How is it possible for enormous ships of steel to float? The sharp prows of aircraft carriers are so thin as they slash through the waves. To the eye it appears that they float in defiance of physical sense.
The secret is buoyancy - but it has to be the right kind. The three types of buoyancy are positive, neutral and negative. Positive buoyancy is floating above the surface; neutral is suspension below the surface and negative is sinking to the bottom.
A ship that floats above the surface is said to have positive buoyancy. This is why everyone on a vacation cruise is so happy. They are in a craft that is described as positively buoyant. Can't you just feel the giddy good feelings on board? "Hey everyone, we're positively buoyant! Yahoo," the captain might say from his table after he's had a few. Standing with his glass raised high he says, "Here's to hoping we’re never negatively buoyant!" That's the silent moment when many guests look at each other in panic, put down their drinks and find wood to knock on as fast as they can. Then they return to their tables and drink to the tipsy captain's toast.
Some guests don't knock on wood because they think superstition is stupid. They're the ones chosen last for lifeboats.
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2 comments:
Real wood is hard to come by these days. Most modern tables and chairs are some sort of polymer made to look like wood.
If you knock on a table in good faith that it is indeed made of wood (even if it's not) does the luck still work?
Finnegan's question is like one of those Zen koan's that can't be answered. You know, like, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
My friend Alan said trees do make a sound when they fall in the forest. He once was totally alone in the forest and a tree fell near him and he said it was loud as hell. Said it scared the crap out of him.
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