Nuclear theory, and cats.
Dinner conversations at my house are a little weird.
Notwithstanding the one right after my 21st birthday when I, five drinks in, attempted to explain the theory of punctuated equilibria to my dad, we all have various arcane interests so that the night's conversation might involve treatment theory for diabetic cats, the comparative usefulness of various types of wire for radio antennas, or the intricacies of Western-style raku firing.
They also frequently involve the attempt of one or more cats to obtain people-food from either the people or the table.
Tonight wound up being about how nuclear reactors work---I was comparing the reports of Japanese nuclear reactors being doused with seawater post-tsunami (in which the intent is to cool them) with the events in The Hunt For Red October (in which---spoiler alert---seawater getting into the reactor resulted in a cold-water accident, which involved the reactor superheating and melting its way through the submarine, out the submarine, and down to the ocean floor), and something was amiss with the comparison, so I asked what the key difference was.
Meanwhile, Mario did his get-pizza routine, which involved jumping up onto a chair, sitting patiently for a little while, and then slowly creeping up onto the table and slinking across it towards the food, as though we won't notice if he's slow enough.
At some point the explanation of how water affects nuclear reactions involved the concept of fast neutrons (which don't continue the chain reaction of atom-splitting when they hit one) and slow neutrons (which do).
My cat now has the nickname Slow Neutron.
If this is not geek cred, I don't know what is.
***
Note: In case you were wondering, the difference (short version) is that the reactors are off in Japan, and were on in the submarine in the book. (The Pogy? I think?) The long version, I'll link to an explanation of, in case you're a geek like me and are interested in how things like this work. (Sorry if the quality of that link is off; I searched on Wikipedia and got a whole lot of articles referencing aquatic accidents in cold weather.)
Notwithstanding the one right after my 21st birthday when I, five drinks in, attempted to explain the theory of punctuated equilibria to my dad, we all have various arcane interests so that the night's conversation might involve treatment theory for diabetic cats, the comparative usefulness of various types of wire for radio antennas, or the intricacies of Western-style raku firing.
They also frequently involve the attempt of one or more cats to obtain people-food from either the people or the table.
Tonight wound up being about how nuclear reactors work---I was comparing the reports of Japanese nuclear reactors being doused with seawater post-tsunami (in which the intent is to cool them) with the events in The Hunt For Red October (in which---spoiler alert---seawater getting into the reactor resulted in a cold-water accident, which involved the reactor superheating and melting its way through the submarine, out the submarine, and down to the ocean floor), and something was amiss with the comparison, so I asked what the key difference was.
Meanwhile, Mario did his get-pizza routine, which involved jumping up onto a chair, sitting patiently for a little while, and then slowly creeping up onto the table and slinking across it towards the food, as though we won't notice if he's slow enough.
At some point the explanation of how water affects nuclear reactions involved the concept of fast neutrons (which don't continue the chain reaction of atom-splitting when they hit one) and slow neutrons (which do).
My cat now has the nickname Slow Neutron.
If this is not geek cred, I don't know what is.
***
Note: In case you were wondering, the difference (short version) is that the reactors are off in Japan, and were on in the submarine in the book. (The Pogy? I think?) The long version, I'll link to an explanation of, in case you're a geek like me and are interested in how things like this work. (Sorry if the quality of that link is off; I searched on Wikipedia and got a whole lot of articles referencing aquatic accidents in cold weather.)