![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Physics department gets to put on the best exhibitions. My department can't match; we can produce lovely animations, but they have liquid nitrogen. A cute picture can't compare to dousing a ceramic chip in liquified air and sending it hovering over a magnetic track. And then they flip the track over and send the chip hovering just under the magnets, well, there's no contest.
Precisely every bit as fascinatingly interesting as the high-temperature superconductor demonstration, and the making of a cardboard rim hover by spinning a flat disc fast enough near it, was the exhibit on density. They set up an aquarium, largely filled it, and gently dropped 330 mL cans of soda in to see which floated and which sank, and asked spectators why that might be. The floating cans were of Coke Light, Pepsi, Pepsi Twist, and Pepsi Ice. Sinking were Pepsi Fire (that seems symmetric), Pepsi X, and, well, Vanilla Coke. The Physics guy giving the demonstration pointed out, several times, that these were all things you could buy in the canteen, making a point that escapes me.
At the grocery store the Muzak system seemed to be playing Ferrante and Teicher's cover of The Beatles' Let It Be. That's about as soothing as you can get when you're buying Honey Stars, Milo, and Koko Krunch cereal.
Trivia: A 1686 French medal features the six known moons of Saturn. Source: Life Science Library: Planets, Carl Sagan, Jonathan Norton Leonard. Boy was 1966 a bad time to commit planetary science to print. It even lists Barnard's Star as having a companion, about one and a half times Jupiter's size.
Currently Reading: The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930, Scott Eyman.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-09 11:47 am (UTC)Pray, tell, what are Pepsi Fire, Pepsi Ice, Pepsi X, and Pepsi Bugle? Wait, you didn't mention Pepsi Bugle. What're the rest of them?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-09 01:08 pm (UTC)They're not US-brand variants on Pepsi? I'd been assuming any of the Coke/Pepsi variants that made it out here would have been in the US before; there was a noticeable lag time between the Lemon and the Vanilla waves and their appearance here, and Lime Coke still hasn't made it over.
Anyway, Pepsi Ice is kind of a Pepsi with a mint addition, I suppose to make it feel cooler. That doesn't work so well, although 7-Up Ice is fantastic, and Sprite Ice has something to recommend it. Pepsi Fire I've had less; it's got what seems to me a pepper addition, making it a bit more fiery and generally less pleasant. Pepsi X I've never tried, because it appears to be the Extreme drink, and I'm approximately as Extreme as a branch library. I think that it's over-caffeinated, and it's probably got something else in it to make it less enjoyable. I'll try to remember to give it a taste and report back.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-09 02:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-09 03:41 pm (UTC)Mm ... It might be cinnamon at that, yes. I didn't really pay much attention to it, and only formed a passing ... dislike is too strong a word; basically I figured there were other things I could have that I liked better. I'll pick up a couple cans, though, and pay attention to the ingredients and taste, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-09 04:23 pm (UTC)I've become rather a conneseur of the Red-Bull like Extreme soda whatnot, though principally on the diet variety; Likely that extra something is Guarana, which seems to lip into everything along wih Taurine and Caffiene. Monster Lo-Carb has yeilded the best results of those sort of drinks.
Oh, and Jolt's trying to remarket themselves into that category, with their new battery-shaped cans and 'Jolt Ultra'. Check joltcola.com for some overexplanation of the new bottles.
--Chiaroscuro
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-09 04:38 pm (UTC)Oh! That's Diet Coke, which for whatever reason gets the Coke Light name in Europe and Asia. (I haven't seen other continents.) It's roughly the same taste, although there is something different in it. I'm not the best taste-tester out there.
I think there's Jolt Cola around here, although I've got no interest in those sorts of drinks. There are also some odd Japanese beverages, such as Pocari Sweat (an isotonic drink).
There's been an increase in the number of oddly-shaped drink bottles around here, although to be honest they're always for things like spring water or iced coffees or whatever that I don't drink, so I don't pay much attention to them.
who knew?
Date: 2005-03-09 07:07 pm (UTC)ah yes.. Physix iz da best! w00t!
Someone who remembers Terrante and Feicher!! *chuckle*
HowEVAR do you evar read all them books? 8>
Re: who knew?
Date: 2005-03-10 02:13 am (UTC)Oh,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rcoony's quite the fan; he gave me my first Ferrante and Teicher LP's. They've actually got a CD out, showing that eventually everything will get a re-release.
I get to read so much just because I have a big lunch (and dinner) hour to use, and I ride the bus or MRT rather than driving, so I have the time, happily.
Re: who knew?
Date: 2005-03-10 08:45 am (UTC)Re: who knew?
Date: 2005-03-10 11:30 am (UTC)Anytime, pretty birdie.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-10 12:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-10 02:15 am (UTC)Yeah, that seems like the most sensible explanation of it all, although we do then have the mystery of why Regular Pepsi -- and the Ice and Twist which are regular Pepsi plus other stuff -- floated while Vanilla Coke, presumably Coke Plus Stuff, sank. Another complication is they don't use quite the same formulas here as they do in the US; particularly, the regular Coke at least has real sugar in it.