Why was Princeton, New Jersey once the hottest spot on earth? And exactly how long is a Moment? Hear the answers on the Off Ramp with Bob & Marcia Smith.
Bob and Marcia Smith discuss the importance of observation and creativity in generating new ideas. Bob shares fascinating facts about science and nature, while Marcia highlights the inspiration behind innovative designs. They explore topics like empty retail spaces, navigational devices, and light bulbs, and delve into the origins and meanings of common expressions like ‘paying through the nose’ and ‘doing something through the nose.’
Outline
Princeton, NJ’s history and plasma temperature.
- Marcia Smith corrects Bob Smith’s misconceptions about the measurement of a “moment” in science, revealing it to be 90 seconds.
- Princeton, NJ was once the hottest spot on earth due to fusion reactor reaching 920 million degrees Fahrenheit.
Actors’ salaries and chainsaw invention.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the highest paid actors in Hollywood, with Dwayne Johnson topping the list at $87.5 million and Scarlett Johansson coming in second at $56 million.
- Beetle grubs inspire the design of modern chainsaws, which are more practical for everyday use than actors’ high salaries.
- Inventor Joseph Buford Cox observed beetle grubs chewing through wood, leading to development of bug chain design for logging industry.
Etymology and new startups in the real estate industry.
- Bob Smith discusses the origins of the term “bobby pin” and the “dynamite tree,” a tropical tree with explosive fruit that can launch seeds up to 300 feet.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith where the term “paying through the nose” comes from, and Bob speculates it may have something to do with a nose ring or similar item.
- Bob and Marcia Smith discuss the impact of COVID on the real estate industry, including the rise of new startups offering flexible office space in suburban areas.
- The Smiths mention that some real estate companies are transforming vacant retail spaces into offices, and some are renting out space by the hour or day.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the world’s deepest lake, Lake Baikal in Russia, which is 5315 feet deep and the oldest lake in the world at 25 million years old.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith a question about the biggest snowflake ever measured, which was 15 inches across and fell in Montana in 1887.
Change, mottos, and video fatigue.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the origins of the Mack Truck logo and the various ways to make change for $1.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the reuse of empty malls as schools, Zoom fatigue, and Montana’s Spanish motto.
History of games, toys, and solar system.
- Bob and Marcia discuss how the pinky finger aids hand strength, with Bob surprised by the significance of this small digit.
- Bob Smith explains how the invention of modern navigational devices used in planes and ships was inspired by an ancient toy, a spinning top, and how gyroscopes are still used today to create a virtual horizon on screens.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob how many Earths could fit inside the sun, and Bob correctly answers 1.3 million, highlighting the vast difference in size between the sun and Earth.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the efficiency of incandescent light bulbs vs. LED lights, with Bob expressing nostalgia for the former.
Bob Smith 0:00
Why was Princeton New Jersey once the hottest spot on earth?
Marcia Smith 0:05
How long is a moment?
Bob Smith 0:07
There’s an actual measurement.
Marcia Smith 0:09
Yes, there is.
Bob Smith 0:10
We’ll have the answer to that and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. So a moment when I say hey, give me a moment. There’s an actual measurement of time really? Well, I would say something like three, four seconds. Well, you’d be wrong. Okay. Okay. 1010 seconds.
Marcia Smith 0:54
Wrong again. Okay, according to science focus, it’s actually 90 seconds.
Bob Smith 1:02
90 seconds. Yeah. I never think of that as a moment. Now me there. It
Marcia Smith 1:06
seems like a lot. It’s an eternity. This was before attention span deficit. I think it was put into use by an eighth century monk named St. Biddy the Venerable
Bob Smith 1:18
BD. How do you spell that
Marcia Smith 1:20
B-E-D-E Bede. Okay, Bede the Venerable, who use the term to describe 90 seconds. And it’s been that ever since in the science world,
Bob Smith 1:32
would you say the ninth or eighth century?
