Our meeting on Wednesday 16 June 2021 had a virtual speaker in the form of Ruben Meerman giving a TEDx Talk from Queensland University of Technology. Ruben is a physicist from Queensland, Australia who had asked people on Bondi Beach, “When you lose weight, where does the weight actually go when it leaves your body?” The Club thought this was an appropriate subject, given that many Rotarians have put on some weight during the lock-down and would want to get into shape before the constraints are lifted.
What Ruben had learned from the interviews was that people do not know the answer, and some have got wrong ideas about how this works!
Ruben touched on chemistry, on biochemistry, and on physics in explaining what actually happens. He illustrated the principles with liquid nitrogen and a balloon, and also used a swimming pool noodle as used for swimming lane floats. He also spoke about the conservation of mass to illustrate why people have got some of their ideas wrong!
The TED talk can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE and watching it is 20 minuttes that is well-spent. It does leave some questions unanswered, but given the time constraint of a TED talk that is inevitable.
