Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site redwood.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hpda!fortune!foros1!redwood!rpw3 From: rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock) Newsgroups: net.physics,net.misc Subject: Re: Those funny lines Message-ID: <64@redwood.UUCP> Date: Sat, 13-Oct-84 07:36:25 EDT Article-I.D.: redwood.64 Posted: Sat Oct 13 07:36:25 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 15-Oct-84 01:47:55 EDT References: <170@hocsj.UUCP> <412@amd.UUCP> Organization: Rob Warnock, Redwood City, CA Lines: 23 Xref: 1839 5970 +--------------- | Air can only move and compress at a limited rate when compared to | the speed of the shock wave from the nuclear explosion. As a result | standing waves ('pressure fronts') are created in the air. At the | dividing line between the high and low portion of the standing | wave 'clouds' are formed, thus your vapor trails. +--------------- Gee, and I always thought those vapor trails were the smoke-emitting weather rockets they shot up just before the blast to create visible markers so the pretty pictures could record the shape of the blast waves. (They also do something similar with colored smoke trails on towers to look at vortex patterns behind jumbo jets. See the pretty picture on the cover of Scientific American a while back.) Does anybody out there KNOW what they were (instead of all our guesses)? ;-} Rob Warnock UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd}!fortune!redwood!rpw3 DDD: (415)572-2607 (*new*) Envoy: rob.warnock/kingfisher USPS: 510 Trinidad Ln, Foster City, CA 94404 (*new*)