Making revision 'fun' part 3: Static Electricity - Sparks = 'splosions

 So, this is another one of those revision posts I meant to do a lot more of. I don't think you missed much, but whatever. This one covers the stuff in GCSE Physics/Additional Science (I'm doing Physics, but the content should be the same (as of 2011-12)) about static electricity. As with my Geography post about the drought (and the rain, and why the drought is still a thing), there are a metric ton of caveats regarding my personal knowledge. That aside, let's get this thing started.

Static electricity, as the name would imply, is basically a build up of charge which is pretty still (I.e. isn't being conducted throughout the charged object), and we generally experience it through either making our hair stand on end for shits and giggles* or those annoying electric shocks. This build up of charge comes through a transfer of electrons. If the charged object gains electrons, it gains negative charge. If an object loses electrons, it gains positive charge. Polythene's an example of the former, acetate the latter. Fairly simple, right? Well, yeah, it is. That is, assuming the standard of 'lies (well, simplifications) to teenagers' which typically comes into play in these situations doesn't actually apply here. I'll know for certain in a year or 2 when I'm done with my A-levels.

Generally speaking, the transfer of electrons comes from friction - for instance when walking across a carpet or taking a jumper off or rubbing a balloon against a curtain/person's hair.

Of course, the hair standing up on end thing is caused by like charges repelling and unlike charges attracting, which is due to some stuff which I'm going to have to explain using personification. To wit, the positively charged object wants more electrons, whilst the negatively charged object wants to lose electrons. Also, electrons don't like each other for some reason (since they're all negatively charged, so repel each other).

The attraction created by static electricity has uses other than shenanigans (for a given value of 'shenanigans', of course. The attraction has uses in stuff like printers, photocopiers, those smoke scrubber chimney things and spray-painting cars. I'll use those last 2 as an example, since I know them off the top of my head and they strike me as most likely to come up in the exam.

The SSCTs consist of two either earthed (connected to ground) or positively charged collection plates up the side of the chimney, with a negatively charged grid in the middle of said chimney. Smoke particles in the, er, smoke float up through the grid, gain negative charge, and then get attracted to/stuck to the collection plates, for later scrubbing off. This means less smoke particles get into the air proper, which is cool, I guess.

The car thing is even simpler -  the body of the car is given negative charge, whilst the friction of paint droplets being forced through the narrow funnel of the paint sprayer gives them positive charge. This makes them stick onto the body of the car at least for long enough for them to be made to stick permanently.

Right, now to get to the explosion stuff. I mentioned earlier about those annoying little electric shocks, well, that's a spark. There are quite a few environments where sparks are a bit of an issue, probably the most obvious one being petrol stations - where there's loads of highly flammable gas floating around. More obscurely, surgeons apparently have to be earthed with a wire lest (the also highly flammable) anaesthetic gases catch light due to a spark. Sparks, in situations like these, equal explosions (or "'splosions" if I'm in the mood for forced alliteration). Obviously, a hospital is probably the very last place anyone wants an explosion, so preventing the static build up using the aforementioned earthing techniques is kind of important.

Not all of the undesirable effects of static are as explosiony though - if you're fixing a computer (which I've never done) you also need to prevent static since it can damage the delicate internal circuitry of them (or something like that).

Okay, that concludes this (probably incoherent) amble about a random topic that one of my GCSEs covers. Come back if/when there's a next time and see what dumb idea I decide to do then!

*sorry for the crudeness - I really couldn't come up with a funnier way of phrasing this.

MRF Part 2: English Essay: "How is Jack presented in Lord of the Flies?

Just figured I'll use this as an excuse to share an essay I did for homework a while back in the hope someone will find it useful. I don't really like the book, and I reckon I get a bit nonsensical in places, but whatever. It got pretty much full marks, so I must have done something right. You'll note I use the term 'anarchy' at the end. Whilst I'll bet my English teacher thought I was using it to meant "chaos" (despite the redundancy), I actually did mean it as in an ideal non-hierarchal society. It's an Eng Lit essay, and Golding hardly strikes me as having anarchist sympathies. And it's an Eng Lit essay ('Death of the author" means I can read Ayn bloody Rand as a socialist if I look hard enough - mild BS like that is barely an issue).

Anyway, how is Jack presented in Lord of the Flies?

Jack is probably the main antagonist (besides human nature) in William Golding’s 1957 novel Lord of the Flies, whose plot centers around a group of boys stranded on an island, and their descent into savagery. 

