Canals saw explosive growth in England during the first few decades of the Industrial Revolution allowing raw materials like iron and coal to fall in price by as much as eighty percent. Improving canals became a major industry - they became straighter with locks and aqueducts coming into wide-spread use to deal with changes in elevation. Then, around 1840, railroads became the thing and many of the canals were purchased for their right of way. The expansion of railways led to two of the more dramatic financial bubbles in history, but that's another story. The story here is about something really interesting that happened just before the railroads started taking over.
James Scott Russell found himself working on a large canal near Edinburgh, Scotland. A newly minted engineer, he had been hired to investigate the movement of barges in the hope of making them more efficient. Russell spent a lot of time observing and making measurements. One day the tow rope between the mules and the barge snapped and the barge came to a sudden stop. He watched in amazement watching mass of water in front of the barge's front bow
“I was observing the motion of a boat which was rapidly drawn along a narrow channel by a pair of horses, when the boat sud- denly stoppednot so the mass of water in the channel which it had put in motion; it accumulated round the prow of the vessel in a state of violent agitation, then suddenly leaving it behind, rolled forward with great velocity, assuming the form of a large solitary elevation, a rounded, smooth and well-defined heap of water, which continued its course ong the channel apparently without change of form or diminution of speed. I followed it on horseback, and overtook it still rolling on at a rate of some eight or nine miles an hour, preserving its original figure some thirty feet long and a foot to a foot and a half in height. Its height gradually diminished, and after a chase of one or two miles I lost it in the windings of the channel. Such, in the month of August 1834, was my first chance interview with that singular and beau- tiful phenomenon which I have called the Wave of Translation.”
Afterwards he built a tank in a laboratory to conduct controlled experiments. In 1844 he published his results noting four things about these solitons.
° The waves are stable, and can travel over very large distances (normal waves tend to either flatten or steepen and topple.
° The speed depends on the size of the wave, and its width on the depth of water.
° The waves do not merge, larger waves overtake smaller ones rather than combining.
° If a wave is too big for the depth of water, it splits into two waves, one big and one small.
A few decades later physicists began to work out the physics leading off in unimaginable directions. But back to that wave moving down the canal. If it was large enough you could surf on it. And, with enough study and money you could build very repeatable waves to your liking. It turns out a surfer named Kelly Slater did just that. The December 17th, 2018 issue of The New Yorker has a great article.
It turns out solitons exist throughout the physical world - smoke rings, packets of light in fiber optic strands and much more. On light packets - high speed data communication using optical fibers simply wouldn't work without solitons - the bits of information would blur into a muddle at high data rates. The math is a tad beyond the level of this blog - you'd see it in a second year undergrad physics class. As people continued to work out why it is stable some insight came from that radical moment in 1953 when the computer went beyond a bicycle for the mind to becoming both a telescope and microscope.
Physics 101 classes usually have a vortex ring demonstration to illustrate some of the properties of vortex ring solitons. Smoke ring guns are a lot of fun and fairly easy to build. Turning them into a really great demonstration takes some effort. Dianna Cowern recently posted her version. Her enthusiasm is pure wonderfulness.
Recipe Corner
The return of recipe corner - at least for today. This was great last night
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Ingredients
° 1 pound Brussels sprouts - remove the outer leaves
° 1 medium sized onion - I had a sweet onion (Vidalia)
° 1 largish baking apple (Granny Smith) cut into half inch chunks
° 1 tbl olive oil (doesn't have to be a great EVOO)
° 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
° salt
° ground black pepper
° 1 cup apple cider
° 2 tsp butter
° 1 tsp brown sugar
Technique
° preheat oven to 350°F
° everything through the olive oil into a large baking pan. salt and pepper to taste and toss to coat. Cover with aluminum foil.
° roast for about 25 minutes, uncover and stir
° temp up to 375°F and roast with no foil 'til the sprouts brown a bit - 10 minutes for me
° when the roasting begins bring the cider to a boil in a sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add butter and brown sugar and stir 'til dissolved. Cook at a boil until it is reduced to the consistency of a syrup .. about 15 minutes for me. I had about 4 tbl remaining.
° Put the Brussels sprouts into a serving bowl, add the syrup and toss.. you probably need to adjust salt and pepper a bit before serving.
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