Marcia Smith 1:34
No eighth. No,
Bob Smith 1:35
that was before clocks were invented. So how do they measure 90 seconds? Well, that’s
Marcia Smith 1:39
a good question.
Bob Smith 1:41
Maybe it was an hourglass or water measurement or something? Yes.
Marcia Smith 1:45
That’s probably how don’t question me.
Bob Smith 1:48
I’m sorry.
Marcia Smith 1:48
I questions don’t question my question. Okay, go ahead. What Yeah,
Bob Smith 1:52
okay. Why was Princeton New Jersey once the hottest spot on earth? I mean,
Marcia Smith 1:58
physically, weather wise.
Bob Smith 2:02
Let me repeat the question. Why was Princeton New Jersey once the hottest spot on earth? Okay,
Marcia Smith 2:08
I don’t know a volcano erupted there back back 10 million years before Jesus? I don’t know. Well, you know, digging
Bob Smith 2:16
back, you’re wrong. No, you can think Princeton University now people who live in Princeton known as a pretty normal New Jersey climate. But scientists at the tokamak experimental fusion test reactor at Princeton University, produce temperatures hotter than the sun. The reactor was operated by the US Department of Energy from 1982 to 1987. And it said several worlds records, one for fusion power 10 point 7 million watts in 1997. They’re trying to come up with a way to create electricity commercially, through fusion, that’s what they’re trying to do. All right. But in the process of that they also had their plasma temperature, as high as 920 million degrees Fahrenheit in this machine
Marcia Smith 3:01
and lads a bit much, it’s a bit much 34
Bob Smith 3:05
times as hot as the center of the Sun. So that’s why you could say Princeton, New Jersey was once the hottest spot on earth. Good to know. They’ve been doing stuff there since World War Two, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. That’s where you’ll find that information on the web.
Marcia Smith 3:20
Thank you, Bob. Yeah. Why Bob is a nude person said to be wearing a birthday suit.
Bob Smith 3:29
Well, I think the idea was, that’s what you look like when you were born and you know, your skin is your birthday suit.
Speaker 1 3:35
That’s what I always thought, so prosaic. So Prozac, Prozac?
Bob Smith 3:39
I forget the definition of that word but it means dull.
Marcia Smith 3:42
Oh, but you’re right. Oh. It describes exactly what one is wearing on their date of birth. So there you go. You got it. Right. Score one for the bobber.
Bob Smith 3:53
That’s the question. That’s a trivia question you brought to the table. Yeah. Okay, I got one. How did Mother Nature lead to the design of wingtip shoes? How did who Mother Nature lead to wingtip shoes?
Marcia Smith 4:05
I don’t know is that Allen Edmonds studied the flight of birds for 20 years or something.
Bob Smith 4:15
Well, you’re right, those holes are designed like bird wings. You’re right. But no, right? No. Okay.
Marcia Smith 4:19
What is it?
Bob Smith 4:20
Well, actually, the holes in wingtip shoes were originally introduced in Scotland and Ireland in the fourth century and shoes. They were drilled into shoes to allow water to drain from waterlogged shoes of locals as they wandered through the sod.
Marcia Smith 4:35
And it had had it had a sensible reason it had a purpose. And now it’s just fashion. That’s just you got it. You got holes in your shoe for guys in suits. Alright, good. Then let’s go to this. According to Forbes magazine, Bob, who are the highest paid male and female actors as of 2020.
Bob Smith 4:54
Hmm. I always think of Tom Cruise as being the highest paid actor. Yeah. us in Hollywood, right
Marcia Smith 5:01
and you think wrong. Oh, okay. All right. Who’s the new King? All right, tell we got a Johnson and Johansson. Oh really? Yeah. Dwayne Johnson. He comes in taps. The rock. Yeah, with a comfortable annual salary of 87 point 5 million. Well, I
Bob Smith 5:18
could take half of that live off of it.
