Water Bottles

It’s not much of a story, but hey, it is ready and forestalls having to write something new till tomorrow:


Ann became enamored with West Point back in the summer of 1999. She got invited to West Point for an official visit by the cross country coach that fall. While Ann was certainly old enough as a high school senior to go on the trip by herself, Jean and I decided that I should go along. Jean was teaching math at Georgia Perimeter at the time and couldn’t get away, so I was the designated parent. I was a barely out of the closet fan of all things military anyway, so I was the obvious choice.

When we got on the plane to fly up to West Point Ann and I somehow came into the possession of two empty water bottles. Whether they were ours and had been emptied by us, or left behind by previous passengers, is irrelevant to the story. What is relevant is that the water bottles were empty and had sealable screw-on caps.

Ann’s intelligence and my geekiness provided the critical mass for an animated discussion on how we might use these two bottles. After a lengthy discussion we decided upon a scientific experiment to determine the relative air pressure in Atlanta, the air pressure of the airplane’s pressurized cabin, and the air pressure of Newark, NJ, our eventual destination. It took us a few minutes to plan the experiment properly, but what we eventually agreed upon was simple and elegant.

We opened and then sealed both bottles before the airplane’s door was closed. This was to capture the air pressure in Atlanta. When we got fully in flight at our cruising altitude we decided we would observe both bottles to see if they were bloated, indicating a lower air pressure than Atlanta, or shrunken, indicating a higher pressure than Atlanta. If the air pressure was not visibly obvious via the shape of the bottles, we would open ONE of the bottles while in flight to observe air escaping, like opening a coke bottle, or air rushing in, and draw the obvious conclusions.

The one bottle needed to be opened in flight anyway to determine the air pressure of the pressurized airplane versus the air pressure of Newark. The other bottle that was sealed in Atlanta would remain sealed until we landed so we could use it to test the relative air pressure in Atlanta versus that of Newark.

Don’t get too tied up in the details. The point is that with two empty water bottles we had determined a way to measure the relative air pressures of

1. Atlanta versus the airplane’s pressurized cabin
2. The airplane’s pressurized cabin versus Newark, and
3. Atlanta versus Newark.

Given the close quarters of the airplane’s seating it was impossible for other passengers to NOT hear the high school kid and the dad discussing pressurized airplanes, relative air pressures, and the details of the experiment. I could tell the folks across the aisle were following the discussion with some interest. Given the lengthy description I’ve written here, which is as concise as I can make it, know well that our conversation on the plane was lengthy to arrive at what in retrospect seems simple and obvious. All of which is to say I would like to think we were entertaining to most of those around us, and annoying to only a few.

I regret to report that I do not exactly recall the result of opening the one bottle in flight. Neither of the two bottles was visibly bloated or shrunken during the flight. I suspect that the plane was kept slightly below normal air pressure and that air rushed into the bottle as we unscrewed the cap. The results of the experiment are really not relevant to the main point of the story, so moving on …

As the flight wore on for several hours Ann and I eventually stuffed the bottles in the seatbacks in front of us and discussed the plans for our weekend visit to West Point. Uncle Bill was living in Trenton, NJ and was picking us up at the Newark airport. Bill was driving us up to West Point Thursday evening and we would be staying in the Thayer Hotel on campus. Ann was spending a night in the barracks with the cadets, and a full day’s schedule of classes and meals. We had a lot to talk about and a lot of concerns. The details of the trip consumed us.

When the airplane came to a stop at the Newark gate we busily gathered our gear and stepped into the aisle to exit the plane. While Ann and I had completely forgotten about the experiment we had so thoroughly discussed and designed, our traveling companions on the plane had not. The folks seated around us brought us up short. “Hey! What about those water bottles? How does the air pressure here in Newark compare to Atlanta and the pressurized cabin?”

The airplane was quickly emptying out, so just a quickly we grabbed the two bottles, one labeled as being the one originally sealed in Atlanta, and the other labeled as opened in-flight and resealed in-flight. Each bottle was unsealed, observed, and the results announced to all around us. Regrettably, the results were not recorded and are forgotten now that it is 11 years later.

So what’s the point? One or more of the following:

1. Ann became incredibly tolerant of her strange father over time
2. How to entertain strangers with strange science experiments
3. How to win friends and influence people with science
4. I am just as embarrassing as my dad was
5. People just want to have fun
6. We are a family of geeks
7. I've become my father
8. Ann is a good sport
9. There is no point

I just thought it was funny that those strangers around us became so engrossed in what we were doing with the water bottles. I was also glad that they were apparently entertained rather than annoyed with us. Ann would say entertained by her and annoyed by me. Yeah, right.