Tuesday, October 7, 2008

What's in a name?

~William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet


My mind is split over this post. On one hand:

And we were angry and poor and happy,
And proud of seeing our names in print.
~G.K. Chesterton, A Song Of Defeat
(There's enough for a full post on that poem, but that's for another day.)

On the other hand:
You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to lose its dangerous magic.
~Elias Canetti

That aside, I have been asked by multiple people in various forms (Exhibit A) for an explanation of the tile free convection.

The term [free convection] itself comes from physics.
Here's the technical definition. Convection is the process of heat transferring from a solid to a liquid or gas.
Imagine a window of your house during the winter. Assuming your heat is on inside, the outer surface of the window will be warmer than the air. The window will begin to warm the air outside, and well all know what happens to hot air.
As the warm air rises, it's replaced by cooler air, which draws more heat away from the window, etc. Greater the temperature difference between the window and the air, the faster the air moves and carries away heat. (This is why good windows keep your heating bill down.) That's free (or natural) convection.
Now, imagine that I put a fan under my window, forcing the air to move faster across it. The air would be able to carry away even more heat. That's not so desirable for your windows, but it's great for your motherboard.

This blog is by design a collection of thoughts as they flow freely though my fingers. It has no specific purpose or audience, but is meant as a repository of sorts. Fellow blogger jfishjosh over at An Ordinary Pen commented to me today, "i keep a moleskin with me and i write questions and thoughts in it, reading your blog feels like i'm scanning random pages of my notebook... a question here, a paragraph there, random scribblings and quotes."
I like that (
despite the overuse of the word [random]).

Its free convection. Some thought heats up in my mind, some quote catches my attention. When it comes to the surface, the air picks it up and carries it away, though my fingers and onto your screen.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the explanation.
-Chops

Joshua said...

Haha, overuse of random, eh? I stand by both instances!

I appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts in this medium. It's exciting and encouraging.

Joshua<><