Marcia Smith 5:21
He doesn’t have to wait for his social security checks. And this female, top of the pile, is Scarlett Johansson. Her salary came in at 56 million. You notice she’s still like a third less than him. Yeah, that’s the actors always talking how liberal they are. Well, let’s put your money where your mouth is. the
Bob Smith 5:40
Get the pay up there for the ladies if you could make 87 million. just being Mr. absurd, of course.
Marcia Smith 5:45
Anyway, that’s the answer. Dwayne and Scarlett.
Bob Smith 5:49
All right. So those are the top two. Wow. All right. Now let’s get back down to the ground, Marcia. All right. How did beetle grubs inspire the modern chainsaw?
Marcia Smith 6:03
Well, gee.
Bob Smith 6:04
Now the chainsaws are much, much more useful than $87 million actors – in just getting things done for regular people.
Marcia Smith 6:13
They’re not as fun though. No, I guess. Okay. I don’t know, Bob.
Bob Smith 6:17
Well, you know, we always liked those stories about how did they come up with that idea for this business or that business? Why didn’t I think of that? Well, beetle grubs chew their way through a stump and watching them do that let a logger to design a chain resembling their
Marcia Smith 6:32
teeth. No kidding. That’s like the velcro guy. Yeah,
Bob Smith 6:37
it’s an awful lot like that. The velcro guy had the cockle burrs stick to his pants. Yeah, so we’ve looked them under a microscope. Yeah, same kind of thing. So this guy had a 1947 a logger and inventor Joseph Buford Cox. He watched these timber worms and they’re the larvae of timber beetles, Trump their way through a tree stump and got an idea. He was fascinated by how quickly they could make their way through the wood. And he wondered why so back home, he set up an experiment with some wood and a magnifying glass. And he watched these beetle grubs use their C shaped teeth C shaped to chisel the wood away by moving their jaws from side to side. That’s what he saw. And he thought hmm, I wonder if I could develop a chain that would do that.
Marcia Smith 7:20
Yeah, so I decided that’s how it came about. Yeah, observation, and then he put it into good use. And that became he became wealthy.
Bob Smith 7:26
He did he became wealthy because that became the standard of the logging industry. And today, nearly 80 years later, his patents have expired. All the major brands used that bug chain design they caught the bug chain and the company he launched Omarks tool. Today Oregon Tool is still the market leader in you know chainsaws for lumber jacks. How heavy Do you think the first chainsaw was?
Marcia Smith 7:50
How heavy was it?
Bob Smith 7:52
It was designed by Andrea steel St. IHL. His name is on brands of things today. And the saws weighed 150 pounds and required a two man crew. Wow. So this other guy came up with a better idea for a design.
Marcia Smith 8:07
Wow. All right, Robert. How vain Are you? Do you think the bobby pin was named after you?
Bob Smith 8:12
It was named after me. And the bobby sox. No, no, no. But I don’t know names. That’s a good question. Because I know that the Bobby’s the London bobbies. They think those were named after a police constable or Yes, named Robert. Correct, but I don’t know. I don’t know.
Marcia Smith 8:31
Well, it begins. Yes. And it’s named after a haircut. Really the Bob a hairstyle popularized during the roaring 20s by the flappers. Remember all those wonderful pictures? Oh, yes. They have those darling little little hair cuts and straight bangs and all that yeah, that’s the Bob and the pins they used to hold their hair in place well called the bobby pins
Bob Smith 8:56
they must have called it a Bobby to it sometimes to have just a bob right those hear that girl send their puppies?
Marcia Smith 9:01
I don’t know. I never heard it. Well, when they called the Bob pin then. I don’t think this is my question. Okay, what do you got? Well, that
Bob Smith 9:12
was a dynamite question mash and I’ve got a question about a dynamite tree.
