A few inches of legroom can have huge consequences. Tens of millions of dollars can be involved in such decisions. Cabin seats can be moved forward or backward on rails fairly easily, but the costs are not just for equipment and the labor involved in reconfiguring the planes, but in downtime while they are reconfigured.
As you might guess, the sight lines of window passengers aren’t uppermost in the minds of the airlines. If you happen to have a clear shot at the window from your seat, consider it serendipity.
Submitted by Alex Ros of New York, New York. Thanks also to John Lai of Billerica, Massachusetts; and Kevin Bourillon, of parts unknown.
How Do Audio Cassette Decks “Know” When To Go into Auto-Reverse?
Now that cassette decks in automobiles have been largely replaced by CD players and satellite radios, it’s easy to forget that the auto-reverse function on cassette players was introduced in cars to allow drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel instead of the stereo. The auto-reverse feature is reliable because it is so simple. It turns out that the reverse kicks in when a sensor “knows” that the sprockets (the two protrusions in which you click in the holes of the cassette) have stopped turning.
Robert Fontana, formerly of TDK Electronics Corporation, wrote to Imponderables:
Auto-reverse cassette decks employ a special playback head and mechanical gears that are governed and switched electronically. When a cassette tape reaches the end of side A, a sensor detects that the cassette hub is no longer revolving. Consequently, a signal is sent to reverse the polarity of both the capstan shaft and reel drive motors so that the cassette tape will travel in a right to left path. Additionally, the head gaps of the playback head are also switched to properly reproduce the left and right channels of side B. At the conclusion of side B, every parameter is then switched again to playback side A.
Submitted by Ernie Capobianco of Dallas, Texas.
Do Real Artists Line Up the Object To Be Painted by Putting Up the Thumb of Their Outstretched Arm? If So, Why?
The cliché: Tortured artist, clad in black, paces the room and finally stands in contemplation of his lovely muse. His unruly hair tamed by a beret, with palette in left hand, he surveys his subject with his right arm outstretched, gazing intently at his subject with his right thumb directly in front of him. The gesture seems simultaneously useless and pretentious.
But the experts we consulted gave a thumbs-up to using the thumb, or a reasonable facsimile (most often a pencil tip or a paintbrush) in exactly this fashion. In her essay, “Proportions in Figure Drawing,” (found at http://drawsketch.about.com/cs/drawinglessons/a/drawingintro.htm), About.com’s guide to drawing and sketching, Australian artist and teacher Helen South, explains that the outstretched arm trick is all about determining the proper proportions. For example, an artist will measure the height of a subject by lining it up with a pencil point. The average person is approximately seven and one-half heads tall (including the head). Here’s how South instructs the artist to use this technique:
Remember that the basic unit in figure drawing is the model’s head, from top to chin. Holding your pencil in a fist with the thumb upwards, and arm stretched out fully, close your non-master eye and align the top of your pencil with the top of the model’s head, and slide your thumb down the pencil until it aligns with the model’s chin. There you have the basic unit of measurement on the pencil. Repeat this step whenever necessary.
Now, to find how out how many heads tall your model is, drop your hand slightly so that the top of the pencil is at the chin. Observe carefully the point on the figure that aligns with your thumb—this should be roughly below the breastbone (two heads—you count the head itself ). Drop the top of the pencil to that point, and so on, down to the feet.
Using this rough measurement, artists can draw horizontal lines on the canvas or sketchpad and have a rough blueprint of the appropriate proportions, especially if the artist is careful to always measure from the same point, with the arm totally outstretched, using the same instrument each time.
The artists we consulted confirmed that this technique provides a useful reality check, not only in accurately depicting the size of a subject, but the angles and proportions of different elements in a composition as well. New York artist and graphic designer Joe Giordano wrote us about his approach:
You close one eye to reduce everything to two dimensions and then use the thumb, brush, or pencil to line things up. For example, when drawing from a model in some exotic pose, you can see that an ear is in a direct line with the big toe and the knee lines up with the bent elbow, etc. Working from these points insures that your finished figure will be more or less in proportion since you are sometimes focusing in on details and are in danger of losing sight of the big picture.
Speaking of big pictures, we received a fascinating response from Sean Murtha, a muralist at the American Museum of Natural History. He draws gigantic dioramas for the museum (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/ocean/00_utilities/04b_murtha.php) and though he doesn’t don a beret, he uses the classic technique, but innovates—Sean’s a two-hander!
What a question! I’m actually not a thumb user, but actually prefer my pencil or brush for the task, which I use primarily for establishing verticals and horizontals, rather than proportions. Since a rectangle usually defines a sketching surface, but no such geometry is present in the field, the pencil or brush held at arm’s length introduces that line into one’s field of view, making it easier to gauge the inclination of various edges and lines before you.
Similarly, when establishing a composition, I use both my hands with thumbs extended at right angles to frame my view, blocking out everything but what will appear on the page or canvas. As for how I came to this technique, I have difficulty answering. All I know is that I’ve been doing it for a long time.
