Geekery

[stephbg]

There's a meme going about, as memes are wont to do, which includes the following question:

11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty?



What's this bottle crap? Let's call it a drinking glass and get on with our lives.

How exactly would you achieve "half empty"? Strictly speaking, the half empty bit is usually occupied by gas, let's say a typical Earth atmospheric mix. To be properly empty implies a vacuum, and I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of lumping my favourite gas mixture with the emptiness of space. That kind of sloppy thinking can get you killed on long trips. Short ones, even.

Having established that empty properly equals vacuum, how do you achieve half of it? Half solid would do it I suppose (if it didn't ablate or sublime), but that is not the traditional material for the full part. Assuming the traditional "half full" is composed of a substance which is liquid (of human-compatible drinking viscosity) at room temperature (there we go again with the assumptions) and (Earth) sea level atmospheric pressure, is it physically possible to achieve that kind of separation between the two? Wouldn't stray molecules drift from the liquid and occupy at least part of the alleged vacuum?

A glass isn't even a sealed environment, so a vacuum in an open-ended container would quickly be filled by whatever was handy. I propose that this would be local atmospheric gases, unless the experiment was being performed in a liquid environment (we're at sea level after all) where your brief vacuum would become the proud new home to sodium chloride and other salts, water, silicon- and calcium-based sand fragments, seaweed, fish pee and a single thong. Again, hardly empty. Quite excitingly full really.

So, half empty? Never!



Before you roll up your physics sleeves to comment aggressively, please note that I have an Arts degree, and am not feeling well. But please, feel free to roll up your psychology sleeves.

Comments

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Last time I was asked this one I made a comment about it likely being 50% beverage, 39% nitrogen, 10% oxygen and a smattering of other gasses..

I concur with your analysis wholeheartedly.

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

I have great difficulty remembering which description is supposed to be good/optimistic, and which is bad/pessimistic. I probably translate to "half-liquid-half-air" automatically. That's engineering for you.

A friend tends to say "glass smashed on the ground" instead. I understand that's probably bad, unless it's smashed artistically in good light ;-)

Good point about the seawater and fish pee though. heh.

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

I like the venerable Mr Larson's observation that there are four basic personality types:
a - Half full
b - Half empty
c - Half ful..no half empt... wait! What was the question?
and
d - Hey!? What is this? I ordered a cheeseburger!

Clearly, he omitted the fifth type:
e - Please define your question more precisely, as it is meaningless in it's current form.


Now! A new fun game for all the family! Link a b c d and e up with the numbers below!

1 Pessimist
2 Confused
3 Jerk
4 Geek
5 Optimist

^_^

(Getting what fun he can out of a nasty headcold.)

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

That's good psychology sleeve.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

There is exactly the right amount of liquid. Next time, get a collapsible bottle.