sir James dewar

[gatorback]

I just don't get the personal statement jbm...I it doesn't make sense to me.  Parashuts don't work unless they are open.  Ok one guy jumped out of a plane and lived falling into a swamp but what did James ever do that was so brilliant ?

[jbm32206]

I'm surprised to find a thread to discuss a quote in my signature..."Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open" I'm not sure what about it you don't understand...it's saying that if one has a closed mind, then it's not functioning as it should/could...just like a parachute...which in of itself is useless unless it's open.

As for Sir James Dewar, he was a scientist...here's some information on him.

Sir James Dewar, (1842-1923) was a chemist and physicist, best known for his work with low-temperature phenomena. Dewar was born in Kincardine, Scotland, and educated at the University of Edinburgh. He was professor of experimental natural philosophy at the University of Cambridge, England, in 1875 and professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1877, where he was appointed director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory.

Dewar developed structural formulas for benzene (1867). He studied the specific heat of hydrogen and was the first person to produce hydrogen in liquid form (1898) and to solidify it (1899).  He constructed a machine for producing liquid oxygen in quantity (1891). He invented the Dewar flask or thermos (1892) and co-invented cordite (1889), a smokeless gunpowder, with Sir Frederick Abel. His discovery (1905) that cooled charcoal can be used to help create high vacuums later proved useful in atomic physics. Dewar was knighted in 1904.

The Dewar flask or vacuum flask/bottle is a container for storing hot or cold substances, i.e. liquid air. It consists of two flasks, one inside the other, separated by a vacuum. The vacuum greatly reduces the transfer of heat, preventing a temperature change. The walls are usually made of glass because it is a poor conductor of heat; its surfaces are usually lined with a reflective metal to reduce the transfer of heat by radiation. Dewar used silver. The whole fragile flask rests on a shock-absorbing spring within a metal or plastic container, and the air between the flask and the container provides further insulation. The common thermos bottle is an adaptation of the Dewar flask. Dewar invented the Dewar flask in 1892 to aid him in his work with liquid gases.

The vacuum flask was not manufactured for commercial/home use until 1904, when  two German glass blowers formed Thermos GmbH. They held a contest to rename the vacuum flask and a resident of Munich submitted "Thermos", which came from the Greek word "Therme" meaning "hot."

In 1907, Thermos GmbH sold the Thermos trademark rights to three independent companies: The American Thermos Bottle Company of Brooklyn, NY; Thermos Limited of Tottenham, England; and Canadian Thermos Bottle Co. Ltd. of Montreal, Canada.

(Thermos is a proprietary name or trademark applied to a type of Dewar flask protected by a metal casing.)

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blthermos.htm

[Midway ®]

A person who quotes Socrates would certainly know who Sir James Dewar was. That is unless he got him confused with the guy that makes that Scotch, or maybe he thinks Socrates is actually a sock puppet.

But seriously, he has you beat 10 to 1 in length of Wiki entry for his mascot vs. yours, though.

It's a good thing there's Wiki, I had no idea who either of these clowns were! Wow, that's sumthin, ain't it?

[gatorback]

A person who quotes Socrates would certainly know who Sir James Dewar was. That is unless he got him confused with the guy that makes that Scotch, or maybe he thinks Socrates is actually a sock puppet.

lol  Exactly.  But to the parachutes thing.  Parachutes are safety devices.  (unless your a psycho and jump out of a perfectly running airplane) you'd hope to never have to use one.  So you get a reasussing feeling knowing it there, not to mention certification to fly.  That coming mostly from a fighterpilot's perspective today. Without  parachutes your jet wont get off the ground.  Pain pills work along the same line.  Morphine works regarless if you take it or not and, those bags that drop out of the overhead compartment when the cabin pressure changes dont have to inflate for the oxygen to be flowing.

Thanks for your insight and the humor here, I keep wondering if was the flask for putting Scotch in that got him the "Sir".

[jbm32206]

Of course, you're entitled to your opinion.

As to the meaning behind the quote...I still feel it's a good one and applies to those who opt to go through life with a closed mind....which leaves them with a view of life around them with lesser clarity and personal growth.

[gatorback]

My dad has a closed mind and his functions which are autoresponsive still work, ie heart pumping, breathing, etc., all function.  I will say the difference between a good doctor and a great doctor is an open mind.  I remember reading about this man that walked into his doctor's office and said, "Doc, I can't get HIV."  The doctor being a great doctor said "Let's find out why."  A not so great of doctor would have said, "Don't kid yourself."  Turns out this guy has mutation which causes his cells walls to not have the receptor that you would have not having this mutation.  They ended up studying this guy and creating a med that used today to treat HIV.  Tremeris (sp) was the company to bring the med to market.  It's so expensive however, it cost like $28,000 a year for the script and under GW's policy, we are giving it to the people that need it most.

[jbm32206]

I would agree...and would broaden that to anyone...

[Ocklawaha]

Oh hell guys, forget giving the HIV folks a $28,000 dollar a year RX on my dime. However I COULD see giving them a gallon of Dewars Scotch for each month of the year. It won't cure the HIV but then nobody would care!

Ocklawaha

[gatorback]

Would it change your mind if I told you the meds were going to Africa?  He's the whitehouse.gov's front page.

The United States is on track to exceed the President's commitment of $15 billion over five years for PEPFAR to support treatment for two million people, prevention of seven million new infections, and care for 10 million people.  PEPFAR is the largest international health initiative ever dedicated to a single disease.

Is that like 3 days in Iraq?  Or is it three weeks.