Brain Teasers
The Toasted Tunnel
It was a long and dirty 20 years for the tunnel workers. Every day they got on the elevator and went numerous meters down into the earth to give their best performance. They were excellent workers too. The foreman of Palsha Mining Company was so proud of his employees, that he decided he wanted to show his proud gesture to them when the tunnel was finished. When it finally came to an end of the 20 years of digging, the foreman went down into the tunnel with champagne to throw them a toast. The foreman threw the toast and everyone sipped to it except for one tunnel worker. When the worker was asked why he didn't drink to the toast, he replied, "I can't because I've been sober for 10 years. I do accept the nice gesture though." When the toast was finished, they went on the elevator to return to the surface to go home. However, all the workers were instantly sick when they got off the elevator besides the man who didn't drink. I mean INSTANTLY! Why did the workers get sick so quickly and the man that couldn't drink the champagne didn't?
Answer
The workers got sick due to a syndrome known as "The Bends." This occurs when someone is under the surface at considerably depths breathing oxygen and coming up to the surface at a quick rate. The workers normally wouldn't have gotten sick due to the fact they didn't have any champagne while working. The champagne in the workers system takes a long time to digest also. When they reached the surface, the undigested champagne in their stomachs bubbled up due to the intense pressure change. The bubbling effect is caused by the carbonation in the liquid and the oxygen toxicity. When the pressure changed, oxygen bubbles formed and went into the workers bloodstream causing "The Bends." This is the same syndrome that divers can get. Think of it like a soda can. When it's shaken up, the can looks relatively normal. After it's opened however, it sprays everywhere.Hide Answer Show Answer
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I'm thinking this one is bogus. The bends happen when nitrogen bubbles form in your bloodstream due to an extreme drop in pressure, such as when a diver ascends too quickly. If the rate of change is relatively slow (such as the change in air pressure on a high-speed elevator) then the bends aren't going to happen. There's also the problem of the champagne- the bubbles in champagne are carbon dioxide (CO2) not oxygen (O2). As those bubbles leached out of the champagne and into the miners' stomachs, the only thing that would happen is that they would burp quite a bit on the way up.
I agree that it's bogus. You can stay for a long time at small depths in water (the charts say something close to 2hrs at 2atm absolute pressure (about 30ft down)). This equivalent pressure is reached in air (assuming 1kg/M^3) at a depth of 10km (6.5 miles for those who like those units). I don't think there's any mines anywhere near that depth, plus the bends is caused by nitrogen being stored in your tissues and coming out once the pressure releases, and it takes a long time to come out fully (though a small amount in your bloodstream can lead to BIG problems)
I just did look around on the Web a bite trying to find anything about champagne-related illnesses tunnel workers have had. All that came back was information about festivites the Chunnel workers had and how they celebrated the job completion with a champagne toast, but I saw nothing at all about anybody getting sick. In fact, there were a great deal of articles about underground workers celebrating with champagne and not one mentioned people getting decompression sickness. Thinking back on personal experience, I have been on a very high speed elevator at the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas, Nevada. Its elevators whisk you straight up nearly 300 meters in less than 30 seconds. Despite finishing off a large soda minutes before the journey up, all I felt was my ears popping. Considering that the Chunnel reaches a depth less than half that (and your average London Underground tunnel is less than 25 m below the surface) and that it's going to take a good bit more than 30 seconds to travel from the deepest point in the Chunnel to the surface, I'm still standing by my previous conclusion. If you can present information to the contrary (not just your telling me, I'm talking a weblink to some sort of news source), I would love to see it.
By the way, it's *extremely* bad form to flame someone else's puzzle just because they didn't like yours. If you're going to do that, at the very least have some facts to back it up... as the saying goes, "Better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
By the way, it's *extremely* bad form to flame someone else's puzzle just because they didn't like yours. If you're going to do that, at the very least have some facts to back it up... as the saying goes, "Better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
what happend to the editors?
palsha, calm down. nobody was flaming you or calling you names. they are just questioning the validity of the solution, and rightly so. rather than just saying it's true and making a vague reference to english mine workers, why don't you provide a source?
fwiw, i discovered that tunnel/mine workers CAN be afflicted with decompression illness (aka, the bends). learn something new... however, i have never heard of the process you describe in your solution, and it seems that i am not alone. a little more explanation, or a link that explains this would help. enlighten us, please! =D
cool! i knew divers could get the bends, but not that it could happen in this case!
I agree with the other comments. Going deep into the earth won't increase the pressure to the point where you at a risk of getting the bends. The change in pressure resulting from a change in height in the atmosphere is much less than the change in pressure resulting from a change in height under water. But there is one case where miners were subject to the bends. It was when the Brooklyn Bridge was built. The foundation needed to be built on bed rock, which was tens of meters below the river bottom. To do this in the late 1800's, a box was submerged with an elevator attached for access. To keep out the water, the air pressure was raised to a level higher than the pressure exerted by the water. Thus miners were subject huge pressure changes when they got off of work and many died from the Bends. This is the only case I know of where miners suffered from the Bends. Normally, miners digging an underground tunnel are not exposed to pressures much greater than atmospheric pressures. In addition, the Bends only applies to nitrogen. At high pressures, nitrogen dissolves in you blood. If you depressurize too quickly, the nitrogen comes out of solution and forms bubbles in you blood.
I just did some rough calculations, and it looks like the pressure will increase by 10 psi (minimum) at a depth of 5000 meters. I'm not sure what kind of pressure it takes to cause the bends (or the champagne version of it, anyway), but this may be significant enough to do it.
Maybe you all don't know the common rules of science? Yes, the lower you go below the surface level, the more the pressure. It's the same as touching the bottom of the pool. This is, actually, a true story which I thought would be a good teaser for everyone. Champagne, by the way, has CO2 bubbles that when ingested enters the blood stream. When they surfaced at a fast rate the CO2 caused bubbleing in the blood stream. Hence, the bends....
These are fun comments to read. I'm definitely no science whiz, but I find this stuff really interesting. You guys take your brainteasers awfully seriously!
So many long sentences... it's scary. I kind of got it right by saying something sort of reacted with the champagne underground.
I liked it but i can see where everone is coming from. so, no comment from little brain here. but i do have a question: why is normal oxygen O2??? that's bothered me because if you just had O what would you have???
you don't have O unless it's in a compound with something else. Normal oxygen is diatomic, because any two oxygen molecules are attracted to each other and form a bond.
Well I didn't get so try and make an easier one for us not genious iq people!!
I've heard of this in divers but not land-staying people
This one is interesting. I would have thought it calls for an empirical answer. 1. How much of a risk is the bends for tunnel workers? 2. Would champagne consumption alter the situation enough to increase the risk?
When I read the puzzle I didn't think of the bends - I understood "got sick" in the sense it sometimes has in British English of nausea and vomiting. My thought was that the change in pressure led to the bubbles coming out of solution in their stomachs, producing pressure! A bit less serious but rather gross. Not at all sure my theory is valid though.
When I read the puzzle I didn't think of the bends - I understood "got sick" in the sense it sometimes has in British English of nausea and vomiting. My thought was that the change in pressure led to the bubbles coming out of solution in their stomachs, producing pressure! A bit less serious but rather gross. Not at all sure my theory is valid though.
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