Fuse panel hot unit, smell in corridor below?

JohnW2 said:
I would say that the "salutory lesson" is that we have all (certainly myself) been reminded of how misleading 'optical illusions' can be.
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Thus was born the myth of the Loch Ness monster, the Yeti and.. Propah Charlie's magical wiring layout.
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
No, it is reasonably normal. Bitumen is one of those peculiar materials which is both a liquid and a solid. Hit it hard and it will shatter, but will flow under its own weight.
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Indeed. Glass is, I believe (per the ongoing demo in the Science Museum), the same, except that it flows very very slowly (and it certainly shatters if hit!) :-)

Kind Regards, John
 
JohnW2 said:
Indeed. Glass is, I believe (per the ongoing demo in the Science Museum), the same, except that it flows very very slowly (and it certainly shatters if hit!) :)
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{QI KLAXON SOUND GOING OFF IN BACKGROUND}

I thought this had been disproven, the glass in old shop windows is thicker at the bottom because the proudction process was far from perfect in those days and the panes often varied in thickness, and it was always the bottom that was thicker because that was the sensible way to install the imperfect glass, no one would ever suggest putting the heavy bit at the top :)
 
Adam_151 said:
I thought this had been disproven, the glass in old shop windows is thicker at the bottom because the proudction process was far from perfect in those days and the panes often varied in thickness, and it was always the bottom that was thicker because that was the sensible way to install the imperfect glass, no one would ever suggest putting the heavy bit at the top
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What I remember, was as above, except that yes glass does move under gravity - though extremely slowly, not nearly enough account for old glass being thicker at the bottom.
 
Adam_151 said:
I thought this had been disproven, the glass in old shop windows is thicker at the bottom because the proudction process was far from perfect in those days and the panes often varied in thickness, and it was always the bottom that was thicker because that was the sensible way to install the imperfect glass, no one would ever suggest putting the heavy bit at the top :)
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I think you will find that the (qualitative) concept of 'glass flowing' has not been 'disproved'. What has been discredited is the once common belief (which you allude to) that such flowing was the reason why very old glass windows, particularly church/cathedral windows, and the lower parts of antique glassware, are often thicker at the bottom (the true explanation probably being as you suggest)

My understanding is that glass is an 'amorphous solid' and, as such will flow - but, as I said, very very slowly, probably such that it would probably take many millions of years, or longer, for it to result (at normal ambient temperature) in a detectable different between the thickness at the top and bottom of the window. Of course, that would change dramatically if ambient temperature got much higher, when the 'flowing' would eventually become quite rapid.

I think that even the various 'pitch flowing' experiments which have been running in various museums and institutions around the world for a century or so only see flow at the rate of something like "1 drip per decade", and pitch flows very much more rapidly than glass.

That's my understanding, anyway.

Kind Regards, John
 
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