Today, in weird history

"CB" (jrcb) 01/15/2019 at 13:14 • Filed to: Wow an actually informative post

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Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Boston Molasses Disaster. On January 15th, 1919, a 2.3 million gallon tank of molasses ruptured, sending a tsunami of molasses at 35 miles per hour into Boston, resulting in 21 deaths, 150 injuries, and $100 million (in today’s dollars) in damages. The causes are believed to be poor tank construction and warm weather that resulted in the tank’s failure. The area also ended up smelling of molasses for decades to follow.

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For Sweden > CB 01/15/2019 at 13:25

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Shocking that a 35 mile per hour wave of a highly-viscous fluid didn’t cause more deaths.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > CB 01/15/2019 at 13:29

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I wonder if this is the cause of the “slow as molasses” phrase. Like maybe it was meant to be ironic at first 

vondon302 > CB 01/15/2019 at 13:32

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The eyewitnesses accounts are actually pretty horrifying.

CB > vondon302 01/15/2019 at 13:33

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Yeah, the whole thing, while absurd to us now, must have been terrifying. Especially the drowning in molasses part.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > For Sweden 01/15/2019 at 13:43

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it figures really.... the deaths just slowly treacled in

TheRealBicycleBuck > CB 01/15/2019 at 13:48

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Spring came around and the mole family woke from their long winter slumber. Papa mole poked his nose out of their burrow, took two long sniffs, then declared, “I smell spring!” Mama mole heard what Papa mole said and squeezed in beside Papa mole at the burrow entrance to sniff the air for herself. After two good whiffs, she said, “I also smell spring!” Baby mole didn’t want to be left out, so he tried his best to squeeze past Papa and Mama mole, to no avail. There just wasn’t enough room. So, Baby mole decided to take two big sniffs to see what he could smell, then said, “All I smell is mole-assess!”

My great-grandmother told me that joke when I was about 6 years old. I was scandalized. I never knew my great-grandma had such a dirty mouth!

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 01/15/2019 at 14:03

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Can’t possibly be too soon, right? 

user314 > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 01/15/2019 at 14:07

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Molasses is actually slow to pour, but the conditions surrounding the accident caused it to move much faster:

Once the floodgates opened, the principles of fluid dynamics compounded the problem, says Nicole Sharp, an aerospace engineer in Denver, and author of FYFD , a fluid-dynamics website. She became interested in the molasses flood after helping teach a class at Harvard University, in which a group of undergraduate students created a scaled model of the event. They released a vat of corn syrup into a tiny cardboard Boston, and used high-speed cameras to film what happened.

“I watched as the corn syrup engulfed tiny figurines,” Sharp says. “It would be like having a tsunami wave hit you. It made me want to look into the physics of the accident.”

She was particularly intrigued by reports of how fast the molasses flowed. Molasses, which is 1.5 times denser than water, is notoriously slow to pour. But in the flood, molasses—which is a non-Newtonian fluid like ketchup or toothpaste—would have moved as a gravity current, much like a mudslide, avalanche or lava flow. Based on the features of molasses, Sharp’s calculations confirmed that the initial wave could have moved as quickly as 35 mph. 

412GTI > CB 01/15/2019 at 14:08

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A sticky situation to be caught up in! 

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > ZHP Sparky, the 5th 01/15/2019 at 14:10

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never to soon in my book.... unless you mention the furai or the id-x nismo

(but tbh... i just like to joke about shit... and sometimes that means im a dick)

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > user314 01/15/2019 at 14:23

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Well yeah. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > CB 01/15/2019 at 14:30

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That’s a lot of molasses.

HoustonRunner > CB 01/15/2019 at 16:23

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I love this event and actually studied it in college for a fluids class (or thermodynamics, can't remember, that was 20 years ago).  The details that are available for the time period are amazing.

pip bip - choose Corrour > CB 01/16/2019 at 04:38

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what a way to go though.