Right from his presentation he is presented as something of an antithesis to the book’s main protagonist, Ralph. He insists on being known by his last name in (going off his “kids’ names” remark) what is clearly meant to present him as having a superiority complex, although he soon relents. He is also presented as being markedly different in physique to Ralph, their faces in particular: Ralph had “a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil”, yet Jack’s face “was ugly, without silliness” (immediately presenting him in a negative light), and his “light blue eyes” were “turning, or ready to turn, to anger”. At this stage, it is also worth noting that the choir is “wearily obedient” and he seems to wield total control over them. He, as “the most obvious leader”, also attempts to seize control undemocratically (“I ought to be leader”), presenting him as a possible dictator at even this early stage. He also shows a strong dislike of Piggy (who is intended to be a symbol of civilization, and is essentially golding’s mouthpiece character). Despite this, the violence (not to be confused with his cruelty towards the weak shown in his actions towards Piggy) that marks him out particularly is only exhibited after his earlier inability to face “the unbearable blood” and the enormity of killing, and when exploring with Ralph and Simon he seems to act like a protagonist in books like The Coral Island (from which he takes his name, the book is also referred to by name on a few occasions - Lord of the Flies was in part a response to it) - “This is proper exploring”.

By chapter 3, Jack is already shown to be succumbing to the allure of savagery, with a “compulsion to track down and kill” “swallowing him up”, and him being reduced to “running, dog-like, on all fours” by this. Golding presents this as “madness”, outright stating it to be such in the narrative (which appears to be not from any character’s perspective). This aspect is furthered by him becoming “the mask” in Chapter 4, which ‘liberates’ him “from shame and self consciousness”, fully confirming his conversion towards a focus on the “brilliant world of hunting exhilaration and tactics” as opposed to “the world of longing and baffled commonsense”. This presentation is furthered by him letting “the bloody fire out” through his desire, showing how his savagery is getting the better of civilization due to the lack of a true authority beyond the symbol of the conch. His violent, dictatorial, side is shown once more in his use of the chant (“Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!”) and him whacking Piggy, breaking one lense in his glasses. A degree of cruelty, but cunning, is shown in his ‘apology’ (a “verbal trick”), and the very fact it’s directed at Ralph shows that he’s already starting to see his leadership as invalid.

This strain is later shown in him disparaging the conch in chapter 6, instead suggesting that the bigguns form a sort of cabal to decide things “We don’t need the conch any more... it’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us”, and earlier showing that he doesn’t care about the littluns at all (“Sucks to the littluns”), also showing a lack of compassion. Yet, at the same time, his own childishness shows up but a few pages later, his immediate response to Castle Rock being “What a place for a fort”, although the nature of this observation is also an early sign of the warmongering tendencies which would become so major later on.

Jack’s desire to gain control, and hypocritical tendencies in his attempts to do this, come to a head in Chapter 8 in which he tries to take control of the group (“Hands up... whoever wants Ralph not to be chief”) after disparaging Ralph for being “ a coward” in the face of the Beast (which, at this moment, he is presented as believing in, and responded to in the same way), only to fail humiliatingly, his childishness showing once again in his declaration that he isn’t “going to play any longer” and him outright crying in humiliation. This leads to the split and the clear presentation of the difference between his and Ralph’s leadership styles, the savagery of his becoming evident in the spearing of the sow, and desecration of Simon’s eden in order to put the eponymous Lord of the Flies (the pig’s head) in place. 

By chapter 9, he has become “decorated and garlanded like an idol”, similar to the cult of personality that many dictators around the time Golding wrote the book had had (and still do have). He also seems to be the catalyst for the descent of all those present at the feast into savagery through forcing them to do the “dance”, leading directly to Simon’s death (although he later maintains (probably knowingly falsely (albeit possibly hidden to himself through some form of doublethink)) that the Simon they killed was in fact a guise of the beast). 

Come Chapter 10, he is the Chief, and is hinted to be something of a fascist bully, having one kid beat up for nothing. His desire for control extends to stealing the fire (rather than asking, in part to show that “we’re strong, we hunt”), and ultimately forcing everyone but Ralph and Piggy (who he doesn’t like (since he’s the bad guy and they’re Golding’s mouthpieces mostly, although Piggy’s outsiderness is something else as well) and the littluns (who he simply doesn’t count) to join his tribe, using implied torture. His “full intent” to kill Ralph is presented, he is a “terror” (“but Roger” is implied to be worse), and his tribe are presented as nothing but “painted savages”, in contrast to the nice britishness of Ralph and Piggy (“Is it better...”).

In conclusion, Jack is presented wholly as Ralph's antithesis and is a representative of savagery, dictatorship and anarchy (these are all contradictory ideas, but he still somehow manages to be all 3). However, this said, perhaps the last time he is referred to is meant to be what he really is being presented as, nothing more than “a little boy” (mainly because it appears Golding thinks little boys are, in fact, naturally “terrors” and would regress to being such if left alone for too long). 

Making Revision 'Fun' Part 1: Geography and the Drought

Okay, I've been debating whether or not to use my blog as a place to post stuff related to my GCSEs (provided I find it remotely interesting), and this Guardian article tipped me over the edge into "sure why not". Note that, since this is a revision post, the bolding is mostly for my benefit, and (aside from highlighting the note at the end) is just the keywords.

