The Straight Dope 02/16/2007

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 02/16/2007

Dear Cecil:

I caught a segment on some car show about modding up your car. One of
the things they mentioned was the benefit of filling your tires with
nitrogen instead of air. Considering I fill my tires with air and don't
have much of a problem constantly refilling them, what is the straight
dope on nitrogen in car tires?--Dave from Massachusetts

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Cecil replies:

Oh, there are plenty of benefits: (1) Cool fluorescent green valve stem
caps (assuming your nitrogen vendor has any marketing savvy), which will
look sharp with your spinning wheel covers. (2) Bragging rights. OK, you
were behind the curve with cell phones, iPods, thong underwear, etc.
Nitrogen in tires is relatively new to the mass market. Now's your
chance. (3) Reduced fire danger next time you land your space shuttle or
commercial aircraft, and tell me you won't sleep better knowing that.

Most tires are filled with compressed air, which when dry consists of
about 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent other gases
by volume. Water vapor (humidity) can make up as much as 5 percent of
the volume of air under worst-case conditions. Filling your tires with
nitrogen mainly does two things: it eliminates moisture, and it replaces
skinny oxygen molecules with fat nitrogen molecules, reducing the rate
at which compressed gas diffuses through porous tire walls. That means,
theoretically at least, that a tire filled with nitrogen retains optimal
pressure longer, leading to more uniform tire wear and better gas
mileage. The commonly quoted figure is that tires inflated to 32 psi get
3 percent better mileage than at 24 psi.

Does nitrogen make any practical difference? 

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/070216.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

I've read that directors who don't want credit for working on a film
will list "Alan Smithee" in the credits, presumably to avoid having
their name attached to some awful flick. Where did this come from?
Was/is there a real Alan Smithee?--Dave Lemasa   

Guest contributor Jim Beaver replies:  

Alan Smithee (along with several variant spellings) was an official
pseudonym of the Directors Guild of America, for use by members
who believed (and succeeded in persuading the Guild) that their
work on a particular film had been so damaged or altered by others that
it no longer resembled the director's vision. Permission to use the
pseudonym was not granted casually, and was not intended simply to
disown poor work. The practice began in 1968 when Robert Totten and his
replacement Don Siegel both believed their work on the film Death of a
Gunfighter had been so distorted by those controlling the film that
neither wanted credit for the result. The Directors Guild agreed and
decided to create a standard pseudonym. 

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msmithee.htm

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 03/07/1992

Dear Cecil: 

What is the purpose of underground nuclear testing? Do governments
actually learn something from these explosions? Or is it just a deranged
form of political muscle-flexing? - -Dave Hines, Chicago  

Dear Dave: 

What, you think nuclear weaponry is a mature (I use the word loosely)
technology? Well, it isn't, and considering the untold billions we've
spent on nuclear weapons research since 1980, it better not be. The
purpose of underground nuclear testing is to: (1) help build better
bombs, (2) test the old models to see if they still work, and (3) see
what happens to something if you drop an atom bomb on it. The U.S. is
thought to have conducted more than 900 nuclear tests since 1945, all
but 10 of them at the Nevada Test Site, a vast federal reserve about 100
miles north of Las Vegas. These tests have helped make nuclear weapons
the sophisticated, reliable instruments of destruction they are today. 

The U.S. hasn't actually exploded a nuclear device since 1992 and may
not ever again, now that the comprehensive test ban treaty has been
signed. But that doesn't mean we've lost interest in testing. On the
contrary, the Energy Department is working with several universities to
figure out ways to test bombs using simulations on supercomputers.  

Many people are surprised to learn that serious nuclear weapons
research is still underway. What's the point, if we've already got enough
bombs to destroy the world several times over? This thought is so naive.
Strategic planners assume that most of our nuclear weapons won't survive
a first strike and we'll have to wreak what havoc we can with what
remains. Thus the search for better bombs.  

This is not necessarily a bad thing. 

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_312.html

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