What causes the strange phenomenon where your car won't start only when you buy vanilla ice cream?
Professor Stephen Mann, a computer science professor at
Car allergic to vanilla ice cream
http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/smann/IceCream/humor.html
One day, the Pontiac Engineering department of General Motors (GM) received the following complaint:
'This is the second time I've written a complaint to GM. It seems odd to me too, so I don't blame them for not responding. Our family has always had ice cream for dessert after dinner. Every night after dinner, we all vote on what kind of ice cream we should have and then I get in the car and go to the store to get it. However, I've been having problems ever since I bought a new Pontiac. Whenever I buy vanilla ice cream, when I back into the store parking lot and turn the key, the car won't start. With any other flavor, the car starts fine. What does it mean that my Pontiac won't start only when I buy vanilla ice cream?'
by
Pontiac's engineering department was skeptical of the letter, but sent an engineer to the man's house to check it out. The engineer went to the ice cream parlor with the man, bought a vanilla ice cream, and when he returned to the parking lot and turned the key in his car, the car really didn't start.
The engineer stayed at the man's house for several nights to try to determine the cause of the problem. The car started fine when he bought chocolate and strawberry flavored ice cream, but when he bought vanilla flavored ice cream, the car would not start.
Of course, GM's engineers didn't think that cars would be allergic to vanilla ice cream. They took notes on various data such as the time to go to buy ice cream, the type of gasoline, and the time of day to drive, and conducted an investigation. As a result, it was found that when vanilla ice cream was purchased, the time it took to stop and return the car was shorter than when other flavors were purchased.
In fact, the ice cream shop that the man frequented stored all its ice cream in a case at the back of the store, but vanilla ice cream, the most popular flavor, was kept in a case at the front of the store, so vanilla ice cream was available to customers much sooner than the other flavors.
The engineers discovered that the cause of the engine's failure to start was the ' vapor lock' phenomenon . Vapor lock is a phenomenon in which bubbles formed when the liquid is heated impede the flow of the liquid. When bubbles form in highly volatile gasoline, vapor lock occurs, and the engine can stop working.
It turns out that the difference in the time the ice cream was served was the cause of the difference in vapor lock. In the case of chocolate and strawberry flavors, the gasoline had cooled down during the time it took to be served, but the vanilla ice cream was served before the gasoline had cooled sufficiently, which caused the vapor lock phenomenon.
Professor Mann said the moral of this story is that 'even issues that seem far removed from common sense sometimes reflect truth.'
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