STRANGE BUT TRUE- Mitey crowded: What happens inside your vacuum






Q. Beyond the safe cocoon of Earth, how hostile an environment for humans is "outer space"? –R. Asimov

A. Dark and fierce– the most unforgiving Himalayan peaks are nursery-school friendly by comparison, says Bob Berman in Cosmic Adventure. Invisible apple seed-sized meteorites streak through the void at speeds 20 times faster than bullets, able to puncture a space suit like a knife and pass through a body as through a cloud of fog.

The sun's searing ultraviolet rays would burn exposed skin within seconds, cook it to carbon in three minutes. The sunward side of an unprotected body would heat like a microwave to 250 degrees F while the shady side rapidly froze to minus 240, "cracking" the skin into solid ice.

Take a space entourage near Jupiter, and the cyclotron-level radiation would sterilize all living tissue. Near a star, bodies would immediately blister, char and then vaporize. Near a white dwarf or neutron star, "tidal effects would rip one's skeleton to pieces."

But most of space is simply dark and cold, where a person, of mostly water, would turn into a block of ice that, if struck by drifting debris, would "shatter into pieces, perhaps dividing itself along internal 'fault structures' defined by organs and tissues."

Q. If angels really existed and could fly, from a structural standpoint what would they have to look like? –L.U. Cifer

A. Assuming angels weighed like a person and their muscles generated power pound for pound like those of an eagle or pigeon, they would need a chest four feet thick to house muscles big enough for flight, while to economize on weight, their legs would have to be reduced to mere stilts, says biologist J.B.S. Haldane in On Being the Right Size.

Aerodynamically, an angel twice the height of an eagle would need to fly 50 percent faster than the eagle to stay aloft. Actually, large birds remain airborne more by soaring, balanced on a rising column of air, than by wing- flapping. And even soaring only works up to a point. "Were this not the case eagles might be as large as tigers and as formidable to humans as hostile airplanes," sats Haldane.

Q. Classic numbers noodler directs you to write down any multi-digit number without repeat digits, e.g., 8491 but not 8498, then rearrange the digits anywhichway (e.g., 1498), then subtract the smaller number from the larger (8491 - 1498 = 6993). Now add up the digits in your answer (6 + 9 + 9 + 3 = 27). If this yields a multi-digit number, tally the digits again (2 + 7 = 9). What number did you end up with? See the trick here? –R. Descartes

A. Whatever your original number, your answer will always be 9, once you arrive at a single digit, says California State Polytechnic University mathematician Laurie Riggs. "Amazing!"


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