Marcia Smith 9:16
I could see you’re going for transition. Did
Bob Smith 9:18
you ever hear of a dynamite tree? No, I never did. What it is is the sandbox or possum wood tree. All right. Have you ever heard of those? Yeah. Okay, well, that’s the tree that basically it gets its name thanks to a little pumpkin shaped fruit. Dynamite. Why would we call it dynamite? Why would we? Well, because that fruit explodes. Unlike most flowers and trees that let flying creatures pollinate them or they just simply drop their fruit to the ground. The Sandbox trees pumpkin shaped fruits explode like grenades. And they send seeds flying at almost bullet like speeds. They will now imagine this. They launched seeds as far as 300 feet at speeds of 100 50 miles an hour.
Marcia Smith 10:01
That’s, that’s hard to believe.
Bob Smith 10:04
That’s why they got their name as the dynamite tree. It’s found in tropical North and South America, and it’s pretty nasty. Forever. Fishermen have known about that they’ve used it sap to poison fish they don’t like, and the Caribbean Indians or Carib Indians, Caribbean, they poisoned the tips of their arrows with its sap. So this dynamite tree is really dynamite if you kill people Wow. or endanger somebody by spitting out, you know, shooting out seeds like crazy, huh? Okay. Okay.
Marcia Smith 10:35
Where do you think the term paying through the nose comes from?
Bob Smith 10:40
Hmm, well, that’s good question. paying through the nose that does have something to do with a nose ring or something like that. No,
Marcia Smith 10:48
it’s you’ll find this fascinating. I will and disgusting dynamite.
Bob Smith 10:53
Okay. According
Marcia Smith 10:55
to The Big Book of answers. In Northern Ireland during the ninth century, the British introduced a harsh poll tax of one ounce of gold per year on all Irish households. So everybody had Forca ounce of gold every year. It was nicknamed the nose tax. Because if a person didn’t pay they had their nose slit open, kindly tax official. Oh, dear, this cruel but very effective procedure. Oh, yeah. gave rise to the expression paying through the nose. Meaning if unreasonable payments aren’t made, there will be dire consequences. Horrible. Yes, it is.
Bob Smith 11:36
For the British and the Irish. They really know how to hurt people. Oh, my goodness. Indeed they do. All right. I think it’s time for a break. All righty. You’ve been listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We’ll return in just a moment. Okay, we’re back with the off ramp. I’m Bob. I’m Marcia. And we’re the Smiths. And I’ve got a little bit of information on some things that are changing as a result of our past year of COVID. And everything. You know, what one of the most innovative new startups in the real estate industry? What do you think it is?
Marcia Smith 12:09
As a start up within the real estate industry
Bob Smith 12:12
are numerous startups within the real estate industry? Okay.
Marcia Smith 12:16
I don’t know. No. Well, they take video of everything. But they’ve been doing that for years.
Bob Smith 12:20
Now. These are startups for a specific type of real estate. Oh, no, I don’t know. Okay. Now, we all know that there are big buildings, large buildings in the cities that have been vacated by many of their employees. But there’s also a lot of suburban retail stores that have gone out of business retail chains. Yeah. So now there are new startups that they know that people like working from home that they think people may want to get out of the house. Maybe go to an office nearby. So real estate companies are transforming some suburban residences and retail space into offices, or you could rent it by the day or the hour or whatever. Almost like the kind of stuff you have in cities now. But having it in suburbs, you know, there were a lot of branch banks and places like that closing well random into offices. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 13:09
well, that makes sense. All right, let me do a couple quick ones. Okay. What is the world’s deepest lake Bob?
Bob Smith 13:17
The world’s deepest I always think of Crater Lake. I
Marcia Smith 13:19
think that’s the deepest in America. It is in America. Yeah. But in the world. Okay. The world’s deepest lake is in Russia. Lake Baik in Siberia. Wow. It’s 5315 feet deep. That’s more than twice as deep as crater lake over this. It’s also the world’s largest freshwater lake and 25 million years old.
Unknown Speaker 13:45
Holy cow.
Marcia Smith 13:46
So it’s the oldest lake in the world 25 million. And that’s according to the best of life science.