As you might have guessed by the URL at the very least, it's about how the recent bout of heavy rain and why, although it is capable of causing flash floods in some areas of the country, it isn't magically going to undo the drought we've been in for nearly 2 years now. I've decided to dedicate this post, then, to writing about the stuff I need to know about rain for my Geography course. Any misleadingness in this is all my fault though (this doesn't need saying, but I'm a GCSE student, not a meteorologist.).

First of all, theres 3 main 'types' of rain formation: convectional, relief and frontal (or, to use their Wikipedia Names, convection, orographic and stratiform).

Relief/orographic rainfall generally occurs on the side of mountains opposite to the prevailing wind (making a lot of the drought/ hit areas in the 'rain shadow' (where there's less rainfall)) and is relatively constant compared with the other types. Obviously, this is probable where there's mountains.

Convectional is the stuff which causes thunderstorms: when there's enough of a difference in temperature witha moist/unstable atmosphere for a whole ton of water to evaporate (well, several tons of water, in all likelyhood), form clouds, and fall to the ground as rain hard and fast (all that energy has to go somewhere, and warmer air can 'hold' more water). The Wikipedia's description is more accurate that the GCSE stuff obviously - for it we're mainly shown the model of it happening in tropical rainforests, but judging by the presence of hail in some of the rain we've had over here, it looks like we're getting a bit of convectional rainfall at least (won't go as far as to say how much or anything like that; not a meteorologist (I can't even spell "meteorologist" without the help of a spell checker)).

Finally, frontal/stratiform rainfall is the stuff we associate with the black lines that occassionally appear on the weather map - weather fronts - you can probably see an example here. There's an entire page on the Wikipedia dedicated to them, if you're interested. The lines with the blue triangles on are the cold fronts, the red semicircles the warm fronts and where there's a mix of both occluded fronts, or possibly stationary fronts according to the Wikipedia (a purple mix being an occluded front, although I'm fairly certain the BBC uses the first notation I mentioned).  Behind the cold front it's colder, behind the warm front it's warmer ("warm sector"), and the occluded front depends on whether it's caused by the warm overtaking the cold, or vice versa. The fronts themselves cause rain as the difference in temperature means the less dense (but possibly a bit damp) warmer air rises, the water vapour contained within condenses into clouds, and then there's rain. I'll be willing to bet there's a bit of frontal rainfall in the mix.

Types of rain and wanton weather speculation aside, the main issue is that the ground water stocks are being depleted and river levels will remain low once the run-off runs out. This is in part caused by urbanisation, but it's aggravated by the fact that the ground was dry from the drought (making it less absorbent). The reason that we can be in drought and have flood warnings is that there's a ton of run-off which results from this (plus the fact that the rain was pretty heavy and antecedent; it was falling where the ground was saturated, so it could only run-off into the rivers).

These issues are in part due to stuff in the water cycle. The idea is, water hits the ground (some being intercepted by trees), some runs off, but some infiltrates the soil. Eventually, the soil becomes saturated, and (if the rock below it is permeable (let's say limestone for now)) some of the water percolates through the rock, replenishing the groundwater flow and raising the water table (which is low ATM due to the lack of rain). At the same time, some may run through the soil (a process which I swear is slightly different to groundwater flow, but which I can't find the name for).

In addition to this, plants do 'suck up' (for want of a less inaccurate word) water and release it out/transpirate it (for evaporation) which also obviously reduces the amount of water in the soil but reduces surface run off (trees also help to stop the soil washing away and 'intercept' the water, making it reach the ground less quickly).

This does mean that, aside from the obvious issue of climate change, human action has had another (but obviously not total) hand in this present situation: urban areas (which pretty much have to be in a river's catchment area, and there's now also the issue of building in the flood plain) are paved, and necessitate the cutting down of trees. Deforestation obviously stops trees from doing the tree things (/Buffy speak) mentioned before, but the paving of areas in a drainage basin presents a two-fold problem aside from this: water can't intercept waterproof concrete, so it runs off into rivers at a faster rate, which helps to cause flooding (in combination with unusual amounts of rainfall within the drainage basin). In addition to this, it's impossible for water to percolate down and replenish the groundwater stocks. I'm guessing the main reason why this is only becoming a mega problem now is that groundwater flow is slow, it can take weeks, months, years (millenia in some cases) for it to reach the river, so whilst this means a steadier supply of water, the effects might only have become an issue more recently than the start of the drought.

Note on the definition of "drought": There are about a number of different definitions used to define drought in the UK, even just sticking with meteorological droughts. The first, within the shortest term and the one I was taught, is at least 15 consecutive days with less than 0.2mm of rain (in total), whereas longer term definitions are 3 months with a "50% deficit" in rainfall or 2 years with a 15% shortfall.[1] This drought is in one of the latter categories, probably (due to the reference in the Graun article to the rainfall over next winter determining if we stay in drought) the last one.

There's also hydrological drought and agricultural drought.

[1] Phillip Eden: Water Shortage Coming?-Weather UK (2007, link retrieved April 2012).