MacScience
I believe you have to be wired a particular way in order to understand some aspects of life and living. Like water chemistry for instance. Water consists of only hydrogen and oxygen. Both elements have natural stable and radioactive isotopes. Due to these isotopes, water molecules of masses roughly 18 (H216O) to 22 (D218O) are expected to form.
Pure water, H2O has a unique molecular structure. The O-H bondlengths are 0.096 nm and the H-O-H angle = 104.5°. Now you see what I mean by being wired a particular way! I’ll be honest, I’m not wired that way. I’m way out of my depth when it comes to masterful equations like although I suspect that’s probably only water chemistry 101!
In that world a confidence building question would be: For the reaction H2O(l) -> H2(g) + 0.5 OH2(g) the equilibrium constant as shown earlier is 1/3.5e41 = 2.9e-43 atm3/2. What is the partial pressure of H2(g)? In my world I’d consider that a rip! Far from being a confidence builder I’d certainly be feeling that the sand was definitely shifting beneath me.
Goodness! Who makes up those questions! Having said that, I have the utmost respect for anyone who can and does understand science. Science is great. When you’re young and no-one can tell you anything sometimes it requires longer years to give one the maturity of mind to comprehend that even cooking is Science, home science.
Me, I like the MacGyver kind of Science. I call it MacScience but over time his fans fondly refer to his everyday heroics as MacGyverisms. A MacGyverism is an example of bricolage and Mac is the paradigm of a bricoleur, that’s a person who creates things from existing materials, is creative and resourceful. The term MacGyverism was first used by Joanne Remmings played by Pamela Bowen in the second-season Episode #3 “Twice Stung” in which MacGyver must con a con man. The Episode title is a reference to The Sting with Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Dana Elcar. Dana as you may or may not know was Mac’s boss the Director of Operations from the Phoenix Foundation .
“In February 2008, the popular Science Show Mythbusters featured a MacGyver special that tested several of MacGyver’s tactics. The first test examined MacGyver’s famous cold capsule bomb which utilised the explosive reaction of alkali metals with water. Supposedly dropping 1gram of sodium metal into water is supposed to cause an explosive reaction powerful enough to blow a hole through a cinder block wall.
However, despite using 100 grams of sodium metal the wall remained completely intact. It was “busted,” along with the ultralight aircraft built from bamboo, garbage bags, duct tape and a cement mixer engine which failed to sustain flight and immediately crashed after travelling off a cliff. However, some of MacGyver’s tactics were confirmed.
The Mythbusters were able to pick a lock using the filament of an incandescent lightbulb, although it took the Mythbusters considerably longer to do than it took McGyver (50 minutes as opposed to 56 seconds, respectively). Another “confirmed” MacGyver tactic was building an electromagnet using ordinary household batteries, tape and insulated wire (the insulated rubber surrounding the wire was removed with a cheese grater.)
They then successfully used this device to magnetise an unfolded paper clip by passing it repeatedly over the magnet and then, by embedding the paperclip in a piece of cork and placing it in a small bowl of water, the paperclip acted as a compass because it was magnetised and it pointed to the North Magnetic Pole.
A number of implied, although not successfully tested experiments were completed by the Mythbusters team such as the possibility of developing a roll of film using orange juice as an acid and ammonia as an alkaline fixer while holding a garbage bag over the set-up to create a dark room. Another was by creating a potato cannon using hairspray as a fuel, a camp stove as the ignition and piece of PVC pipe as the mortar.
An experiment that was deemed plausible came in Episode 15, on July 2004 in a portion of the episode entitled “Car Capers” featuring the Mythbusters testing if an egg placed into a radiator of a car would subsequently cook and plug holes in the said radiator. This was featured in an episode of MacGyver titled “Bushmaster” and interestingly enough was originally an idea sent in by a fan.
The myth was deemed plausible by both MacGyver and Mythbusters. Plausible or not MacScience makes me want to know and explore Science a whole lot more as an adult. Infact I’d probably upsize and order a side salad of fascination to go with it. It’s highly intriguing these days!
