🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1dhg2uINNdqa@gap.caltech.edu> stieger@cco.caltech.edu (Ronald David Stieger) writes:

   palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer) writes:

   >It has been a tradition at Caltech to drop a 78 K (that's "kelvins", not
   >"kilograms") pumpkin from the tower of the Millikan Library at midnight on
   >Hallowe'en to smash on the tiles below. I have a reliable report that a flash
   >of light has been seen to accompany the destruction of the pumpkin. I can

   >While I have not done work in this field for some time, and though I have never
   >been acquainted with the literature, I'd like to know if any progress has been
   >made lately. Was there a pumpkin drop this year? What resulted? Is there a
   >corpus of scholarly publication on this worthy topic?

   Yes, there was a pumpkin drop this year.  No, I don't believe any blue flashes
   were seen, although with all the camera flashes it was hard to tell.  In fact,
   from what I've heard, nobody's seen a flash for at least a few years back.

Well, I thought I saw a flash in '87 or '88 but wouldn't offer it as
a definitive observation. I definitely saw a very clear flash in 88
or 89 (ie year after I thought I saw a flash) but further inspection
revealed that the pumpkin had hit a chain linking two of the big
flower pots and the flash was probably the metal shattering...

a frequent problem is that the pumpkin has to be cooled for quite
a long time or it will not be frozen through, often the Darb(?) in
charge puts it in the N2 too late...