When an article says "some scientists think" then remember this: I, a scientist, once thought I could fit a whole orange in my mouth.
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Those enormous lungs - my pride and joy - expanding in this moment of crisis to their fullest extent, had created a hard vacuum behind the orange, which, at that point imploded.
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From now on, things which had been unfolding at an almost leisurely pace, started to happen rather fast. So, I will take this opportunity to say that no one had actually tried to help me up till now. This was not for lack of opportunity.
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Later, someone mentioned the kind of details - veins like worms scribbling incomprehensible messages across my forehead, eyes popping out as if on stalks, laced with tiny red veins - which one can only truly apprehend at a distance that wouldn't have made help impossible.
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But back to the imploding orange. Although it didn't diminish appreciably in volume upon implosion, the released juice vaporised, turning into a burning acidic cloud that instantly flooded my lungs.
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My lungs very sensibly responded by collapsing rapidly aided by an involuntary and powerful spasm from my diaphragm.
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The vapour and oily zest from the orange's skin mixed with mucus scoured from my lungs (that spread flat, we must remember, would cover a tennis court) as well as the last of my residual oxygen, exited now through my rediscovered nostrils as a magnificently abundant yellow foam.
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And, having a volume in excess of what could easily egress at speed via those narrow tubes, it also squirted out through nearby exits, including around my eyes.
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Even that wasn't enough and the build up of pressure finally proved too much for the orange, which left my mouth like grapeshot from a cannon, like the superluminal jets generated by matter falling towards a black hole at relativistic speed.
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Temporarily blind and gasping in my own private world of consequences, I was unaware of the cone of devastation that I had unleashed upon the unluckier segment of my audience, occupying roughly one steradian of solid angle to my front.
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When I finally recovered my senses and the cycle of whooping inhalation and coughing fits had exhausted itself, I was greeted not by the concern that I felt such a brush with death merited, but with a disgust that later reflection suggests may not have been wholly unwarranted.
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So, anyway, whenever you read "some scientists think", think about me and recalibrate the lower end of your expectations accordingly.
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An unrolled version of the thread can be found here:
https://diagrammonkey.wordpress.com/2022/08/06/some-scientists-think/
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@micefearboggis This is why scientists need engineers
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@micefearboggis Comment from Reviewer 2: please tell me there's footage.
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@vic Fortunately, this was before the smart phone era.
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@micefearboggis
Science: I wonder if we can do this?
Engineering: I wonder what happens if we do this?
Philosophy: I wonder if we should do this? -
@micefearboggis @vic This description is much funnier than a smartphone video could ever be
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@micefearboggis Now go ahead and have a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobstopper
You know you want to.
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@gunchleoc @micefearboggis Yes, well, I'd still pay to see this re-enacted & maybe narrated by Edward Norton.
"With a whole orange stuffed in your mouth, you speak only in vowels."
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@vic @micefearboggis And in nasal vowels at that
