Geek Trivia: Davy Jones' shocker

by Jay Garmon | Jun 06, 2006 7:00:00 AM

Tags: Cable, Jay Garmon, Alvin, Geek Trivia Newsletter

Takeaway: What unlikely item was perfectly preserved when the Alvin DSV sank in 1968?

The most famous scientific submersible ever to share a name with an animated chipmunk was officially commissioned forty-two years ago this week. On June 5, 1964, the deep submergence vehicle (DSV) Alvin entered into service, and in the intervening decades has carved out arguably the most distinguished operational record in the history of undersea research. Capt. Nemo, eat your heart out.

If you've never heard of Alvin (which is a black mark on your geek record, by the way), you're certainly familiar with its work. It was Alvin, accompanied by the robotic undersea probe Jason Jr., which was the first to make detailed explorations of the wreck of the RMS Titanic. (Alvin did not actually discover the wreck; that distinction went to the robotic camera sled Argo.) Short of the cinematic works of James Cameron, Alvin's visuals are probably the most well known photographic evidence of the Titanic's remains.

Despite its civilian accomplishments for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Alvin is actually a military asset. The United States Navy built and owns Alvin, and loans it to Woods Hole, which merely operates it. As such, it is the (now somewhat hoary) product of some rather advanced submersible technology�specifically syntactic foam, a composite of micrometer-sized glass spheres that are both lightweight and hyper-resistant to compression�that allows Alvin to reach crewed depths of 4500 meters (roughly 15,000 feet).

Despite its technical advantages, Alvin still suffered at the hands of bad luck. On Oct. 16, 1968, Alvin was lost at sea. Its original deploy structure was little more than a steel cable suspended between two metal pontoons. When the cable snapped�with the hatch open and a crew aboard�Alvin sank in 2000-foot waters and was lost for months. The crew managed to escape, but an unlikely and highly biodegradable personal item remained onboard�and perfectly preserved by the unique properties of the extreme ocean depths.

WHAT UNLIKELY ITEM WAS PERFECTLY PRESERVED WHEN THE ALVIN DSV SANK IN 1968?

What unlikely, biodegradable personal item was perfectly preserved when the Alvin DSV was lost at sea for several months in 1969?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you nature's hardiest survivor: A bologna sandwich. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's own Web site describes the sandwiches which sat within Alvin from October 1968 to Labor Day 1969 as "soggy but edible." The secrets to this unlikely preservation were the extreme cold and low oxygen levels of the waters, which supported few of the microorganisms that normally spoil your refrigerated leftovers. (No word on precisely what role the nitrate preservatives in the bologna itself might have played.) Alvin itself didn't fare so well, requiring over a year to refit after recovery.

Hardly Alvin's most celebrated discovery, but considering the DSV's resumé, you can understand why.

On Mar. 15, 1966, the Alvin team located a lost hydrogen bomb on the sea floor off the coast of Palomares, Spain. (The bomb was lost when its transport bomber suffered a midair collision over the Mediterranean.) Besides going into the record books for recovery of the H-bomb�which U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara valued at $2 billion�the mission was notable for its use of Bayesian search theory. Submarines, nuclear weapons, and probability, oh my.

In April of 1979, Alvin and its crew made the first discovery of so-called black smokers�undersea hydrothermal vents that produce superheated seawater. In essence, the vents heat seawater to well above its boiling point, but remains liquid due to the extreme depth pressure. Besides the discovery of the black smokers themselves, Alvin's observations helped prove that microorganisms can survive in these harsh environs. Flora and fauna that can invoke chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis as the basis of a food chain are of interest not just to marine biologists, but astronomers (and science fiction writers) looking for signs of life on other planets.

In July of 1986, the whole Titanic thing went down. Celine Dion was not involved, though her publicist may claim otherwise. No elaborately designed blue-diamond necklaces were found on the ocean floor, either. We leave such things to sub-par movies, not submarine Geek Trivia.

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Quibble of the week

If you uncover a questionable fact or debatable aspect of this week's Geek Trivia, just post it in the discussion area of the article. Every week, yours truly will choose the best post from our assembled masses and discuss it in the next edition of Geek Trivia.

This week's quibble comes from the May 10, 2006 edition of Geek Trivia, "Measures for leisure." Member gsquared earned special recognition (and a rarified TR mug) for calculating a reasonable Watts-to-Gillette conversion for measuring laser output:

"First, we need the albedo of a Gillette razorblade. That's the ratio of light absorbed vs. light reflected. (I did an online search, but couldn't find this.) Assuming an albedo of .9 (polished metal surfaces are pretty reflective), that means that your laser's energy will be 90% reflected, 10% absorbed. Then we need the specific heat of a Gillette razor. How many calories does it take to heat one gram by one degree Celsius? Steel varies in this regard depending on its carbon content and other components. Iron is .11, so I'll assume it's around that amount. Then we need the number of grams of metal we're talking about burning through. Let's assume half a gram for now. (7-9 grams/cubic centimeter for various grades of steel; the desired hole would be about 1 cm wide I'm guessing, and less than 1 mm thick, which would make it approx .1 cubic centimeter, or about .7 grams.) Boiling point is around 3,000 degrees C. So, we need to heat .5 grams of steel to 3,000 degrees, specific heat of .11, heat of vaporization around 340/gram, from about 30 degrees. 163.35 to 3000, 170 to vaporize, call it 340 calories. Then, because of the albedo factor, we have to multiply that by 10 (90% reflected) = 3,400 calories. If we're talking about a 1 second pulse, that's 3,400 watts/Gillette. If it's a .1 second pulse, that's 34,000 watts. If it's a 2 second pulse, it's 1,700 watts. Just depends on the length of the pulse. (Please note that the actual heat, density and albedo characteristics of steel may vary from what I've assumed, but the math is still solid.) So, yes, it is possible to convert from Gillettes to watts."

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The Trivia Geek, also known as Jay Garmon, is a former advertising copywriter and Web developer who's duped TechRepublic into underwriting his affinity for movies, sci-fi, comic books, technology, and all things geekish or subcultural.

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