M i n d s p O r T
E4 “Can a human being drown in a pool of ( hypothetically, room temperature) liquid oxygen?” Everyone said YES, emphatically. Only Shashi Shekher Thakur, shashishekher@ yahoo. com, came faintly close to the right answer when he wrote: “I recollect an old Hindi movie scene where Ajit, the villain, puts the hero ( Amitabh Bachchan) into liquid oxygen saying, ‘ Liquid will kill you but the oxygen will not allow you to die and so you will be hanging between life and death’.”
Right, but has anyone seen The Abyss? The 1999 film has a scene in which a rat is held “underwater”. It wasn’t trick photography but actually took place in real life and filmed. The animal was s u b merged i n a n o x y g e n a t e d fluorocarbon liquid — a perfluorocarbon — used in fluid breathing systems. In all, five rats were used in the film; all were completely unharmed. In fact, one even became director James Cameron’s pet.
Here’s how ‘ fluid breathing’ works: liquid breathing is a form of respiration in which a normally air- breathing organism breathes an oxygen- rich liquid ( usually a perfluorocarbon), rather than breathing air. It is used for medical treatment and could, some day, find use in deep diving and space travel. Liquid breathing is sometimes called fluid breathing, but this is misleading because both liquids and gases are fluids. For doctors and other über- degreed semi- laity who haven’t kept in touch with reality lately ( or snuck into various wikis like yours truly), here how it’s used medically:
The first medical use of liquid breathing was for the treatment of premature babies and adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome in the 1990s. Liquid breathing was used in clinical trials after the development of the fluorochemical perfluorooctyl bromide by Alliance Pharmaceuticals. Useful as an emulsified blood substitute and for liquid ventilation, perflubron ( under the company’s brand name Liquivent) is poured directly into the lungs of patients with acute respiratory failure, whose air sacs have collapsed. Once inside the lungs, the perflubron enables collapsed alveoli to open and permits a more efficient transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Cool?
DEAR MS ( The problem was: “Circle A has 1/ 3 the radius of circle B, and circle A rolls one trip around the circumference of circle B. How many times will circle A rotate in total?” — MS)
WHEELS- Within- WHEELS- Dept: Since circle A has 1/ 3 the radius of circle B, let us assume the radius of circle A to be 1/ 3r and circle B to be r. Therefore, the circumferences of circle A and B are 2πr/ 3 and 2πr, respectively. Dividing 2πr by 2πr/ 3, we get 3. So, if circle A rolls one trip of circle B, it rotates 3 times. — Jaelyne Tauro, jaelynetauro@ gmail. com ( Sorry, JT, but don’t worry because a lot of people — in fact, the majority of them — made the same mistake. — MS)
The obvious answer seems to be 3, but this would be true if the small circle was rolling in a straight line. The correct answer is 4. The extra revolution is due to the fact that the centre of circle A revolves around the centre of circle B. In general, a circle that has 1/ n times the radius of another circle will roll around one trip in n+ 1 revolutions. — Saifuddin S F Khomosi, saif_ sfk@ hotmail. com
( The other trivia question was: “Which non- Indian country’s former president’s nephews were named Ranjit and Chanda Shahani?” — MS)
indian- Connection- Dept: The Philippines’ 12th President Fidel V Ramos’ nephews were named Ranjit and Chanda Shahani! — Suryanarayanan Krishnamoorthy,
surya661666@ yahoo. com
ENDGAME( S) 1. How can you tell if an X drawn inside a closed curve is really inside it or actually outside but giving t he appearance of being inside due to the convolutions of the closed curve? 2. You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What did you just eat?
( Mukul can be reached at mukul. mindsport@ gmail. com)