Bob Smith 13:52
Okay, yes. I think you’re right I think crater lakes only maybe a couple 1000 feet deep or something. Right. And that’s, that’s in a volcano crater. So what that is Crater Lake, it’s an extinct volcano. Correct. Okay, another nature question. Since you’re on nature. Did you know that in nature there actually is a burning bush? Now that’s in the Bible.
Marcia Smith 14:11
We have one on the front lawn Bob. That’s what it’s called. Well,
Bob Smith 14:15
is it a Dictamnus albus? That’s my question, a European perennial,
Marcia Smith 14:19
I believe so he turns bright red. It turns bright red every fall and it’s called a burning bush. It’s also considered kind of overtake her of landscapes, but I like it.
Bob Smith 14:31
Well, this bush the Dictamnus albus, which is a European perennial, emits and aroma vapor. That’s flammable. It’s actually flammable.
Marcia Smith 14:41
I must be a different burning bush
Bob Smith 14:42
and when ignited it actually envelops the leaves and petals of the plant in a flash of flame, but it doesn’t harm the plant. Really.
Marcia Smith 14:48
Yeah. Okay. Iris doesn’t do that.
Bob Smith 14:50
Well, we should get one. That would be quite the neighborhood sensation. Told us Ms. Bush is on fire again. Oh,
Marcia Smith 15:00
Okay, I’m just gonna ask a quick question, Bob. How big was the biggest snowflake ever measured? Hmm,
Bob Smith 15:07
the biggest snowflake ever measured? Wow. Because they’re really tiny. Yeah, I would say a half an inch across 15 inches. What?
Marcia Smith 15:15
Yeah, it came down in Missoula Montana in 1887.
Bob Smith 15:26
Geez. How do we know this is true? Is there a photograph of it? Of course. Is there a drawing of it?
Marcia Smith 15:35
Well, somebody 15 inches across. Just think about that. You got another question?
Bob Smith 15:41
Okay, Marcia, this is a automotive question. Okay, we’re going to cover all the bases. How did the Mack Truck get its Bulldog trademark. Oh, the Mack Truck.
Marcia Smith 15:52
Oh, well,
Bob Smith 15:54
it came during a war. Huh? I don’t know. It was from World War One Doughboy soldiers. The Mack brothers started out making electric cars and buses. But by 1905 they were turning out custom build trucks and the trucks blunt snub nosed hood made it look like something like a bulldog. At least that’s what American Doughboys thought in the First World War and they began calling Mack Trucks, Bulldogs. And the company picked up on that and registered the Bulldog as a corporate trademark in the phrase built like a Mack truck entered the language after that war to as a tribute to the heavy abuse those wartime vehicles took
Marcia Smith 16:32
Hmm, that was a good selection of a mascot or a logo rather. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. How many ways do you think there are to make change for $1? Bob?
Bob Smith 16:42
Oh, dear. Here we go. Again.
Marcia Smith 16:43
Mathematical Association of America. Oh, you’ve
Bob Smith 16:48
got a good source there. Okay, how many different ways to make change? Okay, I’d say 100. Because you got 100 pennies. You got to 25 cent pieces or 425? You got 5250 cent pieces, right?
Marcia Smith 17:01
I’ll give
Bob Smith 17:02
you 106 Yeah, 106.
Marcia Smith 17:06
Not even close to 192 ways. Actually 293 If you count exchanging $1 bill for a silver dollar. So there are that many mathematical facts. There are that many mathematical possibilities of making change. Now, that’s hard to think you’d have to show me how that works. Well, let’s sit down after supper and try all the 292 ways. Won’t that be fun?
Bob Smith 17:32
You got me out of my story on real estate. I wanted to tell you another thing. What you know, a lot of the malls in the big suburbs are empty right now or they have big anchor tenants empty. So now they’re starting to rent space for schools to charter schools because charter schools always have to look for their own space.
