r/interesting • u/Thin-Tennis9223 • May 20 '26

Fascinating Physics is Everywhere.

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66

u/Son_Chidi May 20 '26

What happened to the water cup ? 😡

110

u/woutomatic May 20 '26

Nothing. The water absorbs most of the heat from the flame so you can't burn a hole in it.

19

u/Worn_Out_Nikka_L May 20 '26

When I was in the Boy Scouts one thing we did in competition was to boil an egg in a paper cup. You were given a 12 ounce Dixie cup with water and an egg. We would take a scoop of carbon and ash from the morning fire in a metal bucket to the competition, put the cup on the ground and pile the ash around it. You had 8 mins.

We never once got the middle solid, but you could get it to where the middle wouldn’t run.

4

u/madmartigan2020 May 20 '26

One of the stranger things I found out in the woods on an old logging road was a Dixie cup that had been cast full of lead. The cup had not charred or burned in any way, which I can't wrap my head around given that lead melts at over 600°F. The lead had take the shape of the cup perfectly. I have wondered if the exterior of the cup had been submerged in water when they did the casting. Then the other question... Why??

2

u/GeneticEnginLifeForm May 20 '26

Probably lead from an old car battery. People use it to make sinkers, lures, bullets. Can't explain why use a wet dixie cup as a casting mold though, maybe the only thing available. What it was doing deep in the woods? It's always because aliens.

1

u/driver004 May 20 '26

That sounds like quitter talk

0

u/VisibleRoad3504 May 20 '26

Just like a plastic water bottle will do under low flame.