Detroit, Michigan artist Karen Anne Klein works on a much smaller scale. Many of her works are still lifes, often created with watercolor and pencil, which is awfully convenient—she has her two “measuring sticks” right at hand. Klein read Murtha’s response and admits that for her, the technique is far from scientific:
I don’t use my thumb. I use my pencil or brush. Unlike Sean, I don’t need to frame an image with my hands, as I am usually drawing only one object at a time and the creation of the composition comes from my head and not from the world. Since I am usually working on a single object, the use of the pencil is for determining either proportion or the degree of diagonal lines. Sometimes when I am combining objects that are in cases at the museum, I will use the pencil to compare sizes, but I rather doubt that it actually works since I am moving around. Who knows if I am really at the same distance from the second object?
Redlands, California artist Ruth Bavetta wouldn’t put up with our guff about using a thumb or a pencil as a measuring device. We asked her, “Why not just draw a sketch and see if it coincides with your impression of the subject?” We gave her an example: What if she had to paint a picture of a girl and a ladder? Bavetta insists that no ruler is necessary:
It’s the ratio of sizes that’s important. But not the ratio of the actual sizes. You don’t want to know if the ladder is actually taller than the kid, but if it looks taller from the viewpoint you’re preparing to draw from.
You’re not necessarily drawing by the scale of your thumb. You’re just using it as an informal measuring stick to measure the relative sizes of what you see. Which looks taller: the ladder or the kid? And how much taller? Twice as tall? Three times as tall?
It is no more accurate than saying the ladder is 50 percent taller than the child. But what measurement are you talking about when you say that? The ladder may well be 50 percent taller than the kid, but if it’s far away, and the kid is close, the kid will look taller.
The most important lesson in realistic drawing is learning to draw what you see instead of what you know. It’s easy to be fooled by what you know. Because you know that the ladder is really taller than the kid, unless
you make some kind of informal measurement where you stand, you’re probably going to draw that ladder way too big.
Submitted by Nicholas Dollak of Fair Haven, New Jersey.
Why Does Store-Bought Bread Often Have Two Mounds on Top with a Channel in Between?
Perhaps the majority of prepackaged breads have flat tops, but like reader David Brandt we’ve often wondered why the tops of many loaves look like two arches with a gutter in between. When we have a question about bread or pastries, our thoughts drift to the American Institute of Baking, and when we think of the AIB, we contact Tom Lehmann, the director of bakery assistance who has acquired the nickname, “The Dough Doctor” in the baking and pizza industry. The good doctor swatted this Imponderable aside with aplomb:
I think you are making reference to what the industry calls “split top” bread. This is a type of open top, or round top loaf bread that is split down the center just before it goes to the oven for baking. Small retail bakeries often split the dough using a sharp knife or razor blade, but in large automated bakeries, it is accomplished through the use of a fine pressurized water stream, which cuts into the still soft dough as it moves to the oven.
In some cases, the water will contain a butter flavoring or even butter oil. In this case, the bread might be referred to as butter crust, butter top, or butter split bread…Some production lines that produce split top bread with a name like butter crust will use a type of mechanical blade to split the top of the dough and then immediately afterward, a small amount of butter oil is applied to the split. This results in a darker color at the site of the split and a buttery flavor.
The splitting of the top is [usually] done mostly for appearance purposes. For the most part, consumers have come to associate split top breads with a higher or premium quality bread.
Lucinda Ayers, vice president of Campbell’s Kitchen, confirms Dr. Dough’s explanation. In the varieties that feature split tops, Campbell’s Pepperidge Farm bakers create the channel that runs from end to end down the top of a loaf by the process that Ayers calls “water cutting”:
After the bread dough is in the pan and has gone through the proofing (rising) stage, the dough is puffed up very soft and high. At this point—just before baking—we run the puffed up dough through a stiff stream of water to “water cut” the channel down the back and give the loaf its distinctive shape.
Why bother? Ayers says the reason for the process is “purely aesthetic—it gives the bread a more attractive, home-baked look.”
When we first broached experts with this Imponderable, our own inability to describe the bread tops inadvertently led us to learn more about other types of lumps you see on the top of bread. For example, Kirk O’Donnell, vice president of education at the American Institute of Baking, told Imponderables that some bread dough is twisted before it is placed into the baking pan. When the dough rises, the twisting causes lumps. The twisting, according to O’Donnell, “improves the grain and texture of the bread.” Many artisanal bakers don’t want a smooth looking exterior, as upscale customers appreciate the imperfections if the bread exhibits the “homeliness of homemade.”
Even more common, lumping is achieved through “docking,” which is the deliberate cutting of the dough just before baking. Like water cutting, the main purpose of docking is aesthetic. O’Donnell explains:
The reason for docking is to control the expansion of the bread in the oven. Most artisan bread is baked without a pan, so the bread tends to “burst” as it expands in the oven. By docking, the bread can expand evenly without bursting.