Marcia Smith 17:48
That’s an excellent idea. I just thinking as you said that anchor tenants now has a new meaning doesn’t. It’s like oh my god, you anchored our buildings just kind of brought us down. Yeah,
Bob Smith 17:58
the gym prep Pocatello charter school in Chubbuck, Idaho, are attending classes in a former Sears department store.
Marcia Smith 18:06
I’m a big fan of reuse. Yeah, that’s excellent. Good. Okay. What is the only United States State with a Spanish motto? Bob?
Bob Smith 18:17
Well, I would say it’s probably one of the border states like Texas or Arizona or New Mexico or California. But we know some of those aren’t because we know the mottos of some of those are in English. So I don’t know the
Marcia Smith 18:28
answer. Well, I thought the same thing but we were wrong. It’s Montana. Really?
Bob Smith 18:33
Yeah. A state that borders Canada has a Spanish motto. And
Marcia Smith 18:38
its oral, a black day, which is Spanish for gold and silver, which were in abundance in the state during the mid 1800s. Well, that’s true. Yeah, they have that. That’s their motto. And it’s it’s Spanish. I had no idea. Now. That’s the only one. I wouldn’t have expected that. Well, now you can expect it.
Bob Smith 18:56
Okay. All right. I think this will come as welcome news to some people. Even Zoom’s CEO says he has zoom fatigue from too many videos. Dear, one day last year, he said he had 19 Zoom meetings in a row, oh, Lord, and he says, I don’t do that anymore. Oh, Christ did not have two or three in a row. He just He says that’s just too hard for anybody to be watching screens and you know, it’s his business. So yeah, that’s kind of interesting.
Marcia Smith 19:24
Oh, it is.
Bob Smith 19:25
Okay, Marsha. I have a question. I was going to ask you this a couple weeks ago. Uh huh. It was slurred for centuries as a woman’s game. So what is it? What was slurred for centuries as a woman’s game? Why would it be slurred because people thought women couldn’t play the other game? It was too hard for them. So they went to the simplified version. Well,
Marcia Smith 19:47
that makes sense. Okay. Chess,
Bob Smith 19:50
that’s exactly right. Yeah, that wasn’t SES chess in this family. You do? Yes. So that shows that women know how to play chess and I like checkers better in the game. was checkers. Checkers was slurred. During the Middle Ages, it was called chess for ladies because was thought women couldn’t handle the intellectual challenge of chess.
Marcia Smith 20:08
Oh, they called checkers. Chess For lady. Yes, give me outbreak.
Bob Smith 20:12
In fact, the name for chess in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Arabic. All loosely can be translated game for the ladies. Oh, my God. Americans are the only nationality to refer to the game by the pattern laid out on the board checkers. Well,
Marcia Smith 20:29
go us Yes. All right. Without this hand digit, Bob, you would lose 50% of your hand strength, which digit is?
Bob Smith 20:40
I think it’s the thumb, the opposable thumb. Yeah, okay. No, no,
Marcia Smith 20:44
it’s the opposite. Your pinky? Yeah, not my index finger. Now, according to New York Times, that’s because it aids the ring finger by providing the power to grip or make a fist, so it gives you the power. But with the middle and index finger, and thumb, they are all best for pinching and grabbing. But the strength lies in the pinky, which aids the ring finger.
Bob Smith 21:10
So we’re talking about the smallest finger on your hand. If you didn’t have that, well, you would
Marcia Smith 21:14
lose 50% of your strength.
Bob Smith 21:16
That is amazing. It’s
Marcia Smith 21:18
hard to believe, isn’t it? Yeah. But New York Times says it’s true.
Bob Smith 21:23
I love things like that, where you think of something that you think of as small and weak, but see how powerful it is. You’d lose 50% of your strength of your hand. If you didn’t have that little finger there. That’s amazing. It’s amazing. Okay, Marcia, what ancient toy inspired modern navigational devices used on planes and ships. This is another situation where an inventor was looking at. Is it the gyroscope? That’s right. What’s the toy, though?
