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Monday, October 21, 2024

Space heater

It's mid-October and sometimes chilly, but we're firmly decided on not turning the heater on until November. Just to see if we can (we totally can). 

Andrew (the cheater) moved a space heater into his office and when he turns that puppy on and closes his office door, things get pretty roasty-toasty inside. 

I was in the kitchen just now and he left his roasty-toasty office, leaving the door wide open. 

When I left the kitchen I had a moment of panic when I was hit by a waft of warm air, right in the face. 

"What in the world?!" I asked to no one in particular, sniffing the air. "Is the heater on? What is going on?"

Rachel and Miriam came to investigate with me (the little kids, the younger kids, the kids from Benjamin on down were taking care of Luna) and they agreed that the air was certainly much warmer at head level than ground level. 

This makes sense...because hot air rises. 

But where was the air coming from?!

It was Miriam who pointed out that Andrew's office heater was on and that air was spilling out of his office into the hallway. On his way back to his office he encountered us all bobbing up and down in the hallway, "Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold."

The difference was astounding. 

He did not believe us. 

"It's because you're warm all over!" I declared, putting my freezing cold hands on his neck. "We're all cold so we can feel the difference!"

Rachel actually made him stick his hands in the fridge for a minute so he could more easily feel the difference. It worked. 

"Hey! It is warmer up here," he said. "That's strange."

At this point he got out our little heat gun because he simply didn't believe it could be such a palpable difference of temperature. He pointed the laser up toward the ceiling 72.3°F and started lowering it down toward the ground where it was only 67.8°F. 

"That's like a 5 degree difference!" I said. 

"It is not!" Andrew said, pausing to do the calculations himself. "It's...okay. Fine. It's like a 5 degree difference"

Again, we knew that hot air rises, but we'd never quite felt the difference so obviously. 

Science, boy, I dunno...

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