The Pocket Rocket

That Is, If You Have 12' Pockets

None of that metric nonsense here.

     Here an aside.  We are going to be taking a bit of a scientific approach to the blog tonight, so if blowing things up - scientifically, mind - isn't your thing, do feel free to move on.

     I WAS LYING!  MOVE AND YOU'RE DEAD!

     Okay, back to what I was talking about, namely the X-43 hypersonic lifting body.  As the name illustrates, this was a sub-scale experimental vehicle aircraft which was designed to go VERY VERY VERY fast indeed.  Let us have an illustration.  Art?

X43 in white under the B52 wing

     The rear three-quarters of the aircraft above is actually the booster stage, an entirely separate piece of kit that's only there to get the X43 moving; the real experimental aircraft is that little black bit at the front.  I think we can get a better picture.  Art?  Less coal more goal!

Scale replica

  And, O, how it does acclerate.  I saw the launch on Youtube and was appalled at the acceleration involved.

     "The pilot's going to be rendered into a thin red slime!" was my immediate response.  Art?

Two hundred pounds of thin red slime coming up!

     It turns out the X43 is unmanned, which is sensible, as it's too small to fit anything but a child into it.  The damn thing can move at hypersonic speeds, which are speeds so great they sound silly.  Once it's scramjet got going, it went whizzing off at 7,500 miles per hour, which means it could get you from Manchester Airport to Australia in about 90 minutes.  Or, for me, from home to the office in 5 seconds, although stopping and parking would be a tad problematic.

     So there you go.  I admit 12' is a strain on anyone's pocket, yet it's still more a pocket item than, oh, say a B36.

The B36: not pocket friendly

     Time to coat the motley in goose fat and put it in the oven!

My Mind: An Unusual Landscape
As your humble scribe confesses occasionally,  he is not entirely sure how his mind works, only that it apparently does; quite what might be hiding in the basement thereof is a tad worrying and I think that's as far as we'll go in that direction.
     One of my foibles is to keep a notepad to hand at my bedside, so I can note down anything wildly creative that Steve (my subconscious) or Oscar (my memory) might come up with during the night, upon waking.
     Today it was - Victoria Glindinning.  Art?

The lady in question

     If you want to know about her, the potted version is that she's a frightfully clever lady of letters, who likes being married, is head of the Royal Society of Literature and who writes biographies.
     Looking at a list of her books, I've never read any.  She's not been in the news, is not realllly the kind of person who'd appear on a game show, is not married to a famous sportsperson and is not stalked by the paparazzi.
     So.  The question is - thank you, Steve - but why her?

Conrad's mind from the inside

The Horror Of Hafnium!

I know what you're thinking - "I say, Hafnium is quite pedestrian stuff, it's not remotely dangerous unless you're grinding it into little bits without a gasmask, so what can the old bafoon mean?"

     Well, one of the isotopes of Hafnium is Hf178, which is wonderfully described as "near-stable".  Due to it's makeup, it can conceivably be made to emit it's stored energy all in one go, if bombarded with gamma rays, and it has plenty of stored energy.  In essence, you'd be causing an explosion, which has been calculated as of the order of 3 magnitudes less than a nuclear explosion (booh!) yet 5 magnitudes greater than any chemical explosive of equivalent mass (Hooray!  That's more like it!).

Someone dropped a gram of Hf178 ...

     Of course the South Canadian military got interested, because - because - well, making a bigger bang is what they aspire to, especially since it's non-nuclear.  After all, a teaspoon of this stuff would go off like the equivalent of a ton of TNT.

But you can't stir your brew with it

     There is more to mischievous mayhem with Hafnium, but we're going to leave it there for today.

Did I Mention I'm Working From Home?
The idea, on my part at least, is that I'll start off working in the kitchen whilst I get a pot of tea and some buttered toast; that way there won't be any distractions, as there are all too many in my Sekrit Layr.
     Hmmm.  Just as no plan survives contact with the enemy, so too my plans.  Art?

CAUGHT!  CAUGHT IN THE ACT!

     This is Jenny, having knocked my pen to the floor - I don't know what the fascination with pens is, she doesn't have the mutually-opposed digits to use them - and then fighting with my notepad.  This is quite besides immediately moving in to occupy my chair the instant I got up.
     <sigh>  so much for "less distraction!