The siphon, or syphon, is a simple device that uses only a tube to seemingly pump water from a higher spot to a lower one. It's ingenious because once you start the siphon by filling the pipe to below the height of the upper reservoir level, it will continue draining the water, pulling it over the hump and towards the collection below without further help.

Most of us use siphons several times daily, as there are often two at work in the standard toilet. Sometimes there's one in the flush mechanism—one push of the handle to start the siphon drains the water from the reservoir until it runs out. And you can flush a toilet using the second siphon by pouring enough water directly into the bowl to push the water over the bend in the pipe to start it— think how the water drains by itself almost completely before filling up to the level of the bend once again. It's a clever way to power a toilet flush with just the press of a button or turn of a handle. They also minimise leaks and control the flow by running the water uphill.

We set up a greywater siphon to drain water from the bath and showers to a water butt in the garden. To get it started, we connected the end of the hose in the garden to a tap and ran water back up the hose until it shot out the top. Then, dipping it in the water, turning off the tap, and putting the end in the water butt, like magic, the siphon pulls water out of the bath until it's empty.

Surprisingly, a few effects are at work in a siphon, and its mechanism is debated. They can be made to work in a vacuum and even spray liquid upwards with the right setup.

I read that it is from the ancient Greek siphōn meaning a tube or pipe, often for drawing wine from a cask—that would be a decent situation to start the siphon by sucking on the end.

Siphon

The two most commonly used temperature scales are Celsius and Fahrenheit. The Celsius scale, named after Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius, sets 0C at the freezing point of water and 100C as the boiling point of water at 1 atmosphere of pressure — normal air pressure at sea level. The Fahrenheit scale has 32F as the freezing point of water and 212F as the boiling point. With 180F between freezing and boiling that means each degree Celsius is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

Several accounts of the creation of the Fahrenheit scale exist but the general gist is that Daniel Fahrenheit set 0F at the freezing point of a brine mixture, 32F at the freezing point of water, and another point at body temperature around 96F (now 98.6F). He divided up the scale between these points giving a scale with helpful resolution.

It's interesting to think that for most of history there was no comparable way to say how hot or cold something was.

Having spent time on both sides of the Atlantic I've tried to get at least somewhat familiar with both of them. To convert between them in my head, at least around most air temperatures, I use a quick approximation. As 32F is 0C and for each one Celsius you move almost two Fahrenheit, you can roughly go from Fahrenheit to Celsius by subtracting 32 and dividing by 2 (or a little less to be closer). So 50F is approximately 9C (actually 10C), or 86F is approximately 27C (actually 29.4C). Not perfect, but often good enough if you're trying to work out if it'll be hot out. To go from Celsius to Fahrenheit it's the reverse, times by 2 and add 32.

A simple anchor point to keep in mind is that 82F is near enough 28C—you just swap the digits around.

Both scales are now actually defined relative to the Kelvin scale which sets the lowest point of 0K at absolute zero where basically all movement stops. Zero on the Kelvin scale is around -273C. As such the Kelvin scale, though helpful for scientists, is not very practical for talking about the weather.

Fahrenheit and Celsius

A school science refresher: the 3 primary states of matter, solids, liquids and gases and the transitions between each one. If you’re like me you probably forget about the more obscure sublimation and deposition directly between solids and gases. And vaporisation of a liquid is evaporation, occurring at the surface, if it is below boiling point, otherwise it’s boiling.

There are some more unusual states including plasma — seen in lightning and fluorescent lights — and Bose-Einstein condensates, but mostly we’re familiar with ice cubes, water and steam.

States of matter

Life on a nuclear submarine is life under some pretty intense constraints. For one, there’s not naturally any fresh water and any time you use it the waste water builds up in the tanks and then has to be expelled, and when you expel it that makes noise, and because nuclear subs don’t want to give away their location they do their best to minimise the number of times they have to do that. That means taking care of all fresh water.

The other reason to take care of fresh water usage is that they have to make it the whole time — any fresh water for cooking, cleaning or drinking has to be made from sea water. If you drink a glass of water on a nuclear submarine you’re probably drinking the most expensive glass of water you’ll ever drink because it’s been desalinated by a nuclear submarine.

