It's In the Air

The goal of this blog is to bring some fresh air your Friday night dinner table a little higher. Please print and share.

Here's something cool to stump everyone at your dinner table.

If it doesn't impress them, they're surely asleep.

Question: What are the two primary gasses in the air we breathe, and at what ratios.

Answer: Nitrogen (78%) and Oxygen (21%)

Only 21 percent oxygen? That's counter-intuitive.

Does all that nitrogen do anything, or is it there just as a sort of accident of nature

It turns out that it does something very, very important.

Or actually two things that are very, very important.

First, when you inhale, all that air fills your lungs. Specifically, fills little sacks inside your lungs called alveoli. (Here's a detailed illustration.)These mini sacks achieve the truly remarkable feat of absorbing about 1.5 gallons (6 liters) of oxygen per minute, which is 378 gallons per hour, which is over 9,000 gallons per day (and I suppose exchanging the oxygen for equal amounts of CO2).

Now, take a deep breath and hold it for a moment:

Wwhile all that air is in your lungs and the oxygen is going into your blood, you have all this extra gas (nitrogen) just sitting there.

But it ain't just sitting there - it's keep your alveoli inflated!

A long time ago, doctors and nurses learned that if you give a patient pure (100%) oxygen, it will lead to a collapse of the alveoli.

That would be bad.

Even a slight increase in the amount of oxygen - let's say up to 50 percent - is risky and has to be managed carefully.

Also, too much oxygen itself may speed up aging.

But that's not the only amazing thing about the nitrogen in the air.

Let's say that the air had less nitrogen and more oxygen and our bodies somehow were able to adjust in order to handle it.

We'd still have a really big problem.

How do you put out a fire quickly? Get rid of its oxygen. Snuff it out.

Oxygen, you may recall, is the key ingredient to combustion.

If the atmosphere contained more oxygen, things like wood, dry leaves and so on would catch fire a lot quicker. One little spark and ... watch out!

(It is also possible that insects would grow much larger. And it may have happened before.)

So we could probably survive, but Spaceship Earth would be a treacherous place to live.

That's something amazing I learned this week. How about you?

Shabbat Shalom


PS - Clock's still ticking... do you know how many days til Hannuka?

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Scientific Mystery

This week's email is dedicated to our friend Steve Goldstein, who had his second brain operation yesterday to remove a malignant tumor. Wishing you a speedy and complete recovery! (to dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email)

Just back from Israel.

On the flight back from Tel Aviv to New York, I witnessed something that I would guess very few people ever see.

I will give you the facts that I know, and see if any of our astute subscribers can solve this one.

The plane left at around midnight and arrived around 4:20 am (both local times).

At some point during the flight, I woke from my slumber to see a beautiful sunrise in the making. The horizon (I was on the right side of the plane) was filled with a thin but gorgeous band of colors.

An hour later, the sky was completely black again, and when we landed in New York one could see a hint of the earliest dawn light, but it was still dark out.

Question: What 3 unusual factors coincided in order to make this phenomenon possible?

This trip enabled me to reconnect to my friend Raffi, currently working on a Master's in physics at the Hebrew University after completing 15 years in yeshiva.

I complimented Raffi for pursuing the Rambam's (i.e., Maimonides) vision for science. Learning about nature, says Rambam, is REQUIRED for the path of transcendence.

Raffi retorted, "Many people say that, but that's a misreading of the Rambam." He says it's the CONTEMPLATION of nature, not merely learning it. If you spend all your time crunching the numbers and never step back to appreciate it, you're missing the point."

(Note, Raffi is preparing for an examine in lasers.)

Question #2 for your Table: Assuming Raffi is right, is the scientist better able or less able than the non-scientist to contemplate the amazing natural world?

Shabbat Shalom

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.
- Albert Einstein

PPS - Don't forget to print and share!