Pies and pizzas are usually docked, too, ordinarily by piercing the dough with the tines of a fork in several places. Without docking, bakers risk the chance of fissures developing in the finished product, which can lead to unhappy customers. It isn’t easy to alienate a pie buyer, but it can be done.
Submitted by David Brandt, somewhere in Pennsylvania, via the Internet.
Why Does Water Vapor in the Sky Clump into Clouds Instead of Diffusing Evenly Throughout the Atmosphere?
Certain conditions are required for clouds to emerge. Most important, clouds form only in air that is saturated with ice or water. Most areas of the sky are neither moist enough nor cold enough to reach this saturation level, much to the pleasure of suntan lotion marketers. Steve Corfidi, of the National Weather Service, wrote to Imponderables emphasizing that clouds are only seen where air is forcibly uplifted and/or otherwise cooled to reach saturation. When air rises, it cools and loses its ability to hold moisture, leading to cloud and droplet formation. On the contrary, when air sinks, it warms, enabling it to hold more moisture, and droplets (and clouds) can evaporate back into invisible water vapor.
And how is this saturation achieved? Corfidi explains:
There are many ways by which air may undergo lifting and/or cooling to form clouds. For example, the cooling of moist air collecting in low spots at night can result in saturation and the development of patches of fog. Differential heating of the ground by the sun (e.g., strong heating over urban rooftops versus columns of rising air, called thermals) [can cause clouds]. If these columns extend high enough, condensation occurs and a cumulus cloud is born.
On an even smaller scale, small areas of upward and downward motion sometimes develop within an existing sheet of clouds. This most commonly occurs when there is shear in the cloud layer (winds which change in direction and/or speed with height) and the layer is thin. The resulting upward and downward motions produce the familiar dappled cloud pattern known as “mackerel sky.”
Major contributors to cloud formation are “condensation nuclei,” sites where water droplets form (clouds are nothing but the formation of millions of tiny water droplets and ice crystals—condensed water in liquid or solid form). Dust, pollutants, sea salts, volcanic ash, and residue from grass and forest fires can all be contributors, according to Boston meteorologist Todd Glickman, known for his weather reporting on WCBS-AM radio in New York. Glickman notes that the formation and dissipation of most clouds is a “very localized event.”
The premise of this Imponderable implies that the sky is a worldwide, fluid whole, but Glickman urges us to think small:
Imagine pouring a quart of red food coloring into the Atlantic Ocean near a New York City beach. The coloring will not spread out and uniformly color the water all the way from Iceland to western Africa to eastern Brazil. Rather, it will stay fairly concentrated in a local area, and be acted upon by waves, thermals, and other matters.
The atmosphere acts similarly; clouds will grow and dissipate in their own little space, independent of what is happening on the other side of the world.
Submitted by Randy K. Laist of Orange, Connecticut.
Why Is Carbonated Water Called Club Soda?
In various parts of the world, underground springs produce naturally carbonated water (but only where water has absorbed carbon dioxide under high pressure). Some insist that effervescent spring water aids digestion and helps cure various ills.
An Englishman, Joseph Priestley, who in his spare time accomplished another minor achievement (discovering oxygen), was the first person to artificially create carbonated water. In 1772, Priestley published Impregnating Water with Fixed Air, to trumpet his achievement (if you search the Internet, you will find several Web sites devoted to the science and philosophy of this interesting character). Although Priestley shared samples of his discovery with friends, carbonated water only became a commercial product in the early nineteenth century when a Yale chemistry professor, Benjamin Silliman, bottled and sold seltzer water. Seltzer was and is, simply, filtered water with carbon dioxide added.
Silliman may or may not have been preceded by a Swiss chemist, Jacob Schweppe, who like Priestley, at first gave away his handiwork, but unlike the Englishman, eventually started charging. Schweppe’s main contribution to carbonated water technology was perfecting a bottle that would retain the bubbles and allowed for mass distribution. By the mid-nineteenth century, J. Schweppe & Co
., the predecessor of today’s soft drink giant Cadbury Schweppes, was a thriving business in Europe.
The word “soda” was associated with many beverages as early as the late eighteenth century, according to Gregg Stengel, of Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., but there are many claimants to the “club.” According to lexicographer Stuart Berg Flexner’s Listening to America, the expression “country club” was coined in the United States in 1867. From that point on, the word “club” continued to gain in popularity, conjuring an image of exclusivity, refinement, and panache. Decades hence, everything from “nightclub” to “club sandwiches” was exalted by these associations of class.
At antique bottle collector and author Digger Odell’s Web site, http://www.bottlebooks.com/Carbonated%20Beverages/carbonated_ beverage_trademarks%201890-1919.htm, you can see photographs of soda and carbonated beverage trademarks from 1890 to 1919 that show how “club” had infiltrated soft drink marketing. A 1901 trademark was granted to Country Club Soda Company Corporation, but ironically, club soda was not part of its line of products. One of the most valuable brands of that era was Clicquot Club, which marketed an extremely popular ginger ale—and no club soda.
Why Do Pirates Love Parrots? Page 10