(Thread) In the first What If? book, I answered a question about cooking a steak by dropping it from space. At one point, I commented—jokingly!—that if anyone put a steak in a hypersonic wind tunnel to gather better data, I’d love to see the video.
Well, I have good news.
Well, I have good news.
After What If? came out, I was contacted by Tom Fisher and Thomas Rees, University of Manchester researchers studying hypersonic heat transfer. They had finished their wind tunnel experiments early, so they decided to head to the corner store, buy a steak, and gather some data.
Video 1: A Sainsbury’s 21 day matured beef steak in Mach 5 winds, recorded using Schlieren imaging to show the hypersonic shockwave
Video 2: The steak in Mach 5 winds, recorded using an infrared thermal camera to show temperature. You can see how the outside gets hot and cooks while the interior stays cold.
Overall, their results matched my answer in the chapter pretty well! The the surface of the steak was cooked by the winds, charred, and blasted away, while the interior stayed cold and raw. Conclusion: This is not a great way to cook steak.
So thank you to Tom Fisher and Thomas Rees, who—despite splattering the interior of a research wind tunnel with bits of raw and cooked steak—were not kicked out of their university and both successfully got their PhDs!
If you're looking for a present for a scientist, curious student, or just anyone who likes speculating about silly ideas, my sequel to What If? is out now. What If? 2 is in stores and shipping for Christmas! xkcd.com/what-if-2 amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS…
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