News for the OBSSEsed

Ok, so basically, introductions are just about the hardest things to write, EVAH. I just tend to throw myself into them, babbling senselessly, and it always feels like I'm walking up to you and saying, "Hi, remember me? I'm going to try to be funny, now, so humor me. Get it? Humor me? It's a joke. HA HA! Ha? ...nevermind. <sigh>"

So anyway.

I fly a lot for business. Not the big glamorous flights, just the little 18-seater Beechcrafts that you never find out don't have a bathroom until an extremely inopportune moment about 10 minutes into your hour and a half long commuter flight. I've been packing my lunch on these day trips, not because I get tired of fried cheese and beer in airport bars (I don't), but because last time I checked my cholesterol level was higher than my zip code, and I would rather not die of a massive coronary until I have ten freaking minutes to run out and buy pretty underwear. Don't leave, I swear this is going somewhere. Anyway, I came to this massive revelation that at our deepest level, we never really mature much past fifth grade. What triggered this realization was that I found myself not only nibbling at, but finishing my lunch before we landed. At 8:30. AM. And I was surprised and depressed at the packet of carrot sticks, even though I had packed them myself.

You're probably scratching your head, figuratively, and wondering what the hell this has to do with Scully. The answer is nothing. It has a lot to do with my hatred of, and general incompetence at, introductory paragraphs, however.

I was having a huge problem coming up with this month's column, and put out the plea on the OBSSE mailing list for topic suggestions. (Oh, I waited until about four hours before deadline, why do you ask?) Anyway, May Scully Bless and Reward Ptero "don't pronounce the P, it's like, Dutch or something" pod, because this one is her idea (although a special nod goes to Michele for suggesting that I define "Dead." I suspect we will need that definition pretty soon, actually. Sweeps are coming.). Anyway, this month's Scary Scientific Term is SUPERCONDUCTING BALLS.

I know. I'm grinning too. Even better news is that there are only, like, ten pages of details about what exactly is a SUPERCONDUCTING BALL, and that is a good thing, as I now have three and a half hours until Paula comes after me for copy. With a machete. The problem, of course, is that, near as I can tell, Scully has never mentioned SUPERCONDUCTING BALLS on the series. Ever. Which would be a problem except that this whole SUPERCONDUCTING BALL thing was huge news in the physics world (Travel Tip: Don't go there.) last month, and as Scully is knowledegable about all things, I'm pretty sure she will mention them sooner or later. And won't it be nice to know what she is talking about in advance for a change?

So. SUPERCONDUCTING BALLS.. My first thought was "What the hell do they conduct? Trains? Orchestras? Tours? And how hard is that to do without hands?" Silly me.

Evidently, SUPERCONDUCTING BALLS are a recently discovered physics thing. And when I say recent, I mean, like, December. A team of researchers at Southern Illinois University were trying to look at micron-sized (translation: really tiny) copper oxide particles, to observe their motion in liquid nitrogen. Nowhere does it explain why they wanted to do this, but I imagine that it has something to do with Sony and Time-Warner taking over the movie distribution channels, and screwing the odds for original movies at theatre chains, and anything is better than watching the latest Schwartzenegger oeuvre, in my opinion, but that's just a theory. Anyway. They zapped these little particles with electric current expecting them to line up in neat little rows, (electric current helps to define a preferred direction in space), but the little buggers curled up into a huge ball. (Which is, come to think of it, pretty much what I would do if someone unexpectedly zapped me with electricity, too.) There are theories as to why the particles stay in that ball, the leading one being that, in a rectilinear state, the ball has less surface energy than it's individual parts. By the way, don't you like saying rectilinear? I do. Say it with me: Rectilinear. Reeeectilinnnneeeeaaaar. It's so soothing.

I know you want to see a SUPERCONDUCTING BALL. I did too, so I found a copy of the photo they took.

Cute, isn't it? (Of course It kind of looks like they might have accidently focused the microscope on a dust mite. Boy, that would screw their chances for the Nobel, wouldn't it? Talk about having a bad day at the lab.)

So the next thing I was curious about was the potential use for a SUPERCONDUCTING BALL. Because they are such a recent discovery, there aren't many, yet, but the research team is looking into applications in the fields of "superconducting thin films and unusual forms of wetting". No, no, that's a direct quote. I wouldn't lie to you. I mean, yeah, sure I would, but geez, there is simply no need to this month.

SUPERCONDUCTING BALLS in the use of unusual forms of wetting. This neatly dovetails with my original premise that none of us mature much beyond fifth grade. Not even physicists. Certainly not X-Philes who write columns.