NightsWatch
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Anyone in Boston's North End will tell you that on a hot summer day you can still catch a whiff of molasses.
The entire neighborhood was overrun with the stuff on one January day in 1919. A large tank of molasses burst open, sending waves of the sweet, sticky brown liquid crashing through the streets. Buildings collapsed and 21 people were killed.
And it was waste deep, According to historical accounts, the molasses moved at a speed of 35 miles per hour, which is about 15.5 metres per second, which is really quite fast. Initially, I actually thought, "How in the world could it really have moved that fast?" and sort of surprised myself when I started doing the calculations. I realized that because the molasses is one and a half times denser than water and there was so much of it in this tank, in fact, fluid dynamics and the physics equations predict that it would move at speeds that are about 15 to 17 metres per second. It's totally in line with what the historical record says.
The entire neighborhood was overrun with the stuff on one January day in 1919. A large tank of molasses burst open, sending waves of the sweet, sticky brown liquid crashing through the streets. Buildings collapsed and 21 people were killed.
And it was waste deep, According to historical accounts, the molasses moved at a speed of 35 miles per hour, which is about 15.5 metres per second, which is really quite fast. Initially, I actually thought, "How in the world could it really have moved that fast?" and sort of surprised myself when I started doing the calculations. I realized that because the molasses is one and a half times denser than water and there was so much of it in this tank, in fact, fluid dynamics and the physics equations predict that it would move at speeds that are about 15 to 17 metres per second. It's totally in line with what the historical record says.