March 2012
11 posts
6-word short stories
For sale: baby shoes, never worn. -Ernest Hemingway
Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time -Alan Moore
Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses. -Richard Powers
The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly. -Orson Scott Card
Longed for him. Got him. Shit. -Margaret Atwood
Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth. -Vernor Vinge
Them: .. well, I guess it depends whether you're an optimist or a pessimist. Is the glass half-full or half-empty?
Me: I pick the missing "scientist" option - unless the space above the liquid has been evacuated, the glass is entirely full - half of it is air, half liquid.
Them: erm.. wouldn't the glass implode?
Me: You're clearly a pessimist! That'd very much depend on the structural integrity of the vessel. If you were a pessimist you might have opted for a glass with sufficient strength to withstand the vacuum, and in so doing prevent the glass implosion - a positive outcome. Conversely, an optimist might have gone for the thinner-walled glass with dire consequences. That is, the pessimist ends up with a half full/empty glass, while the optimist gets an empty broken glass and bloody hand.
Them: I stopped listening at "integrity".
Me: Of course, if you placed the glass so it was entirely surrounded by vacuum- the glass would be fine.. so you'd have to ask "Is the glass half-full or half-empty when placed in an evacuated chamber so that only liquid is in the glass?"
Them: What? .. ok, that.. what you said.. well, half-full or half-empty?
Me: When placed in an evacuated chamber so that there's only liquid in the glass?
Them: Yes..!
Me: What's the temperature and the usual boiling point of the liquid? Because in the absence of environmental pressure the boiling point of the liquid in the glass will be lowered..? Wait... come back..