Hence the submarine shower with a total of 20 seconds of water: 10s with the water on, turn it off while you soap and scrub and finish with 10s of rinsing. That’s it. For me it’s a nice reframe in how much you actually need when you take a shower, and it still works. So if you fancy saving water and energy you could give it a try.

Submarine shower

The tragedy of the commons is the all too common outcome of individuals making use of a shared resource and one of the true challenges of our times. The original scenario referred to commons land that soon becomes overgrazed as each individual tries to maximise their value from the share resource. The tragedy is that the overgrazed land is then ruined for all.

We see the effect, perhaps most perniciously, with invisible or hidden shared resources such as taking water from underground aquifers for irrigation, or overfishing of fish stocks in the sea. The same effect is at work with problems such as littering, or washing plastics into the sea, or polluting the atmosphere — while it’s easier for any individual to take another fish, leave their litter on the ground, let pollution run into a river or the sea, or not worry about air pollution, the tragedy is it can have the effect of ruining them for all of us.

When shared resources are moderated or governed fish stocks can be managed to recover, water supplies to replenish or pollution to be naturally treated.

For more, check out this 5 min video on the tragedy of the commons by TED-Ed.

The tragedy of the commons

Probably the biggest killer of houseplants? Overwatering. So I love this simple tip known as the finger-dip test, or the knuckle test, to determine if your plant needs watering. Sadly, it came too late for many of my plants, but perhaps not for yours.

Just dip your index finger into the soil near the stem of your plant up to about your first knuckle. If the soil feels dry, and your finger comes out clean, then it’s probably time for some water. If the soil around your fingertip is still moist then it’s time to sit back next to your plant with a good book and enjoy it.

I learned this from the good people at Patch Plants and their resident plant expert Alice Vincent (@noughticulture).

Also see: How to grow your own fresh air.

The finger-dip test to not overwater houseplants

Nature’s greatest snow machine, where crazy amounts of snow can fall in huge snowstorms on the downwind — leeward — side of a lake. Where the effect is pronounced, such as on the East of some of the Great Lakes in the US, it can generate regions known as snow belts because of the amount of snow they receive.

It works kind of like this: cold air blows over a lake. As the cold air passes over the warmer lake it picks up water vapour from the lake and it warms. This causes it to rise and in turn cool, such that when it reaches the downwind side of the lake it is now a lot of cold moist air which can cause some incredible snowstorms, like 2–3 inches of snow per hour. Satellite pictures like these show it in action pretty clearly. If the land rises after the lake the air can cool faster and increase the effect — and also cause a rain shadow — and if there’s a whole lot of convection and the air is rising fast you can get what’s called thundersnow — a thunderstorm in a snowstorm. I know.

Find weather interesting? Me too. You might also be interested in: Dirty thunderstorms, thunderclouds, yesterday’s weather (applying weather forecasting to software engineering), rain shadow, lenticular clouds, know your cirrostratus from your altocumulus, and British weather.

Lake-effect snow

What’s the difference? OK, this is not rocket science, but I remember growing up it took me a while to not be calling them interchangeably. There are so many neat hybrid ways to get on the water now that nothing is cut and dry, but if they look like what’s in the picture then you can be pretty confident you’ll be getting it right.

Kayak vs Canoe

A clever means of categorizing the size of rivers. It does this by looking at joins of tributaries. Each time two tributaries of the same order join together then the river goes up in order. So the start of a stream from a spring is the outermost branch — first order. When two first orders join together, the river is classified as second order and so on.

The largest river by Strahler stream order classification is the Amazon at twelfth order. This means that at least two order 11 rivers had to merge together before the river emptied into the sea.

Strahler stream order: Streams, rivers, the Amazon and how to organise them.

I’ve never used one, but I’d love to. They seem a little like magic. Basically, you pressurise the air of an underwater box enough to keep the water from coming in. This enables you to have a kind of swimming pool entrance to water even though you’re already actually underwater. So cool.

Moon pool

The rest just foes to the overflow. I learned this from our guide Eric on Mount Rainier. Very helpful if you’re hiking and looking to stay hydrated and conserve water. But actually I find it a sensible approach for every day.

Our bodies can absorb 1 cup of water in 15 mins

Whichever way you look at it, water is a remarkable substance.

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