolution being the reaction of potassium iodide in the detergent with the protein. Most cars today are coated with paints based upon a silver oxide suspension.
Normally, silver oxide and potassium iodide would not react together, as they are more elctrochemically stable than either of their products. However the high frictional force of rubbing the car with a chamois leather can cause ionic bonds to be broken down. Free ions are deposited on the surface, where they inter-react at random.
The practical upshot of this is that some silver iodide is inevitably created. If it is on the surface of a water droplet, it can be carried, via evaporation, into the upper atmosphere. The cumulative effect on a Sunday afternoon of thousands of people washing their cars can create a significant volume of seeding solution, which also goes a long way towards explaining why it rains on Bank Holidays.