Trekkie
Posts: 40
Joined: 5/23/2009 Status: offline
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Once saw a demonstration of artificially-created quicksand. It seems that quicksand happens when water is forced upwards through sand. (I assume that what happens is that the upward-flowing water causes the granules of sand to be constantly moving, causing them to act more like a fluid.) Ever since then, I've had this fantasy about a "damsel in distress" scenario. The victim is trapped in a really tall glass phone booth, the lower half of which is filled with sand. Doctor Evil, after explaining the predicament to the victim, flips a switch, which causes powerful pumps to inject a lot of water into the bottom of the phone booth. (The water, when it makes it to the top of the sane, is recovered, and sent to the pump again, to be re-pumped into the bottom.) The victim begins sinking into the quicksand. Until the switch is turned off. When the pump stops, then the quicksand rapidly becomes packed sand, again. At least in my fantasy, what you have is a substance that becomes a fluid when you want, then becomes almost impossible to move in when you want. (Sounds extreme enough, to me, that Gord might try it, some day.)
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