Marcia Smith 21:50
When I was they had a gyroscope toy,
Bob Smith 21:54
which was like what? Akin to similar to something spinning top. Oh, did I give you enough clues? Yes, that’s right. That’s right, a spinning top. While he was watching a spinning top belonging to his children, the inventor, Elmer Ambrose Sperry was asked by his kids, why the top stood up when it spun around. And that gave him the germ for an idea that led to all those stabilization devices, the the modern, the gyroscopes, the automatic pilots.
Marcia Smith 22:26
It certainly makes sense. Yeah. I wonder when tops came about? Well,
Bob Smith 22:31
they found those in ancient tombs. Yeah, they’ve been around for the pharaohs played with them. But he he and his son invented all the things that are still used today in planes and boats, like if you’re in a plane, and it’s foggy, or in your you’re in the clouds, you don’t know where the horizon is, well, they have all these stabilizers and most of these deal with gyroscopes and that they can actually create on the screen where the horizon is, and it’s prevented many people from tying Of course. Wow.
Marcia Smith 22:57
Okay, I have a My last question. It’s a multiple choice for you, Robert. How many earths could fit in the sun? A five, b 2500, or C 1.3? million?
Bob Smith 23:13
I believe it’s 1.3 million. And you believe correct. Now that just shows you do you think about that all these models when we’ve been kids, you know, here’s the earth and here’s Venus. And here’s the sun. Well, the sun would be the Empire State Building and your Earth is a marble. But that’s amazing. Check
Marcia Smith 23:28
this the sun holds up to 99.8% of our solar system’s mass. Wow. 99.8. The sun is 4.6 100 and 3 billion years old, and will reach its maximum size in 7.6 billion years. Which is bad news for us because it will burn 3000 times brighter.
Bob Smith 23:53
Well, I think it’s bad news for us because we won’t be around to see that’s good.
Marcia Smith 23:56
But think about the lotion you need to put on your body.
Bob Smith 24:01
Speaking of heat, okay, and light. I’ve got this my final question. You know, many of us still love those old fashioned incandescent light bulbs. Yes, no, this Thomas Edison invented them. It was good for 100 years. Why change? Right?
Marcia Smith 24:16
Why change? Okay,
Bob Smith 24:17
so what’s wrong with the incandescent light bulb and it relates to size and mass and all of that? Well,
Marcia Smith 24:22
you mean the ones that we use before the squigglies? Yes, yeah. Yeah, well, they were tremendously wasteful and they got hot as hell.
Bob Smith 24:30
Well, that’s it. They were more heat than light. I still liked the light of them. And fortunately, the new LEDs and all they’re starting to mimic AI No, but 96% of the energy released by a conventional incandescent light bulb 96% is heat. Only 4% of the energy is converted to light.
Marcia Smith 24:50
I had no idea now that they figured out how to soften that and not make it look like a scorching sun in your living.
Bob Smith 24:58
By contrast, an LED light has An energy efficiency of 80 to 90%. So 80 to 90% of the energy is converted to light Well, only 20% is lost as heat. Yeah, hardly anything.
Marcia Smith 25:10
Wow, very interesting. Okay, I’ll finish with a quote from Susan Bissonnette. Okay, and Optimus is the human personification of spring. That’s
Bob Smith 25:21
very nice, very thoughtful. We should have remind everybody that if you would like to submit a question to our show, you can by going to our website, the off ramp dot show and going to contact us and where you can leave the question the answer and who you want the answer to be given by Whom do you want to stop with that question of yours?
Marcia Smith 25:43
Okay, leave your name and where you’re from. Thank
Unknown Speaker 25:46
you. Okay.
Bob Smith 25:47
And that’s it.
Marcia Smith 25:47
See you next week.
Bob Smith 25:48
Okay, I’m Bob Smith. I’m
Marcia Smith 25:50
Marcia Smith. Join us again next
Bob Smith 25:51
time when we return with the off ramp.
The off rep is produced in association with CPL Radio Online, and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
