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Melting a Thermometer [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-06-20  

A decade and change ago, I helped my daughter build a solar concentrator for a science project. We wanted to see if we could melt aluminum.

We cut a cheap back-of-the-door mirror down into 121 1"x1" squares and glued them onto a rigid styrofoam board. We focussed them all on a small platform by keeping one mirror uncovered and focused on the spot, and then focusing the next one with sticks glued behind it, and quickly covering it with a small post-it note. In the end, we had 11 rows of 11 mirrors each, all focused on a 1” square spot above a small platform.

With 121 mirrors, we did not quite reach the 1,221°F melting point of aluminum. We DID melt the oven thermometer we first set in the focus. By selectively uncovering mirrors in four at a time, we came up with a pretty straightforward temperature graph. The thermometer recorded up to 690°F. We estimate it melted around 820°F. We are pretty sure the final temperature we reached was between 960° and 1000°F.

She put a can of soda water in the focus and then uncovered all 121 mirrors. Within 30 seconds, it bulged and then exploded violently enough to destroy the whole apparatus leaving the top of the can wedged into a tree trunk 20' up in the air.

Yes, there is some fierce energy coming in from the Sun! Think of this before leaving anything in a car parked in the Sun. Think of this before putting any more CO2 into the atmosphere to trap in some more of that energy.

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