
15 + 20 points
The Failure by JJason Recognition, teucer
November 14th, 2007 8:29 PM
We attempted Lux Aeterna together. It didn't work.
-Agent Harmon
Our attempt at adding a supplying a strange and wonderful light supply began around 9 o'clock in the night. Some sort of chemistry thing - I don't understand it personally but Agent Harmon assured me that it would be both strange and wonderful, so I decided to trust him. Leaving Agent Harmon's abode, we moved into the cold, windy night to acquire the necessary materials. First a trip to the local convenience store for the purchase of a lighter, then back to Agent Harmon's abode for three bottles, then out to find a sufficiently public place.
The Plan, according to my understand of it: transfer some amount of ethanol from the lighter to the bottle, set it on fire, admire the strange and wonderful blue moving lights caused, not to mention the ethereal whistling noises.
Our first attempt took place near a local piece of public art. Unfortunately, as mentioned, the night we picked for our attempt was quite windy. Very very windy to be exact and we were unable to keep the bottles from being blown over long enough to add the ethanol. We tried another location, where we were shielded enough from the wind to prevent the bottle from being blown over but even there we were unable to get the lighter to light the bottle. Our best attempts can be seen in the film below, with Agent Harmon wielding the fire and myself wielding the camera. If you look closely you can also just make out the bottle. Cold and disappointed, we returned to the warmth and shelter of indoors. It was simply too windy for fire.
What next? Possible next steps are: waiting for a day when it's not windy, perhaps come summer, find another source of light to install, or to give up. All three options are currently under consideration.
-Agent JJason
The lighter runs on butane, a flammable gas which is heavier than air, but not by much. This is part of the difficulty, of course, as if you don't get the bottle lit quickly enough it will all blow away in the wind.
This experiment works excellently indoors, by the way; the bottle takes about thirty seconds to fill from a standard Bic lighter, and then the flame is touched to the top and a bluish-green plane of flame appears at the top of the bottle and quickly moves down to the bottom of the bottle. As it does so a pronounced whistling noise can be heard. The result, as any of you who now proceed to try this at somebody else's home will surely agree, is both wonderful and strange.
Of course we never got to the step of touching the butane with the flame, as we weren't even able to get the lighter to sustain a fire.
But yes, success is still a possibility. Probably, however, it will take a very different form, and represent an almost unrelated attempt at the task. This mission was undoubtedly a failure.
-Agent Harmon
-Agent Harmon
Our attempt at adding a supplying a strange and wonderful light supply began around 9 o'clock in the night. Some sort of chemistry thing - I don't understand it personally but Agent Harmon assured me that it would be both strange and wonderful, so I decided to trust him. Leaving Agent Harmon's abode, we moved into the cold, windy night to acquire the necessary materials. First a trip to the local convenience store for the purchase of a lighter, then back to Agent Harmon's abode for three bottles, then out to find a sufficiently public place.
The Plan, according to my understand of it: transfer some amount of ethanol from the lighter to the bottle, set it on fire, admire the strange and wonderful blue moving lights caused, not to mention the ethereal whistling noises.
Our first attempt took place near a local piece of public art. Unfortunately, as mentioned, the night we picked for our attempt was quite windy. Very very windy to be exact and we were unable to keep the bottles from being blown over long enough to add the ethanol. We tried another location, where we were shielded enough from the wind to prevent the bottle from being blown over but even there we were unable to get the lighter to light the bottle. Our best attempts can be seen in the film below, with Agent Harmon wielding the fire and myself wielding the camera. If you look closely you can also just make out the bottle. Cold and disappointed, we returned to the warmth and shelter of indoors. It was simply too windy for fire.
What next? Possible next steps are: waiting for a day when it's not windy, perhaps come summer, find another source of light to install, or to give up. All three options are currently under consideration.
-Agent JJason
The lighter runs on butane, a flammable gas which is heavier than air, but not by much. This is part of the difficulty, of course, as if you don't get the bottle lit quickly enough it will all blow away in the wind.
This experiment works excellently indoors, by the way; the bottle takes about thirty seconds to fill from a standard Bic lighter, and then the flame is touched to the top and a bluish-green plane of flame appears at the top of the bottle and quickly moves down to the bottom of the bottle. As it does so a pronounced whistling noise can be heard. The result, as any of you who now proceed to try this at somebody else's home will surely agree, is both wonderful and strange.
Of course we never got to the step of touching the butane with the flame, as we weren't even able to get the lighter to sustain a fire.
But yes, success is still a possibility. Probably, however, it will take a very different form, and represent an almost unrelated attempt at the task. This mission was undoubtedly a failure.
-Agent Harmon
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posted by The Revolutionary on November 15th, 2007 10:02 AM
This is premature.
Success is still a possibility!
posted by Loki on November 16th, 2007 11:43 PM
Much more engaging with the additional text.
(Hmmm. I'm sure I've got a lighter around here somewhere. . . )
posted by teucer on November 17th, 2007 1:49 AM
Yeah, the text was originally brief because JJason wanted to verify that he as a collaborator could add the description to a praxis I posted. The answer is, of course, yes.
Tell us more!
What were you trying to do, and why didn't it work?