h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

i feel a need to defend my good name as the reputed instigator of this thread. first of all, i never meant that green was a boring color, simply that a green pickle might be reasonably expected to glow green, and any other hue of iridescence would clearly prohibit calling the phenomenon "boring and banal".

there is nothing "regrettable" about what is, thanks to all you volunteer scientists out there, arguably the most interesting thread in h2g2 today. i suggest a hearty round of applause for The Luggage and for radioactiveBIGAL1; as fleming discovered penicillin, so did they create this thread: by accident.

Actually my first thought about a pickle with electric current run through it was "Is that like an electric banana?"

My first thought on hearing the word pickle was the quote "Can i have a sandwich! with a pickle!!!" As earlier said

My first thought was if it had anything to do with the chap in Gulliver's Travels who is trying to extract sunlight from cucumbers.

Ah, the endless variation of h2g2.


Geggs

Chest swells at being mentioned in the same breath as Sir Alexander Fleming

Wonders whether anybody in Gulliver's Travels did try to extract sunlight from a cucumber. Resolves to re-read the book.

My first thought on returning, just now to this thread was, 'how on earth have I managed to cut myself three times on my hands, and give myself two blisters and numerous calouses by just four hours of hard cleaning and sweeping' then I realised this didn't have anything to do with cucumbers, pickled or otherwise, and I became quite determined that I should buy a cucumber the next time I do a shop, I also decided, pickle or not, that buying some plasters, and other medical stuff to have in the house wouldn't be such a bad idea, then I remembered I studied biology, and realised that I wouldn't probably use them if I had them, and that a pickle, a small piece of string and a length of sticky back plastic would probably provide the solution, then I realised that I didn't know what it would or could pri rvde the solution to, but I decided to ignore this and instead concentratie on the blood dripping on the keyboard, and decided that it is my own unieque frm of art, then I realised I'd just posted something somewhere else which didn't have anything do to pickles, and I resolved to get some smelly stuff to spray on the furnature, and thought to myself that I didn't have much polish left, at this point, I thought, or at least began to get the inklings of a thought that I might be drifting off somewhat from the point, so I simply decided to say 'neep'

-riotact-

I like this thread I'm glad it got started off the boring/banal thread. Great thread though that is, it is not a glowing pickle thread. If we had left this conversation in there, it probably would ahve petered out much quicker due to people comming in and posting other boring and banal things.

The glowing pickle could never live up to its true potention unless given its own thread

I just ate my last pickled gherkin.



Does it work with onions?

I don't think so.

Maybe if you pickled them it would

Soak them in brine

you need the salt to produce the glow

not so sure an onion would work though, its jsut not a pickle

It should work with anything pickled in brine. Be interesting to see what colour they go.

What about sardines?

I think they would smell really awful

I think its the type of salt you use, along with how that color mixes with the original color of the food you use that determines the color. I read somewhere that different salts will give differetn color glows.

Yes, that's true.

sodium chloride = yellow, calcium chloride = orange/red, lithium chloride = "fuchsia", copper chloride = green, strontium chloride = crimson, barium chlride = pale green.

These colours are the standasd flame colour tests for metal salts, normally observed by dissolving the salts in conc. HCl, dipping into it a nichrome wire and heating this over a Bunsen flame.

sardines? i wonder if anyone feels the need for a sardine ice cream thread?

Well, I'd imagine the sardines do for one imagine..... driving down teh road..... lights to your left and right... hundreds of thousands of glowing pickles

hmmmmm...hundreds of thousands... pickles....glowing...

I LIKE IT, I LIKE IT!!!!!

Just imagine, hoovering at night, by the light of the glowing pickles!

I think that if we constructed a roomful of glowing pickles, we could sell them to Tate Modern or the Saatchi gallery for millions of pounds! Then we could split up the money and have a huge H2G2 meet, importing researchers from around the world, and have pickle-eating contests, a pickle research centre, demonstrations of pickles glowing in various colours. The party could go on all night as the researchers get...err...pickled.

RF

A meet lighted completely by glowing pickles.

And we could glow a multitude of different vegetables for further decoration